Kocham Cie Means I Love You
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with my friend Shauna, practicing Polish. Okay, I do know do widzenia, or something like that. And Shauna, you went to Poland on one of our Wheels for the World trips. What did you learn?
SHAUNA: Well, dzien dobry, Joni! Good morning! Good day! I learned a few phrases; it was so much fun. One of the phrases, my favorite of course, is kocham cie.
JONI: What’s that mean?
SHAUNA: It means, “I love you.” So, I’m just going to apologize to all of our Polish-speaking friends, because I’m sure I’m butchering my accent.
JONI: But we kocham cie them, don’t we? We just kocham cie them.
SHAUNA: Oh, and I’m so glad you mentioned this, Joni, because I would love to tell a little story –
JONI: I wish you would. Because you know what? This is Spina Bifida Month.
SHAUNA: Well, we had two hundred wheelchairs that we distributed in three different towns in Poland. And before any of the wheelchairs were distributed, before any of the families with disabilities came, we unpacked them and had them all set out, and I prayed over each one; I touched all 200 chairs individually – (JONI: Good for you.) – and prayed for each one. And when I got to this one chair – I don’t know it was something like chair 176 or something like that – I kid you not, Joni, it stopped me in my tracks. And I just felt the Spirit leading me to pray for a longer time over this chair. And really, I had no inclination as to why that would be, but I obeyed that nudge. And I would say, thirty minutes later, I see dad carrying Lauda, an eight-year-old girl with, you guessed it, spina bifida.
And the mechanic and the physical therapist, they were trying Lauda in different chairs. They wanted to get the perfect fit, of course. What a beautiful smile she had. And she was so excited to be getting all the attention, and knew she was going to have a wheelchair soon. And can you guess which chair was the right chair?
JONI: Come on, the one you prayed for.
SHAUNA: They tried her in three different chairs. It was kind of like Goldilocks, right? One was too small; one was too big. And then finally they brought down the chair that was just right, and it was that one that the Spirit told me to pray over.
JONI: Oh, God bless you for listening to the prompting of the Spirit to pray for that child. God obviously used that prayer to give her that smile.
SHAUNA: After she got that chair, and I, through the interpreter, was able to say, “Lauda, do you know who is giving you this chair? It’s not me; it’s not this team; it’s Jesus.” And I was able to share the Gospel, give her and her parents a Bible, written in Polish. Give them your story, Joni, also translated into Polish.
JONI: And I’m thinking that, no longer does her mom and dad need to carry their little eight-year-old around anymore. They’ll have that wheelchair to push her around in. She’ll get out into the community, probably go to school, go down to the market. All kinds of things.
SHAUNA: That’s right. And you know, that’s when I got to practice my Polish for the first time, on a real, live person. And I was able to say, “kocham cie” to Lauda.
JONI: Wow, I love you.
SHAUNA: Oh, yes, and she just heard that we love her, that Jesus loves her. And I remember one interpreter actually saying, after I said this to a forty-eight-year old mom – that interpreter said, that was the first time in that woman’s life anyone has ever said kocham cie.
JONI: Wow.
SHAUNA: We got to bring that to Poland, Joni. We got to bring the love of Jesus. And all these wheelchairs and the Gospel.
JONI: Well, I hear tell that some of those special needs mothers even caressed the Bibles they were given, the Joni book they were given in Polish. And, oh, friend, these are the miracles that are happening right now on our Wheels for the World trips, not just in Poland, but around the world. Like right now in Ghana and in China and El Salvador. Oh, Shauna, I just want all our listeners to see the beautiful little face of Lauda. Please go to joniradio.org and look at this photo we posted today. Tell somebody – now how do you say it again?
SHAUNA: Kocham cie.
JONI: Kocham cie today to all our Polish friends listening.
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