2 more months!

And so there are two more months left till we launch the church. Time is flying and we are getting ready! We are now working on everything that we need to prepare for the big start. Well, we did start already - we have our meetings each week. However May 10th is coming and that is the day we will start our Sunday meetings in a venue. Right now we meet on Sundays as a group to have a meal together and spend some time worshiping and talking. Our week is getting a bit full, but there are many things that need to be done. Next week we are going to have our first coffee night. We will invite our friends and meet somewhere in cafe in the city center. We want to do it every other week and hope to meet many new people through those nights.

Venue

Today we have signed documents for renting the venue for our services. We are excited to have a great place in the city center starting in May. God is amazing and we are constantly being surprised by His goodness and favour. It is wonderful to serve such powerful and loving God. And it is a huge privilege! Come on Kraków! We can't wait to see what God is going to do in our city.

Kraków

So here we are.... finally we are in Kraków! We are glad to be back and are trying to rest after the long trip. We had amazing time visiting friends and churches however we are looking forward to all the work that is ahead of us.

Last few days we spent in Gdańsk. Zibi was one of the speakers on the winter youth event there. It was a great conference and young people loved it.

Right now we are working on the preparations for our conference RADYKALNI and getting ready for the church launch in May. Each week we are meeting as a team to pray and talk about Kraków City Church and all the plans and dreams. In a couple of weeks we are starting meetings in coffee shops. They will take place every two weeks and we are inviting our friends and people we meet here for those meetings. 

Canada

We are now in snowy Canada. This Sunday we visited a church in Welland that has been supporting us for quite a while now. Zibi preached there and we were able to see the congregation and spend some time with them. It was really nice. We are very blessed to be a part of God's Family. And this Family is big and wonderful!

Venue

We are so excited to have a great venue for our conference RADYKALNI. God is amazing! We got a place in the center of Kraków for a great price. This year's conference will be a blast! 

RADYKALNI

RADYKALNI is our annual conference for young Christians. This year for the first time it will be in Kraków. The dates for this year are: April 30th - May 3rd. It is a great challenge but even greater opportunity. Kraków City Church will be the main organizer of the conference. We are excited about what God is going to do among us and in our beautiful city. Pray with us for all the preparations and for the conference. We believe that young generation is the answer for the needs of our nation and the world. We want to inspire and equip them with the power of God to do great exploits for His Kingdom! Join us and have your part in this wonderful enterprise.

Visiting Friends

We just spent a weekend with our great friends Pastors Sam and Patricia Pawlak in San Bernardino, California. It was wonderful - sunshine, blue sky and really warm days :) We had amazing time with  our friends and were able to relax and enjoy the sunny weather. On Sunday we visited San Bernardino Community Church where Sam introduced us and gave opportunity to share our dream and vision for Kraków City Church. We were hugely blessed. The church thinks of adopting us as missionaries! We are so thankful for all God has given us. He is so good and keeps surprising us. It is great to see how God is answering our prayers. We pray for support for us as a family and for the needs of Kraków City Church. We still need to raise money for that, but it is wonderful that God knows it and shows it through His amazing people. Who knows how He is going to surprise us this week?

Prayer partners

We are now in Placerville, California. We are staying with our great friends Paul and Andrea and their girls. It is good to be here and get some rest after busy year and right before launching the church. 

Last Friday we had the privilege to share about our plans and dreams for Kraków City Church at the meeting of a home group at Paul and Andrea's. It was a very nice and encouraging meeting. We prayed together and God spoke to us through these wonderful people. We are very grateful to Paul and Andrea and their group who decided to 'adopt' us and our church plant and became our partners in prayer for KCC, our team and family. It is amazing how God is connecting people all around the world to pray and believe for our great nation and the work He is doing here. 

First meeting

This week Kraków City Church had the first meeting! The team met at home to pray and talk about our dreams for Kraków. Everybody is excited and we all look forward to all the wonderful things God has in store for us and our beautiful city. Everyday there are people praying for Kraków and its different districts. If you want to join us in the prayer we will greatly appreciate it. We know that this way we lay foundation for everything that is going to happen. We pray blessing over the city and people and seek God to hear His plans and strategies. 

We already have logo for Kraków City Church - we hope you like it, because we do :)

New Year, New Adventure

New Year is here and our great adventure has started! Our team is already in Kraków. They have moved in to the flats they are renting and are adjusting to the new environment. It is challenging but soooo exciting! 

We are beginning our first meetings at home. We also want to cover the city with prayer. And so every day there will be someone walking for an hour and praying for God's blessing over the people of Kraków.

We (Zibi and Magda) have just visited Santa Cruz and spent weekend with our friends there. We visited their church - Elevation - and had a great time. It is so inspiring to be able to see great people doing great things for God. Now we are in Placerville with old friends of ours. We believe it will be a refreshing time for our family. We also pray that God would stir our hearts and speak to us about His dreams for Krakow. 

Moving time

Christmas is all around us, people are decorating their houses, shopping and preparing tons of food. For us it is the time of packing and moving. We will be all packed before Christmas Eve and right after the holidays we will move out the rest of our furniture. It is happening - we are actually moving out of Wodzislaw. Our team is in similar situation, Gosia will be moving to Kraków on the 29th and Sławek and Monika right after New Year. Our great adventure is about to fully unfold. We are so excited and look forward to all the wonderful things God has prepared for us.

In this special time of the year we wish you more of our beautiful Lord Jesus in every moment of your lives. May Christmas be full of joy and peace and New Year filled with His blessings.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

God is Fantastic!

We have introduced our core team, but that is not everybody that is joining us in Krakow. There are already a few students living in Krakow and waiting for us to come! Among them there is Marta who is spreading the news about the new church and helping us with preparations for the church launch and our youth conference Radicals that will also take place in Krakow. Recently we found out that one more person wants to join us. We have been praying for someone who would be good with graphics and web design. Mateusz is doing all our graphics for Radicals and this week he told us he wants to be a part of Krakow City Church. God is amazing!

We also have good news regarding the apartments for Monika, Sławek and Gosia. They found great places that they can rent. We are really happy. We believe these apartments are from God, because they are what the girls dreamt about! It is wonderful to see how He has everything in His hands and will not let us down!

We want to thank you for all your prayers and for cheering for us! We are thankful for such wonderful friends. You don't even know how much it means for us. Pleas pray for our house now. Due to the difficulties with getting bank loans our situation got complicated. We need God to come through for us and we believe He will do that!

If you would like to get involved in what we do and support us financially, please contact us: info@koscioldlamiasta.pl We will greatly appreciate your help.

Sealed

This week we had the privilege to be at Confluence in Manchester, UK. It is Youth Alive UK conference for youth pastors and leaders. We had an amazing time. God refreshed us through the wonderful atmosphere of praise and worship and was speaking to us through the ministry of the great speakers. Pastor Russell Evans from PlanetShakers Church in Melbourne, Sydney, was the main speaker. Once again we were blessed by his teaching and by the powerful anointing he is carrying. God used him to speak to us about Kraków sealing what he prophesied over us before. God is saying: "It is time for Kraków"!

The time spent in the presence of God during Confluence confirmed what we have already had in our hearts regarding the kind of church we want to see established in Kraków. We dream of church full of the power, glory and presence of Almighty God. We want it to be a Gateway for people to find THE WAY - Jesus Christ. We are believing for great things and praying that in all and through all we do He is glorified.

Facts

In an article printed in EMQ in April 2004 one country topped the list for having a need for church planting missionaries.

Based on the "N" Formula, this country is 10000 times more needy than Papua New Guinea or over 200 times more so than Mexico.

There cities in other countries with more missionaries than this entire country.

As a percentage of the population, ther eare 4 times less Evangelical Christians living in this country than there are in Saudi Arabia.

There are nearly 1 million people per church planting unit in this country.

Of the nearly 2500 counties in this country 2219 have no Evangelical church of any kind within their borders. Within these 2219 "white spots" a total of 600 people die each day - with little or no exposure to the gospel.


The country?....... Poland

a little bit about us

Magda was born in 1977 in Częstochowa, city in southern part of Poland known as 'spiritual capital of Poland for Catholics because of Black Madonna Shrine. Magda is not so much spoiled only child, was raised in a loving family. At the age of 16 she was exposed to other church than Catholic and she decided to stay in that church. In the spring of 1993 she gave her life to Jesus. She laughs that she is 'a by-product' of her uncle's (dad's brother) witnessing to her parents. First years in Christian life were not so strong, but she felt strongly that no matter what God should be number one in her life. She started helping in the children's ministry, later in the uni students' group and finally was asked to lead a youth group. And that's when her love for the youth started. In the year 2000 Magda became an administrator for the Southern Poland Church Planting School. In that time she also studied and lead the youth group.

Zibi was born in 1971. He is the middle one of three brothers and he has a little sister. He was born and raised in a town called Strzelce Opolskie, about half an hour drive from Opole. When he was 18 communism ended in Poland. But the most important thing is - that's when he gave his life to God. After his first year of studies in Wroclaw, he decided to go to a Bible School. He did a two-year missions course. After that he spent few months in England in Wycllife Centre. When he came back he moved to the mountains and worked for two years in a Christian holiday center. He organized camps for children and youth. Then he went to the US where he spent 6 months. He was involved in a Polish church in Chicago. After coming back he was offered a job in a Norther Poland Church Planting School that was based in Gdansk. He took a role of Short Term Missions Coordinator. That was in 1997. While working in the CP School Zibi started thinking of sending Polish teams to other nations. And he started working towards that. Within the next few years he sent and led groups to Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, Germany, France and even England.

Magda and Zibi met for the first time in 1999 in Budapest during an annual conference for people involved in ministry through Next Level International - an organisation that started the church planting schools in Poland in cooperation with Pentecostal Church. Since then they were seeing each other once - twice a year because of the conference or other church planting events. Some time later they started working together coordinating a mission team from Canada that was doing a bit of a tour around Poland. They got to know one another better and at the beginning of 2003 Zibi decided to ask Magda if they could become something more than just friends :) As you can imagine she agreed and as a result of that they got engaged in June and married in November of 2003! At that time Magda lived in a town in Western Poland called Głogów, and Zibi lived in Gdańsk - six hours train ride. So there was no chance for 'dating'. They could see each other for a day or two every three-four weeks, usually because of some trainings, conferences or other church events.

As a couple they are a part of Home Missions team, where together few other great people they work to see a church planting movement in Poland. They also run Young Christians' conference called RADICALS. In January 2009 they are going to move to Kraków - second largest city in Poland. They feel God is calling them to plant a church there. They have a dream to start an influential church that will be relevant for the 21st century people and full of God's glory and power.

Since July 2007 Zibi and Magda are proud parents of Bartek who is their greatest gift from God. Bartek loves 'reading' books and playing with cars, but he also loves being on stage! He spent lots of time there while still in his mom's tummy. When Magda was pregnant she interpreted during RADICALS and later on women's conference with Christine Caine - just a month before Bartek was born. Bartek is crazy about his daddy. They love playing and laughing together.

Whatever Zibi, Magda and Bartek do - they do it together as a family, because that's how they see life - God put them together, gave them one another so that together they could serve Him and do great things for Him.

WELCOME

This is Zibi and Magda and we want to welcome you to our adventure - Krakow City Church. We have created this blog to provide information for our friends around the world about what we believe God is calling us to do. Here we will present information about Krakow, some statistics, our plans and development of the church we want to start. We hope this blog to be a source of information but also inspiration!

At the beginning of this year, after a time of prayer and seeking God, we decided to move to Krakow in 2009 to start a church there. A group of friends chose to join us and right now we have a team of 10 people who either are in Krakow or will move there with us in January.

So join us in this exciting journey! Here we go....

Welcome to Krakow - a city where tradition harmoniously blends with modernity. Where care for age-old heritage is accompanied by the development of modern technologies and creative invention of the inhabitants and people that work here, and the extensive offer of spending free time and genius loci of Krakow make it a fine city to live and work in.
Krakow is currently inhabited by approximately 760 thousand permanent residents, but every year it also becomes a home to several thousand or more people that live here temporarily, mainly students. Krakow is the second largest city in Poland. It is not only an administrative center of the Małopolskie Voivodship, but also an intra-regional scientific and economic center - a valuable partner for its investors. The economic significance of Krakow is reinforced by the demographic potential of the region - approximately 8 million people live within a 100 km radius of the city. An additional advantage is the fact that 60% of the inhabitants of our city are people under age 45. The intellectual potential of Krakow is created by 22 universities, nearly 20 thousand academic lecturers (including approximately 1 800 professors) and 190 thousand students.