TIME FOR GRATITUDE

This past spring, we celebrated God’s faithfulness in our office, too. After 20 years of great work at Life and Mission Ministry, our outstanding accountant and bookkeeper Alina Raszka entered retirement. We are so grateful to the Lord for her exemplary faithfulness and diligence. Devoted and loving, she has always been a woman of prayer. A close friend of Alina Wieja, she regularly prays for the staff, directors and supporters of Life and Mission Ministry. Her famous question, “Would God sign this?”, still rings in our ears when we review every document. And it reminds us of another saying of hers: “the real books of our Ministry are kept in Heaven.

We are grateful that Alina remains a close friend of ours and our ministry. It is our great hope that everything she has taught us will bear fruit in many years to come. At the beginning of 2020, Alina started training a new team member for our Ministry, Tomasz Cieslar, to take over her duties. He took over the position of Head Accountant in late spring. We are very grateful for Tomasz and his family, who are also members of our Fellowship.

TIME FOR QUALITY CONTENT

At the end of 2019, we released Henryk Wieja’s book, “One on one with God”. We get the impression that it was a prophetic response to what was to come in 2020. When the whole nation was forced to stay home already in March, many people gained more time to be – exactly – one on one with God. Over the course of the year, we focused our efforts on marketing and distribution of existing materials published through Koinonia. Many of our books have been a huge blessing to the people of Poland this year. We pray that our readers will find their hope in the Lord and trust His guidance.

At the end of 2020, we are preparing another book by Alina Wieja for print, called “A Gift for Every Day”. Alina worked on it in 2018 but did not get to finish it. We hope that we can complete the book and print it by spring of 2021. Alina’s daughter, Estera, will be the editor and together with Alina’s other spiritual daughters they will completethe missing elements of the book. In this way it will become a tangible image of passing on a beautiful legacy.

We are also working on developing a new online store for Koinonia Publishing. If Alina’s last book is something that moves your heart, we ask you to join us in prayer for everything to go smoothly. You can also support Koinonia financially. Contact us at k.palaYte@03%#tu@koinonia.org.pl.

TIME OF INSPIRATION

2020 has been groundbreaking for Nasze Inspiracje (Our Inspirations) magazine. The 100th issue of the magazine, which came out in December 2019, was the last one printed on paper. From January 2020 on, the magazine comes out online only. In the spring we unveiled a new website of Nasze Inspiracje, where we publish new articles right alongside archive articles from former print issues.

We are grateful for the writers who have been co-creating this magazine with us for years. Today,the online articles are available free of charge, which means that the authors are also cooperating with us voluntarily. Our great desire is to be able to once again pay our authors for their work. To that end, we are developing advertising on our website for additional income.

Every month, thousands of readers visit our website, looking for encouragement, inspiration and practical help. If you would like to support Nasze Inspiracje, please contact us at inspiracjeYte@03%#tu@misja.org.pl.

TIME FOR WOMEN

On March 7, 2020 in Wisla we held our annual national Women’s Conference – today we read this sentence almost with disbelief! At our usual gathering venue, Hotel Golebiewski, we welcomed over 800 women! It was one of the last days when it was still possible to gather in such a big number. We know God wanted this conference to happen! To this day we receive testimonies of what God has done in the life of women in our country and their families. In the following week gatherings in Poland were limited to 50 people.

Our speakers were Bozena Ciechanowska, Beata Marczak, Agata Strzyżewska, Małgorzata Rycharska. The event was coordinated by Dorota Sobieralska. The theme of the conference was: Our identity in Christ and potential given by God. It remains a very important and much needed topic in our culture. We thank God for His Spirit who was ministering to the women at the event. We were able to put it onthanks to the great help of Life and Mission Fellowship members, who volunteered to prepare the venue, gifts, led worship and more.

We are now well underway with preparations for the next women’s conference that will take place on March 6, 2021. At the moment we are not sure if we will be able to hold it at the venue or online. But regardless of what happens, we believe God will use this time to speak to women, heal what is broken, restore and give new life.

Also due to the pandemic, we had to cancel all other events, including “Mornings for Women” (we were hoping to begin in June and continue throughout the year). We are nevertheless convinced that the current restrictions are opening surprising new doors for us. We want to search them out and use them for God’s glory.

We are continuously blessed by the group of women who carry this ministry in prayer. Also, we are happy to report that a new site was launched for the women’s ministry (in Polish only). There, women can access teachings from previous years. With time, we hope to share more and more resources online, so that the Word of God is spread all across Poland without limits.

If the women’s ministry is something that touches your heart and you would like to support it directly, let us know: kobietyYte@03%#tu@misja.org.pl.

TIME OF FELLOWSHIP

The limitations brought about by this year have created new challenges for the community in building up and caring for the Church in times of isolation. It was also a demanding time for pastors Jacek and Dorota Sobieralski, who joined us a year and a half ago. But with the limitations that appeared, God showed new opportunities, for which we are deeply grateful.

Last January we had a chance to prepare once again our Christmas Musical for the city, that was performed by the members of our fellowship. Because of the tremendous interest, we had to schedule two performances in January, and they were a great success. That same month we also hosted Cieszka Żółtko with her monodrama, “Face to Face”.

Already in March, we were forced to move our services online. Poland introduced restrictions that forbade gatherings. In the following months, we held our Sunday services, communion meetings and small groups all through Zoom. We were greatly impressed with the motivation and dedication of our Fellowship members.

In April, not seeing any changes in the national regulations because of the pandemic, we started prerecording our services and making them public online. Their popularity has been increasing with every month. We are so grateful to the Lord for our youth and young adults who voluntarily took on the technical responsibilities of this endeavor!

Another breakthrough came in June, when we started livestreaming our Sunday services. Some of the restrictions were eased up a little and we were able to hold the services in our building with some people in attendance. It was streamed live for those who remained at home. Nevertheless, we struggled with the quality of transmission. Thanks to the generosity of our community, we purchased new equipment that greatly improved the audio and video of our services! Thank you to those who contributed – we are so grateful for your generosity!

October brought once again more restrictive rules for gatherings. Since then on Sundays, we meet in the building in a very small group and majority of our members join online. We are considering introducing two Sunday services, so we can accommodate more visitors while maintaining the safety regulations.

We are also grateful for new assistant leaders in our Fellowship (over 10 couples), who have it on their hearts to serve the Kingdom of God and invest in the growth of our community. They are invaluable and bring a great new quality to everything that happens at Life and Mission.

TIME OF SUPPORT

Life and Mission Ministry has served Poland for decades through the Christian Counseling Institute, training Christian counselors. We see a great need in our country for professional counselors who know how to apply the Word of God in helping others.

In the spring we were hoping to hold a conference for counselors, but the pandemic forced us to reschedule. In the end, we held the conference in October, mostly online. Our lecturers were Bożena Ciechanowska, Karolina Hołownia, Tomasz Lewandowski and Henryk Wieja. They taught a group of students how to deal with challenges in counseling, like psychosomatic disorders, depression and homosexuality.

The Basic Training in Christian Counseling, which usually starts with a week-long session in July, was postponed until next year. In the current state of the world, we are considering recording some of the main sessions from the Basic Training, to be able to encourage and train counselors at any time, anywhere. With a group of a strong team of professionals who already work in the field, we are working on developing teaching materials that will multiply these blessings nationwide.

If you would like to share with us ideas on how to improve and develop further the work of the Christian Counseling Institute, do not hesitate to contact us. You can also support our work with counselors in Poland. Write us: poradnictwoYte@03%#tu@misja.org.pl.

TIME OF ENCOURAGEMENT

In an average year, Henryk Wieja travels a lot, preaching, teaching, and meeting with other leaders. However, this year it comes as no surprise that almost all conferences and consultations were held just online. After a short period of reorganization, Henryk regularly attended various events online as a speaker or guest. One of the most impactful (widely watched) events was a panel discussion titled: “What is the Holy Spirit saying to the Church in Poland?” It was organized by Karol Sobczyk from Voice in the Desert, a congregation in Krakow. Henryk Wieja was one of the panel guests, along with Bishop Grzegorz Ryś (Catholic), Bishop JerzySamiec (Lutheran), dr.Andrzej Sionek and priestRadosław Rafał. In November, Henryk was invited to join a panel on GOD TV, sharing about the apostolic and prophetic ministry in the church.

Even with restrictions, Henryk was able to continue teaching and meeting with others, mostly online and sometimes in very small groups. He enjoys meeting with young leaders who share his passion for the Kingdom of God and are hungry for biblical teachings and spiritual mentorship. We get the impression that this year in particular has allowed us to invest in mentoring, as well as building relationships and cooperation between various churches and denominations.