As One Chapter Closes A New Chapter Begins

Allow me to preface by saying that this journey through Europe comes at a time of great celebration and humility. I graduated with majors in History and English Literature and minors in Music and Classics on May 25. My life at university as a student had come to an end. However, my experience with Bethel would not end until June 10th. As a member of the university choir, it is customary to tour every year. Most years tour consists of a more localized and national tours. My first tour with this group was to Arizona and California, which was followed by Chicago, Michigan, and Ohio, and last year Colorado and everywhere in-between. Every four years the choir travels abroad to Europe. Normally the tour brings the choir to Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. This year we partnered with a missions group headed up by Count Richard Von Promnitz. With his many connections in Poland, we altered the regular European tour so that the choir would spend most of its time in Poland. The end result was two days in Germany followed by a long stint in Poland, then a day or two in Prague before flying home.

Now just who is this Count Richard Von Promnitz. Feel free to google his name. I did when I first learned about him. Basically Count Richard Dietrich was a pastor in Arizona and he traveled to Poland to surprise his wife, Brenda Promnitz, by finding out more about her family lineage. He went into city hall in Zary and the people there were shocked to learn that Brenda is the last known direct decedent of the royal von Promnitz family. The family was thought to be extinguished. Basically, Richard and Brenda lived out a real life interpretation of the Princess Diaries. They were just regular people, then they become royalty. The count was invited to bring music to Poland as ancestors had done in the 1700's. According to the various google results, the Promnitz family has not claimed riches or anything like that, but has used their position to build relationships and share the love of Jesus through music. We  just happened to be one of the groups invited by Count Richard to bring our music to the people of Poland. So that is the bare bones story of how we ended up in Poland. Cool story huh?

Despite this trip being different than what my sister experienced 8 years ago, I was still excited for the experience. My excitement was greatly enhanced because I would be staying an additional two weeks in Europe. Instead of leaving on the 10th with my choir family, I would be staying in Germany with my family. For me this European adventure was not just a singular trip, but rather two distinctive trips. Each with a different family but covering very different things. I will get into the differences at the end of this blog after I have had time to reflect on the two experiences. All in all, I would be spending roughly one month in Europe. I cannot really complain about being able to stay in Europe after graduating. It is indeed a nice graduation gift and I am honored and blessed that I was able to share it with such amazing people.