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2020 and Grounding a Vision
Dear Friends,
This comes as the final newsletter and building update this year. We hope you are well, despite the craziness that we’ve all experienced this year. With all the information and dis-information that’s flowing around, it’s almost impossible to know what’s really going on. So now, more than ever, we need to lean into Jesus, hear directly from Him, and stay on target with the mandates and callings He has given us.
For us, 2020 has been unimaginably quiet. Normally, there are more than 2 million visitors that come to visit Auschwitz every year, and normally we would meet and share with many different individuals and groups. But this was no normal year! In total we met with less than 10 groups over the whole of 2020.
Despite the restrictions and lockdowns, we were still able to continue building. Not as fast as we would have liked, but there was still a significant amount of change. Cathy has put together a small portfolio of photos at the end of this newsletter, which shows the progress that’s been made.
CATHY:
So, how has the spiritual side of the Prayer House developed in 2020 with so few visitors?
Well, I have always felt the Lord say that our living here is an intercession, so that continues. I feel Father is saying, “As you live your lives, doing the practical things, whether it’s making a home, gardening or sewing – living here is an intercession, bringing life, bringing hope, bringing joy to the land”.
Once I felt the Lord say, “If you want to make a chocolate cake you need to add chocolate to the ingredients! If you want to transform this place from darkness and despair into life and joy, you need to add life and joy. Allow My joy to remain in you!”.
He has always made it clear to us that it’s not our self-effort that is transforming this place, but it’s His Spirit in us, working according to His will.
This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty. (Zech. 4:6)
We just do the practical stuff, being obedient to His calling, allowing Him to mould us into the shape He wants us, and He does the rest.
Another feeling is that through the lack of visitors, it has been like a year of fallow ground. Land is left fallow in order to take a rest. God commanded the Israelites to rest on the Sabbath so that they would know that it is the Lord God who sanctifies them (Ex. 31:13). Has the Lord God been sanctifying the land of Auschwitz-Birkenau during this season? Has He been doing something supernatural during this time? Time will tell!
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