After a long overland journey across Europe, I finally got to Gdansk at 0745 on Tuesday (20th) morning, and then did a secular talk at the Polish Academy of Sciences on Fire and Explosion in Nature in the afternoon after some rest in between at the home of the kind translator and chauffeur for most of my trip Stanislaw Sylwestrowicz.
Then it was interviews with some Christian media followed by two talks later that day (Tues 20th ) at the local Pentecostal church – then a very good conversation with Martin – a thoughtful believer who was beginning to see that the young earth position was the only consistent one with Scripture. At the end of Tuesday we drove to Szczecin (near the German border) – a city that was in Germany before WWII. [It is important to understand Polish history which involves somewhat arbitrary border placing at the famous 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, and both East and West Polish borders shifting westwards after WWII].
The next day Weds 21st there were two secular talks at the University in Szczecin. The small Creation group in Szczecin there were making their first bridgehead into the University and that was not such an easy opportunity. But I think an opening was made for them to start reaching into the academic community. A second secular talk went well, and then a public meeting in the evening on Design Intelligence and Word of God – this last one was very well attended and great interest was shown with and even one atheist Bogdan (very polite) buying my book and another one on the science (Should Christians embrace evolution) – this was very encouraging. Then we drove south to Zielona Gora…
Thursday 22nd in Zielona Gora there was a conference organised on Creation using the University premises. This was an exceptional opportunity. There were 3 meetings with the first seeing 180 students listening to ‘Creation or Evolution – looking at the evidence,’ after which I was able to preach openly the Gospel at the end (after questions) - and of the order of an hour discussed with searching students afterwards. One girl Aleksandra stood out who was so evidently searching and I gave her ‘Should Christians embrace evolution’ . And pray for another two - Roch and Patrick who thanked me greatly for the talk and admitted that they were now seeing that there was evidence for the truth of Creation. They took the booklet “How can God accept me?” to read. They were on the first rungs of truth…. Later I did the talk, ‘Design, Intelligence and the Word of God’ and finally ‘Fossils, Dinosaur Bones and the Bible’ and two more booklets went to two ladies Marta and Arleta. We then drove on to Kalisz one of the oldest cities in Poland….
Friday 23rd at Kalisz it was one last meeting but a most remarkable one. I gathered from the local organiser of the meeting (Roman who is a co pastor of the church) that h ehad been in contact with University and a Professor of Physics there ‘wanted to see me’. We got there to see 100 students in a large classroom, and I decided to do a more accessible talk on Design. The students listened well, and the Professor of Physics (Piotr) was very welcoming and joined for lunch afterwards, where though he was not yet at the position of saying that the Bible was correct, he stated twice in the conversation that “the finger of God is upon me through meeting you today” – he had googled me before the meeting and was evidently seeking – I gave him my book ‘Genesis for Today’ and intend following him up. I have never had that type of opportunity with a UK academic!
Then we drove to Poznan in the afternoon and I gather flights are now back to normal so I do not have to trek across 4 nations to get home!
Thank you to all who have prayed so faithfully – many meetings and travelling but very valuable and with a network of hard working Creation believers led by Michal Pronczuk – do pray for a land still grieving after losing its president in the tragic aircraft accident at Smolensk. It is quite amazing to be in a country where one is not frowned on to talk about origins in Universities. The Poles are quite open to this. But confusion of RC is always there in background. Young people are evidently turning right away from Catholicism which though strong in Poland, may not last more than a generation. The youth are asking searching questions about life, and can so easily turn to wrong ideas. The Gospel needs to be preached urgently to them but with relevance to where their society is at. Many listen to the Creation message because it is so relevant – pray on for conversions from the seed sown.
In the Saviour - May His name be honoured
Andy McIntosh
