Is anything good coming out of the war in Ukraine and the difficult economic situation in Poland?
ITMI's Leszek Wakula is the pastor of the 4th largest Baptist church in Poland.
He and his wife, Anna, serve in Lodz, Poland.
Leszek's church has continued to send bi-weekly transports with goods and basic needs to several Ukrainian churches who they are partnering with.
To help you understand what this means, here's some context about the resources available to Evangelical believers in Poland.
Just 0.01% of Poland's population of 8 million are Evangelical Christians. That's barely even a line on a pie graph. That translates to about 40-60K Evangelical Christians.
Seven thousand households are Baptist, and they are in about 110 churches nationwide. The average church size is 25-50 members. Some of these are led by pastors, others aren't.
There are 4-5 Baptist churches that are considered "large" because they are bigger than the average church. ITMI partners shepherd two of those large churches.
Leszek's church is the 4th largest Baptist church in the country.
(ITMI partner, Piotr Zaremba's K5N church was also one of these 4-5 "large" churches before it multiplied into several church plants.)
Leszek's church began offering live, simultaneous translation during its Sunday services for Ukrainian refugees. They were intentional about helping the Ukrainians that came to them, truly inviting them into the life of their community.
Leszek's church has been intentional about inviting Ukrainian refugees into the life of their community.
Leszek's Answer
"Yes…there are reasons to praise God and keep believing… You can see for yourself some of the evidence of His goodness.”
Ukrainians are joining churches, getting baptized, and growing in Christ.
For the eight that were baptized by Leszek recently, some had accepted Christ before the war, some during, and some received Christ through the ministry of Leszek's church after arriving in Poland.
Leszek baptized 8 Ukrainian young people in his church.
ITMI supporters have played an important role in these reasons to praise Him - both by standing with our Eastern European partners in prayer and sending financial support that has allowed them to implement changes like live translation during services and meeting basic needs for refugees who had left everything behind.
