(Compiled from missionary letters)
Warsaw, October 8, 2018

Greetings, dear brothers and sisters! Another month of our life has gone by already – the life of our church in Warsaw. God continues to build up and bless His Church at this specific location.

Our comparatively young community is becoming more and more known here, and we have guests almost every Sunday. Some of those who attend our services for a while expressed their desire to join the Grace of God Warsaw Bible Church.

And to top it off, it’s a great joy for me to see as the Lord growing the team of mature brothers in our church. Our brother Arthur has successfully completed the School of Biblical Preaching, and now is well equipped and ready to serve with the gift that he received from God.

Thanks to his studies at the SBP, Arthur was able to make a significant step forward in his relationship with God, with his wife, with other church members, on top of that, his preaching and his ministry in the church has reached a higher level. As an alumnus of SBP, I want to express once again my sincere thanks to the Lord for this wonderful project, for all the teachers and students, for all those who are somehow involved in this very valuable ministry. Thank God for all of you, dear friends!

This year, here in Warsaw, the Lord gives us another unique tool for personal spiritual growth, as well as for more effective service in the church. I and five more brothers will study together for two years, if the Lord wills it, a fascinating course called “Timothy.” Unfortunately, I cannot get into much details about this course in this update, but I can only say (I believe!) that this program will help us to grow in God’s grace, build up relationships with each other, becoming true leaders in the church and in our families, and I hope that we’ll become more zealous and more equipped for preaching the gospel.

I’m quite impatient to clue you in on another happening in our church! By the grace of God, we managed to host our first youth meeting. Currently, there are 8 teenagers in our church between the ages of 12 and 15. We pray that the Lord will give us a clear vision of how to work with them, and we also pray for the ministers who will be able to dedicate themselves to do this.

Warsaw, November 5, 2018

… Our God is good and His mercy has been renewed for our church as well! He prolongs our days and provides us with everything we need! Therefore, realizing this fact, it has been a great pleasure for us to have one Sunday dedicated for a festive service, which we call Thanksgiving Day or the Day of Harvest. As it usually happens during the holidays, we had guests from other churches – we are always glad to see everyone in our midst. People with grateful hearts shared testimonies of God’s mercy. It was very touching to hear about His grace in different situations. Also, the Lord gave us an incredible joy on this day, so that our worship room was filled with a lot of Ukrainians and Polish, who, actually, got to be for the first time ever NOT at Catholic or Orthodox worship service. Later, we’ve heard many of them sharing their positive impressions of what they saw and heard at the Thanksgiving. Praise the Lord for all those who put a lot of efforts into making this a great time, as well as edifying for the whole community! Although in our setting, it was not that easy – our brothers and sisters had to do a lot of backbreaking work, staying late after their regular work.

…The new set of paintings is done and prepared for evangelism. All our paintings have already gone through the proving ground, and now we plan on putting them to use for the gospel preaching. We pray that the Lord will show us how and where to do the exhibition of these paintings, so that it would be more effective.

Dear friends, let me share with you another prayer need. Since we are a mission-minded church, some time ago, we began to pray that the Lord would give us the opportunity to start a ministry for Russian speaking people outside the Warsaw. And now, I think our prayers were answered – there is a Polish church in the city of Siedlce, which is willing to share their premises with us for doing services. It’s good to mention at this point that there are many Ukrainians living in this city. We have a vision how we will organize the regular services there. But, we’re going to need some small mission teams to come from Ukraine and help us, so we are talking about five people from different churches who could come to Poland for three days in order to do the outreach with us on Saturday, as well as to hold a service on Sunday. Certainly, we will need to have a good sermon and musical arrangement. At the last pastoral conference, we managed to share this idea with some brothers and we got a positive feedback. Please pray for the Lord will show us the way in dealing with this matter…

Warsaw, December 5, 2018

Along with the other six Russian-speaking churches, our community participated in the joint celebration of Thanksgiving. There were over 400 people, including non-believers. We thank God for everything we got in Jesus Christ! Afterwards, there was a collective fellowship. Once a month, we, pastors of these communities, are coming together to pray for Poland, Warsaw, for our churches, and for each other. Well, the most important thing is that we all believe that one day God will make the awakening among the Polish people!

The Lord has arranged everything and blessed us abundantly – my family moved to a new house and now we have a wonderful place for all kinds of church activities. There is a large living room, which can accommodate around 30 or even more people. There is a piece of land right beside the house and a large garage. All this, I hope, will serve for the upbuilding of our congregation.

On December 22, we plan to have the Christmas Eve for children. I managed to get 60 wonderful Christmas gifts. Now we are in the middle of intense preparation, and we hope that at least part of the invited children will get to visit our Good News Club. At this holiday, there will be children’s parents, with whom we hope to make friends. Please pray that everything will work out, and the Name of the Lord would be glorified at this special event.

Thank you so much for your prayers and for support of our ministry! May the Lord reward you a hundred-fold!

Lovingly,
Your brother, 
Alexander Illyn.