Greetings, dear brothers and sisters!
Thanks to God’s mercy, we have not disappeared!!!
So, thanks to God, the Church of Christ in Poland continues to be active in bringing the light of the Gospel to the Polish people and those who come here from other countries. We, the Warsaw Baptist Church, are really eager to fulfill our mission being the part of the Body of Christ. To do this, we try to use every opportunity to get together and worship our Almighty God. Although, up until this moment, we did not have a permanent place for such gatherings, we do not lose heart but take every opportunity to look for it.
Our hope is that soon God will provide us with a suitable facility. We constantly pray for this need and try to take certain steps toward that goal. So far, I met with a representative of the City Council, who assured me that our application for renting the building would be considered at one of the meetings. For us, the decisive factor will be the price. Therefore, we pray that the Lord will stir the hearts of those who will make this important decision for us. Please join us in prayer for this need, too!
In the meantime, we are gathering in the church building of one of the Polish churches. They were willing to provide us a sanctuary for a while until we have something of our own. These are hospitable and courageous brothers who, at this difficult time for everybody, were gathering together themselves and allowed us to gather in their church building. Actually, God blessed them in an amazing way – while many other churches were having a visible decrease of church attendance, their church is having a significant increase. Praise the Lord Jesus Christ!
It is especially nice to see the close-knit youth – both Ukrainian and Polish. By the way, our youth will lead the worship service again this Sunday. This is the second time they’re doing everything from the beginning to the end by themselves – preaching, presentation and explanation of our statement of faith, selection of the songs and their performance… that is to say they’re totally able to lead the whole service on their own. Now, it would be great to learn how to work together as they are teaming up with Polish youth. After all, our major goal is to plant new churches in Poland. So, who knows, maybe, we will be able to start a new church at this specific time and place?! But actually, if God allows it to happen this time, we would want it to be a Polish church through and through!!!
Speaking of our congregation, we try to do our best to maintain a living fellowship, and for this reason we often organize mutual trips and retreats to spend time together outdoors in the beautiful surrounding of the nature. Recently, we got together for such a trip to celebrate Easter and once again experienced bonding relationships among our church family. It is a great opportunity to go offline sometimes and worship together in-person while taking a fresh look at this miracle of God – His Church.
Also, we continue coming together for our small groups of Bible study. At the same time, we have our regular meetings for brothers and sisters. Another ministry that excites us in a great way is the youth ministry where God keep bringing new people. Praise be to God for everything!!!
Also, I can’t wait to share with you one more exciting news. At one of our retreats, two more people, Igor and Volodya, repented. Two adult men (they are both around 40) prayed a prayer of repentance, asking God to change their lives. So now, we have three more souls who are willing to enter into a covenant with the Lord. Please remember Vitalik, Angela, and Ruslana, in your prayers that they would be strengthened by grace. And maybe, very soon, they will be able to openly testify to everyone about their faith in Christ as their Savior through the water baptism.
Currently, we are preparing for one of the main events of this year – children’s outreach camp, which is scheduled for July. We’ll try to gather over 100 children and adolescents between the ages of 7 and 15. As far as I know, at least half of them are not-from-church children. Registration is already open and people have started enrolling their children. A team of young volunteers from the USA will come to Poland to serve the children in our camp and our youth will be assisting them. But basically, the whole our church is involved in this big project. After the camp, we are planning on doing regular follow-up meetings with these children. For this, we already have a good place – a youth club, as well as several trained Sunday school teachers.
We are grateful to all of you for your participation in building our local community!
May the Lord bless you abundantly for your diligence!!!
Yours in Christ,
Alexander Ilyin
