Challenges and Opportunities in the New Year

A lot of things were happening in Wroclaw over the Christmas and New Year period. The YFC-organised New Year conference “The Beginning” saw 700 young people see the New Year in in worship and dedication to the Lord for the year ahead. Let’s pray for them all as they now face the daily challenges of life in the world.

The whole Christian community was shocked by the murder of a young family whom many had known closely and ministered with. This, and other more personal tragedies and concerns, have led to a huge need for counselling and help – pray particularly for Adam and Mira, for Marek and Ania, for Andrzej and others, as people seek their help and support.

Praise God for a very useful and timely visit to Central Asia by “B” in December, where many Christians are feeling confused by the proliferation of occult practices in the whole of society and there is a very apparent spiritual battle going on.

Janusz and Asia from Mission2East attended a New Year Missions conference in Germany where they shared a stand with Interserve and met Swiss, German, Dutch and Hungarian Interserve staff. Pray for this collaboration as it develops during the year ahead, that it may lead to Poles being called to the Mission Field.

 

European City of Culture

The city of Wroclaw in SW Poland is the base of several of our CEP Partner organisations, but outside of our circles is perhaps not such a well-known city to the general public of the UK. That could be about to change, as this beautiful place has been chosen as the new European City of Culture 2016. The opening ceremony and events take place this coming weekend, and it is exciting to report that there has been opportunity for much godly influence thanks to the high regard in which Slot Foundation is held, as Marzena (Programme Coordinatior of Slot Art Festival) explains :
“together with my friend Radek (who is Producer Director of Slot Art Festival) we were invited to coordinate the Opening Weekend of the European Capital of Culture 2016, which will take place 15-17 January 2016. There is a lot of work right now but it’s a great opportunity to meet many people, build relationships and have influence on them and this big event. We both feel that God put us into this position and we are in the right place doing His work.
Also a cooperation between European Capital of Culture and Slot Art Festival 2016 is planned and we are excited about that. So the National Conference for Cultural Animators will take place next to our festival and we expect minimum 500 people from the conference (cultural animators and activists, directors of cultural centers, workers of main Polish cultural institutions) to participate in Slot Art Festival 2016. It will be a great opportunity to show them that God is the source of all creativity and motivator to any artistic, cultural and social activity.”
Let’s pray for this weekend, and for the team as they continue the planning for this year’s Slot Art Festival in July.

 

European City of Culture

Creativity, Freedom, Meeting, Love, God.

These words sum up the essence of the Slot Arts Festival each year, and of all the events that go on through the year under the “Slot” umbrella. One such event is happening tomorrow in Krakow, when there will be lectures and workshops and people coming together to discover new things.
Next year 2016, Wroclaw has been chosen to be the European City of Culture. This will provide a great opportunity for Slot, who have been invited to take part in the opening event. About 500 people connected to this City of Culture will come to Slot next year, and most likely a lot more participants from abroad than usual, which is good news!

 

News from YFC Poland

YFC Poland – summer 2015

Lots has been happening with Youth for Christ in Poland recently, with much more coming up soon. Read about it in the above newsletter.

 

Pastors2Pastors blog

Wojtek is now posting his news updates on a blog – rather like this one of ours!
You can sign up to receive his news updates directly, or read his latest one here: https://pastors2pastorspoland.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/what-a-week/

Since he wrote that, we are happy to report that Agnieszka has safely had her surgery, and is recuperating in the loving care of her husband, and we wish her well for a speedy recovery.

 

600 Young People at New Year

The Beginning 2014/15

I waited for “the Beginning 14/15” conference with much bigger excitement and anticipation than last year. We, as the team of organizers, knew that it was likely to attract nearly 600 young people but I personally was also very much looking forward to seeing what God was to do in their lives at the conference. God had spoken a lot to us and given us promises about the Beginning. We expected it to be one of the most significant events we had ever attended. And we were not mistaken. What God did this time was over and above our expectations. He again surprised us with His timing and how He always did everything in His right time “on time.” We again could see lots of miracles happen and experience the truth that Love never fails!

We, as the Beginning team, realize that this new young generation is ever so hungry for true, deep relationship with Christ. We were so touched to see hundreds of young people worshipping God on the New Year’s Eve for hours. We still get many messages from the youth thanking us for creating such a great opportunity for them to enter a new year in such a way. We are truly encouraged to see young people experiencing the living God not only at such events but in every day of their lives now.

The Beginning 2014/15 gathered nearly 600 people. The overall cost of the event was £17,000. We managed to raise most of it (conference fees, the collection at the event, donations from various supporters, etc.) We are still short of nearly £2,850 – which is our prayer to God that He will help us pay the debt off soon.

We believe that the coming follow-up “Beginning” events will bring an even greater growth in not only number but impact on spiritual lives of many young people. We dream of seeing more and more young warriors who go out and serve those in need, pray for the sick, and share God’s love with the rejected. This year’s Beginning was incredible. Praise be to Jesus!

You can see photos from the Beginning on our fanpage on fb:

https://www.facebook.com/poczatek.org?fref=ts

Thank you for your prayers

Marcela Chyba- “the Beginning” Coordinator

 

“The Beginning”

Over 600 young people are gathered in Wroclaw over the New Year to worship God, to learn and be challenged by Reinhard Hirtler in the theme “The greatest of these is Love”.

 

Loving Relationships and Christmas Gingerbread

December 2013 News_YFC Poland
This newsletter from YFC Poland tells us about a conference in November on healthy relationships and marriage – and then about a happy Saturday for the mentors and children from the “1 to 1” programme.

 

Praised for holding to ideals.

The ARKA Educational Foundation was set up over 20 years ago now, and now comprises several strands eg Music School Language School, Camps…. At the core are the Primary and Secondary Schools, which have been getting better and better results and a better and better reputation over the years; they now sit high up in the national league tables. Recently, a major official inspection of the school took place, and the Inspectors praised the School for its honesty and transparency and for sticking to its ideals for 20 years.
There are still some challenges – there was a high turnover of staff in the last year; primary school numbers are down this year, although secondary numbers have increased. There have long been plans for a building extension, to be able to accommodate more students with better facilities, but there are drawbacks with that plan, and now thinking is turning towards the possibility of buying a new building instead. Please pray for wisdom in these decisions.
But amidst all the challenges are the joys of having opportunities within the school to share the gospel. Additionally, Arka is now in a position to be able to help their new partners in Ukraine as they set up their own Foundation there, and encouraging links are being established. So, there is much to rejoice over, and much to look forward to as they continue to trust in God for the future.

 

“English is Fun” and makes a great Show!

Hello,
here we are coming back with news!:)
Bellow you will find short testimony of Karolina, who runs classes called “English is fun” in our Community Centre in Wrocław. Worth reading!

Since September 2012, I’ve started to run classes called “English is fun” in “Świetlówka”. At first I had some concerns about whether I can handle it, and if I be able to interest children in my classes. On English we’ve played in different games, but also learned to sing songs by famous artists such as Shakira. I saw then, that the children find great joy in dance and movement. I decided to go in that direction and find songs, that teach simple English words and phrases with movement.
One day, Ewa Leszczyńska – coordinator of the Centre, participating in our classes and observing the involvement of children, came up with the idea to show the effects of this classes to the parents. That’s how was born the idea of the show, which I really liked 🙂 I’ve got heavily involved in preparations and spent every free moment on thinking on details of this show. There was little time to prepare, because classes were held only once a week, on Fridays. However, we wanted that our show was held before leaving of Hanna – volunteer from the USA, which participated in all classes “English is fun”. She was of great assistance to me, have great contact with the children, even though she didn’t know the Polish language 🙂
We begun to run out of space in the club itself, so we’ve moved out and organized our meetings on the playing field or outside of the club. To be ready for the show, we were also practising in the days, when there were no scheduled English classes. Dances were great joy to children, and during our rehearsals, there were many spectators.
We decided to held our show on the playing field, so everyone from neighborhood could see our performance.
On the day of the show, even before the 5.00 p.m., to our surprise, on the playing field gathered quite large audience. We were very happy that so many people will see the result of our work. Audience consisted mainly of parents and people living in the neighborhood, but the largest group were children. In the program there were many dances and songs, as well as competitions with prizes for the children from the audience. The audience was also involved, everyone danced and clapped, some kids came up to dance with us at the “scene”. However, we are worried about the weather, because the sky looked like it would pour down in a moment. We all prayed to ourselves, that this will not happened. The good weather lasted till the last song, and then a great rain fell 🙂 We all started to hide the equipment and chairs inside. In the club for children taking part in the show waited cake with surprise – chocolate stars for our stars.
I am glad that we have a good time preparing the show and that we have done something useful and have great fun at the same time.

Karolina Molendzka
Runs classes “English is fun” in Community Centre “Świetlówka”.

All the best form YFC Poland Team!