Looking back at the events of the last year, I see the Lord’s amazing work in Poland, in Warsaw, and in the Church of God’s Grace. He made us a special gift that we have been praying for, for a long time.
In the summer, we had an opportunity to hold a camp with the American team. The participants of the camp, 80 children, were from Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Chechnya. The special joy was to see as the children from Muslim families were gradually becoming more open. At the beginning of the camp, they were engaged in drawing all the images of the cross in their notebooks, and at the end of the camp they prayed the prayer of repentance and joyfully sang that they would be with Jesus forever! We plan to continue working with them, inviting them to our meetings, and we hope that the seeds that were sown during the camp will bear fruit in the future. This summer we want to try to hold a day summer camp in our area. We hope that by doing that we will be able to get to know more children and teenagers who live around us and will try to get them involved in regular meetings at our Good News Club. Please take a minute to view this video.
Our church is slowly growing – and this is the work and merit of our Lord! Recently, Vitalik and Angela’s family was baptized. Their journey to the Lord turned out to be very long, but now they have testified that they are children of God. It was a very joyful event for us! I rejoice that our church is growing as new opportunities for various ministries open up.
You know that we are currently renting a facility in a Polish church and it actually opens up a lot of opportunities for our cooperation. But we constantly prayed and looked for something of our own so we could have more freedom. And the Lord made us a gift – we ended up finding a spacious two-story building almost in the heart of the city, near the subway station. The rent price is considerably low, but the building needs to be repaired. I believe that the Lord who gave us this opportunity will help us to make a good go of it. We plan to hold two Sunday services in this building, as well as youth, Sunday school, women and men’s meetings. In the basement, there is a place for sports and gymnastic activities for children. Here we can conduct intensive study of Polish and English classes and much more. We have already worked out a plan of repair works, agreed on the purchase of materials and found workers who can do the job. We want to finish the job as soon as possible and hold the first day camp, using this church building during the summer holidays.
On Christmas holidays, we gathered about 50 children and held a holiday program for them. The Lord allowed us to visit the orphanage where the children, who were in our summer camp, stay. We were very happy to serve the children, who live in a well-appointed facility, but still experience a lack of parental love and care. We hope that the gospel had sunk in their minds and hearts. And yet, we have plans to serve children who are either completely blind or visually impaired. We’d love to give them Christmas presents – we plan to buy mp3 players with an audio Bible with a quality recording which was recorded by famous Polish actors. I believe that the Word of God and our care for them will open their hearts to Christ. Please take a moment to watch the video.
Looking back, I never cease to be amazed at how the Lord has blessed us and given us the strength and wisdom to serve Him. He gave us new acquaintances and brought new people to church. Now He has taken care of the building that we want to restore and use for His glory!
Alexander Ilyin
