DAY 1: TRAINS AND PLANES

I said goodbye to Jordan, and the next thing I knew, I was on a Europe-bound plane. Yes, it felt incredibly strange to be going alone. No, I didn't know a single person on my team before I left. Yes, I was just a tad freaked out, but mostly excited. And I felt so encouraged by the number of people supporting, praying, and rooting for me at home.

An interesting new piece of information gave me an extra push out the door. I spoke with my grandmother the night before I left, and she told me that her second husband, my step-grandfather Albert, was the grandson of a national hero in Poland: Wojciech Korfanty, a freedom fighter for Silesia who fought for independence and served as deputy prime minister in the early 1900s. He was exiled and then arrested by Nazis, and he died shortly after his release, two weeks before the start of World War II. I thought I had no real connection to Poland before that phone call. And then I realized that God really was making a clear way for me to connect with people in Poland. More on that later.

DAY 2: BERLIN / ŻARY

Arrived in Berlin. Met the team at the airport and hopped on a huge blue tour bus with 50 people and an incredible amount of instruments and sound gear. Headed straight to the Brandenburg Gate to look around. Drove the three hours to Żary, Poland, ate some pizza, and fell fast asleep (first time to hit the pillow since the beginning of Day 1).

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

DAY 3: ŻARY SQUARE

Reader, meet Żary. 

Żary is a town of about 40,000 in southwest Poland, and it was one of the primary places the von Promnitz family lived in the 1700s--and thus the home base for our tour.

Our team consisted of 9 bands/acts, with 20+ concerts in 2.5 weeks in six cities.  

Below: the von Promnitz family palace (one of 37 estates), which was occupied by the Germans, bombed by the Americans, and bought by investors just weeks before Count Richard discovered his heritage.

Town square in Żary, all decked out for the festivities.

                                        

One of our tour posters around town. The local governments sponsored and promoted our festivals.

I played along with most of the bands on the tour, but my primary "home base" was with a country/gospel/blues group that was organized especially for this trip. (We never did get a chance to rehearse...ever. There just wasn't time! So we played shows and got used to playing together more every day :)) This guy above, Jess French, was our front man. He and his wife, in their 70's, took their first trip out of the country to come along to Poland. He's the real deal when it comes to old-time country gospel, and a Cherokee Indian to boot. (He sang a few verses of Amazing Grace in the Cherokee language during most of our sets. Talk about a cross-cultural experience...)

A little taste of the vibe in the square, featuring our sweet jazz band:

DAY 4: BAD MUSKAU, GERMANY

Saturday, May 26: loaded up our bus, and headed to the German border:

We were asked to participate in a festival in a huge park with a fascinating heritage that spans the border of Poland and Germany. The celebration was to commemorate the recent unification and restoration of the park  after decades of being divided by the border. 

The festival concluded with a performance by a local philharmonic--this is not us performing, but it's a little taste of what the atmosphere was like. 

DAY 5: WROCLAW

Looks like "row claw;" sounds like "vrot suave." 

We played for an all-day festival organized by a group of Polish evangelical churches to give their congregations a chance to gather for fellowship and encouragement. (The way most of the festivals or concerts on the tour worked was that each band/act would take turns playing a set, so--depending on how long the sets were and which bands were most appropriate--we could play anywhere from one hour to all day long, which allowed us to adapt depending on the venue and atmosphere.)

I ended up in a two-hour conversation about Jesus with a guy around my age, named Peter (I've changed his name for this blog). It started when I asked him if he could explain to me what the festival was all about, and he answered, "Don't ask me; I don't even believe in God! I'm just here with my family." So I asked him what he did believe, and the conversation went from there, and after a while he said, "Can we sit down? I want to keep talking about this," and he grabbed chairs for us. We talked pretty comfortably and openly about the gospel of the kingdom, who Jesus is, Polish culture, Peter's atheism and views on how science and God cannot mix, and much more. Peter talked about how many Polish young people are angry and confused because of hypocrisies they see in the church, and how religion (especially a national one) seems empty and pointless.

He said he's spent his whole life being railed on by priests and friends. He said this was the first two-sided conversation he's ever had about faith. But he also said, "I don't need God. Maybe if something really bad happened in my life, I would realize I did."

A while later, while we were still talking, there was a commotion, and we heard an ambulance pull up, and Peter's little sister ran over in tears. His mom, who had gotten quite drunk earlier, had managed to get badly injured. Peter left abruptly, of course, to be with his family. When the ambulance pulled away, Peter ran back to tell me that he was grateful that we had been able to talk, and then he he left to follow the ambulance. What a crazy thing.

DAY 6: AUSCHWITZ

It was as moving to visit Auschwitz as you might imagine. It was a rainy day, and we spend hours walking through the camp in the drizzle. It was Memorial Day. 

I am grateful for an opportunity to have seen, in person, what most Americans only read about. It is real; it did happen; thousands died daily in this place. 

It also helped to understand the bitterness that many Polish people harbor. 

DAY 7: PSZCZYNA (TELEMANN + KORFANTY)

Looks like a jumble of consonants. Sounds like "psh jin ah." Go figure.

We toured an enormous palace that housed the von Promnitz family during their stay in Pszczyna in 1705. The palace also served as the imperial and staff headquarters for the German army during WWI. Most importantly to us, though, was that the palace was one of Telemann's main venues for performing his new compositions while employed by Count Erdmann II of Promnitz from 1704-1706. 

And of course we weren't content to just enjoy looking at Telemann's Music Hall. We wanted to perform in it. <<David had brought Telemann's canonic duos for us to practice and play while we were in Poland, and luckily we had gotten to read through a few of them earlier that day--we had no idea we were going to perform in the hall; in fact, we didn't even know about the hall!>> The poor, obliging museum workers made numerous phone calls, talked in hushed tones for a while, and finally moved the ropes and barriers so that we could stand at the front to play and our group could actually sit in the seats. I sprinted back to the bus to grab my instrument, came back sweaty and breathless, just in time. And then we tuned:

and then we played:

Later that evening, we put on a concert in a cathedral in the Pszczyna square, just down the street from the palace. Before the show started, I did a bit of busking outside with Beau and Regan, while our crew shot this video:

During the concert, each band played a short set, and in between each set, David and I played a movement of Telemann. Good thing we had a few run-throughs earlier! Ha!

Over the last few days, Count Richard had mentioned to a several people in passing that I was related to Korfanty. Neither of us really thought it was such a big deal, but Richard was getting surprised, enthusiastic reactions to everyone he told, so at this show he said, "Why don't you stand up and say a few words about Korfanty?" So, halfway through the concert, I gave a little spiel about how I had discovered the night before I left for Poland that Wojciech Korfanty was my step-great-great-grandfather. And there was a huge ovation! After the concert, a man came up to me and asked to take a photo with me. He held my hand and said, "I want you to know how much Korfanty means to us. He inspired our people and fought for freedom. My grandmother served in Korfanty's house, and growing up she always talked to me about what a great man he was. Thank you for coming here in his legacy."

The gospel was presented clearly through the music and words at every concert, but especially at this one. Joy and love was evident in all the sets, and conversations about faith just spun off and carried on between our team and various concert-goers for about an hour and a half afterward.

>>> More videos from Telemann's hall can be found here.

Soundscapes from the concert (courtesy of Curt Olsen from Minnesota Soundscapes):

Jason Harms Quintet (setup/warmup) :: Jason Harms Quintet :: D&E (David & Elise) :: Jess French and the Crossworks Country Band :: Beau and Regan :: Grayshot :: Elizabeth Hunnicutt (plus closing comments) >>>

DAY 8: BRODY

Brody is a tiny little town nestled in the Polish countryside. Our main goal in Brody was to put on an outdoor festival in front of the ruins of another one of the palaces where the Promnitz family resided. The two buildings flanking the palace ruins were restored, one of them into a hotel (where we stayed--lovely!), and one into an elegant concert hall. Each band played a set outdoors, and then the day concluded with a formal evening concert featuring Telemann violin duos and our jazz quintet. The mayor of Brody attended, and he expressed great gratitude to us for visiting their town; they rarely have visitors from so far away.

Finally, a lovely video that Elizabeth shot behind the ruins: 

>>> Above: Andrew (7) and I teamed up to distribute free music download cards (a music sampler with songs from each band on the tour) and John Piper tracts to everyone attending the festival. And then we bought gigantic cotton candy cones.

DAYS 9-11: PUBS, CLUBS, and...HIGHSCHOOLS

We headed back to Żary for a few days, where we visited high schools in the daytime and each group took turns playing sets in the main local venues: Pub Max, Club Havana, and Cegla Brickhouse. Many students and others came to the venues after being invited at school earlier in the day, and then they returned each night to hang out and talk with us. Overall, they were pretty surprised that a) Americans were visiting their little town, and b) that we were interested in them. They said that they've occasionally had American artists come into town for concerts, but they never stick around to talk or show interest. After 3 days of good times and hanging out, one kid who had become friends with Zae, our hip-hop artist, asked him, "So, why do you want to spend time hanging out with us?" Zae said, "Because of Jesus! He loves you, and so I want you to know him" (or something to that effect).

The younger generation in Poland is so willing to talk about faith. It's as if they've just been waiting for someone with genuine faith to come along and talk about what it means. Since nearly everyone is Poland is Catholic, religion and discussion about God is a normal part of life. But the students seem to be aware that something is missing. Several times, when talking about how our faith in Jesus was what brought us to Poland--because that's what our music is about, and we wanted to share both with them--we heard the response, "Faith can really affect my daily life??" 

On Friday, the mayor of Zary invited us to City Hall, where he first met Richard, to take photos with us and present us each with gifts. And then he carted us off to his stables--among the largest private stables in Poland--to try our hands at riding his many beautiful horses. (Inexperienced though we were.)

Here's a little video clip from one of our highschool visits: you'll hear a student band playing music in the bleachers while we mingled and/or played pickup sports in the gym.

DAY 12: CATHEDRALS

Still in Żary. Our group split up to participate in Mass at several cathedrals in town. At the morning Masses we attended, David and I played Telemann, and Marianne (pictured below) sang several classics from the vocal repertoire. Lovely. (But cold. The temperature dropped that morning, and it was about 40 degrees where we were sitting up on the altar of the all-stone Gothic structure. Brrrr.)

That evening, we played a concert at another cathedral, Holy Mary Church. Per our usual, each band played one or two songs, including our hip-hop/DJ combo. I don’t think any of us ever expected to hear hip-hop (albeit theologically-based) performed in an ancient stone cathedral, but somehow it actually worked in the midst of the diversity of music we were presenting: classical, jazz, gospel, blues, folk, various kinds of rock n’ roll…

A high school student named Ana (I changed her name for this blog, since it's public) came up and introduced herself to a few of the musicians after the concert—she had come to Mass with her parents and then stayed for the concert. She had ambitions of becoming a translator. The musicians introduced her to Richard, who said, “Well, ask your parents if you can pack your bags and come along with us for a few days!” They agreed…so, along she came! Over the next several days, Ana became a part of our team, and she also started to have some open, genuine conversations with a few of our team members on faith, particularly Beau and Regan (the folk/indie brother-sister duo who adopted me as their violinist for the trip). She was not a believer. --More on Ana later.

After dinner, three of us girls from the team accepted an invitation for tea at a local teacher’s home. We had met her on Day 9 at the first high school, in her English class, and we got to know her a bit over the three subsequent nights as she followed us to the local venues. Izabel brought us to her cute flat and served us a full dinner, dessert, wine, and tea, and then her friend Barbara (a teacher at the same school) invited us up to her flat, just upstairs from Izabel’s, for another glass of wine. It was just what one would hope for when visiting a new country—-a peek into a real-life Sunday night with friends in their flats, with easy, open conversation. 

DAY 13: POZNAN/WAGROVIEC

This was a much-needed day off for most of us (the jazz combo drove back into Poznan to play at a jazz club late that night). We traveled several hours to Wagroviec (again: pronounced “von grovietz,” go figure) via Poznan, where we popped into the Poznan square in time to see the daily noon event where two little mechanical goats emerge from the bell tower and butt heads twelve times, and all the little children in the crown ooh and ahh each time they collide. Quite exciting. Below is a little mini-tour of the beautiful square:

We eventually arrived in a lovely hotel on a lake, with little flower-boxed balconies overlooking the water, a café downstairs, and a very low-priced spa. It was wonderful to kick back, indulge in a tiny bit of pampering, and spend a few relaxed hours just talking with some of the younger ladies on the team. Such good rest and fellowship!

 

 

 

DAY 14: GNEIZNO

An all-day festival in the Gneizno square, not too far from Wagroviec, in the cold and the rain (Who knew that in Poland the weather fluctuates between 80 and sunny and 40 and drizzly?). The city had a gigantic stage prepared for us, complete with big-time lights and, of course, smoke machines. Every stage we played on, no matter how small, was equipped with a smoke machine, and the Polish A/V guys would choose particularly climactic musical moments to activate them—-which we found hilarious. At Pub Max, there was even a little button that happened to be hanging down from the lights just above me, that I could push whenever I felt the urge.

Anyway, due to the weather, we ended up playing--on that enormous stage--for about seven people. And we spent most of the day huddled in a tiny café in the square, trying to keep warm and dry, whenever we weren’t on stage. It wasn’t our most “productive” day, but the Lord had us there for a reason!

A tiny clip of church bells in Gneizno--everywhere you go in Poland, you hear this sound:

DAY 15: WAGROVIEC

We kicked off the morning with a team activity: Turntables 101. Half of our hip hop act, Josh (a.k.a. DJ Essence), gave us all a crash course on how to work the turntables. Even Jess was brave and had a go at it (again: can you say "colliding cultures"?).

The team was an incredible source of encouragement and learning. We were all immersed in each other's music for 17 days, learning from each other, fleshing out ideas about music, worship, improvisation, evangelism, practicing. I spent a good deal of time picking brains about jazz; Jesse gave me a bass lesson and showed me how to assemble and disassemble his travel upright; I have a much improved understanding of the roots of hip-hop and what it's all about--just to name a few examples. 17 days was too short to fit in all the conversations that we wanted to!

Later, a few of the groups set up in the Wagroviec town square and played a few sets for passers-by throughout the day. It was another kind of icky day, so we didn’t have huge crowds…but it was good to be out and about, anyway.

A drunk man came up on “stage” with his harmonica and tried to share Amanda’s mic during our country/blues set, and the bouncers—I mean, minglers—on our team gently pulled him aside, got him a coffee, and told him about Jesus. (I don't think he makes a cameo appearance in the video below, but here we are playing Amazing Grace, Jess French-style.)

DAY 16: GNEIZNO / ROYAL BALL

This was the last day of the trip for me, since I had to leave a day early to make it home in time for a family trip. We played our last formal concert in a 1000 year old cathedral near the Gneizno square, just following an evening Mass. It was a blessing to see the trip culminate in this concert: to see the collaboration between the different groups, to participate in such a diverse offering of musical styles, to share my story one last time and connect with Polish friends. 

>>> Photos from the concert can be found here on the city of Gneizno's website, along with a video of the concert.

Then, we headed to the Promnitz Ball, held by city officials from across Poland, to honor Richard and Brenda and our team and to celebrate the heritage of music and faith that they are re-awakening in Poland. There was an amazing spread of food, dancing, and live entertainment, including fire-jugglers, that was brought in to dazzle us. The host, Mr. Pietrak (who owns the hotels we stayed in in Wagroviec and Gneizno, and who threw the party for us at one of his mansions) gave a toast to Richard and said, “The distance you have traveled from America is nothing compared to the distance you have traveled to our hearts. You have become our ambassador of music and culture to Poland.” 

(I can't resist; here's a snippet of the fire-jugglers performing)

 

DAY 17: HOME ...and BEYOND

I headed to the airport with two other team members while the rest of the team traveled back to Żary for one last festival. I was super bummed to miss this one, since it was back in the Zary square (our old familiar stomping grounds, where Polish friends that we had made earlier in the trip came back for more music and conversation with the team) to celebrate the kick-off game of the EuroCup. I heard that it was a huge party, and a great time of connecting with old and new Polish friends.

Then, 24 hours of traveling, and I was home in Atlanta, reunited with Jordan, and frantically re-packing like a zombie for the next adventures, which commenced just 8 hours after I arrived at my house. What a fun and absurd life!

Remember Ana? She continued those conversations with Beau and Regan, and decided to trust in Jesus just about a week after we returned home. She had really wrestled with the decision, and when she finally came to a decision, she said to Beau that faith in Jesus was "beautiful and surprising!"

Count Richard is coming to Atlanta in late August, and we are going to work on recruiting for the next two tours. Once he realized how much my connection to Korfanty resonated with many Polish people, he said, “Well, you HAVE to come back now.” So, Jordan and I (and some other friends) are praying about what God would have us do next summer. We would love to head to Poland again…together, this time. We’ll see!

Thank you for sending me on this crazy, wonderful, fruitful adventure. It was a step of faith that God blessed immensely. I was acutely aware during the whole trip that it was not me, myself, traveling eastern Europe on my own, on a mission of my own, but a team effort of many to send, pray, and encourage--hopefully for the benefit of many and for the Kingdom. Thank you.