It was a very early alarm. Early for any day, but particularly early for a day when you don’t know where you’re going. We had a plan that would take us as far as Luton airport. After that, only God knew.
Escape and Pray is a ridiculous faith adventure. It’s 48 hours in a European student city with no plan, no accommodation, no money - nothing but trust in the Holy Spirit and the belief in a God who provides.
And he really does. We’d opened our envelope and found out that we were on our way to Lublin, we’d made it through security, found some seats close to the departures board, and had just prayed for boldness and opportunity - when a book caught our eye across the way.
‘Awaken 50’ must be a Christian book we thought. We summoned up the braveness we’d just prayed for and headed over. We introduced ourselves to the reader of the book - and quickly discovered a whole group of YWAMmers heading to Glasgow on mission. We prayed with and commissioned them before heading to our gate. Full of faith, we boarded the plane. Berta was next to us. At a crossroads in her life and trying to decide whether to move her family back to England, stay in Poland, or go somewhere else entirely, she was moved to tears hearing that we were going to Lublin on an adventure with Jesus. She didn’t know him, but something about Jesus had spoken to her and she was so grateful when we offered to pray for her that she asked to pray for us in return! When we landed and stood up to grab our bags, she opened her purse and pulled out a note. “To bless your trip,” she said.
We were amazed. Clutching our newly-acquired 20 Zloty note, we got on the train into the town centre.
The technological university was the closest to the train station, so that was our first stop. After an hour of attempting to pray for the students wandering around, most of whom said no, we ran out of ideas for what to do next. So we decided to get up the Fusion survey and start doing some evangelism. The fourth person we spoke to was an architectural student called Kinga. It became clear pretty quickly that she was a Christian and couldn’t believe that we were here to pray for her city. She told us we had to meet her pastor, and rang him from the park bench that we were sitting on. He asked us why we were there, what we were doing - and then came the inevitable question: where are you staying? We mumbled something about trusting the Lord would provide and he didn’t really say much to that. But he did say there were a bunch of students who would love to meet up with us the next day, and he posted our contact details in their group so they could connect with us.
Having sorted plans for tomorrow but with no place to sleep that night, we walked into the centre of town. We were all pretty hungry and made the executive decision to use the last of the money from our friend on the plane to buy some dinner. Just as we were about to put some pastries in a paper bag to buy, the phone rang. It was Anna, an American missionary who’d got our number from the group chat. “I’ve heard you guys have just arrived in Lublin with nothing and are on some sort of adventure,” she said. “That’s right,” we replied, not sure what else to say. “Huh,” she said, “Earlier today I was actually feeling like I should gather some students this evening. They are coming round to mine and why don’t you come too?”
We thought that sounded pretty good. And then it got better: “I’ll make dinner for you guys. And you can stay the night. And I’ll send an Uber to pick you up so you don’t have to walk.”
We put our pastries back in a stunned silence. Sure enough, an Uber arrived and delivered us to Anna’s flat, where we opened the door to a room busy with people and a giant plate of fried chicken. Over dinner, we heard the students’ stories. All of them were international students, most of them from Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania, who had found community, fellowship and discipleship in Anna’s living room. One student told us how she moved from Ghana to Ukraine to study medicine in 2022. She was in Donetsk when the bombs started falling. She stayed inside, thinking it would only last a few days. Weeks later, she knew she needed to leave. She told us of how she joined the queues of people flooding through the streets towards the station, not knowing when the train was going to come, just waiting in the hope that one would eventually arrive. She told us they waited for 8 hours for that train, certain that there were more people on the platform than would fit on the train.
The train took her to Warsaw. She didn’t know anyone there and spent the next week camping on the floor of a church along with the rest of the people that had made it onto the train. She had planned to head back home to Ghana, but then felt that God was calling her to stay in Poland. With nothing but the clothes on her back and a hastily packed bag, she made her way to Lublin, looking for a place to call home. She found it in the church and in Anna’s flat.
She looked up at us as she finished her story and we caught her eyes; she, who had walked through war to get here, and us, who had just had to skip lunch and then be scooped up in a taxi. “I wish I had your faith, to go on an adventure like you’re doing” she said. None of us knew how to reply.
The next morning, we declined Anna’s offer of a packed lunch and, hoping we wouldn’t regret it, made our way to the Marie Curie Skłodowska University campus to prayer walk and chat with students. We felt a real darkness over the campus and Anna had told us that students frequently commit suicide there. We prayed for the light and freedom of Jesus to cover that place. After a while of prayer walking outside, we decided to go into one of the department buildings. Walking inside, we were greeted with a ridiculous scene: platter upon platter of food laid out on tables, spilling across the width of the whole room like a banquet. We couldn’t quite believe our eyes. All we had to do was sign in with our names and we could help ourselves to as much as we liked. We got talking to some students over lunch, one of whom said she really wanted to become a ‘real’ Christian, and another who was very surprised and slightly confused at our presence, but did say yes to our offer to pray for him (“Right here? With everyone? Oof - well, okay then”).
After that, we had been planning to meet up with a guy who does street evangelism in the city centre, but he cancelled at the last minute. We decided to walk towards where we were going to meet and do our own street evangelism anyway, but we never made it. On the way, we walked past a building and felt prompted to go inside. We walked in and found Katherine, the librarian, who was exceptionally confused why we were there and explained that there was nothing there for us, no students or classes or anything. She must have thought we were prospective students because she said she could take us on a tour of the library if we wanted. In the library, she asked us what exactly it was that we were doing. We said that we were actually there to pray for students and that we’d come to pray for the city of Lublin.
At that, her eyes filled with tears. When she was able to speak again, she told us that her heart is for unity in her city, and that, two days ago, she’d been praying for more people to pray for Lublin. And here we were, walking into her library and answering that prayer. We prayed for the city with her, and went on our way, each profoundly moved by God’s kindness, both to us and to Katherine.
We finished that evening by visiting the student Bible study, where we finally met the pastor of the church who we’d spoken to on the phone on the first day. It turns out that he had sent Anna money to be able to host us. We got to share more about what we were doing and why we were there, and then he drove us home that evening, and gave us more money for our journey home the next day. We were blown away by the generosity of this man and his church.
We finished our time in Lublin by meeting up with Kinga, the first student that we’d met, to prayer walk her campus with her. We asked her what her dream for her campus was, and were stunned by her reply: she said that God has given her a dream of starting a prayer room on her campus. She didn’t know any other Christians on the campus, but in her dream, people started coming to pray in this room with her and she could see people encountering the presence of Jesus for the first time. “What’s stopping you?” we asked. She was quiet for a minute. “No one’s ever encouraged me I could do it before,” she said. We told her the first step was probably picking a room to do it in, but she cut us off - “I already know which room. God told me that when I had the dream” she said.
We went up to the place where the room was, but the door was locked. “This is the problem,” Kinga said, “I can’t get access. They tell me I don’t have the right authority.” We began to pray immediately, speaking the name of Jesus over the space, praying that God would make a way for Kinga into the room he had shown her, and prophesying that this would become a dwelling place of God’s presence on this campus. When we were finished, Kinga spoke up. “I got another vision. I saw the doors of this room wrapped in chains, but then a golden angel coming and ripping the chains off. And then the doors were flung open and the walls of the room were full of gold and the room was full of light. And then God showed me the professor that I need to go to get authorisation for the room. And God said I need to tell them I want to use it for prayer.”
We left Lublin on a high. In the weeks that followed, Kinga met with the professor to ask for authorisation. They said no - until Kinga said she wanted to use the room for prayer. At that, the professor said “well, that changes everything”. Her request for a prayer room on campus has gone all the way to the dean of a university where religious expressions are banned. Like Kinga, we are praying for God’s kingdom to break into the technological university of Lublin and for Kinga’s vision of students encountering Jesus to come to fruition.
If you’ve read all the way to the end of this - will you give just a few minutes more of your time and pray for a move of God amongst students in Lublin?
