17th day, 25th July Modern Protestant Church in the mining town of Jastrzebie-Zdroj

Now I was curious what awaited me outside the Evangelical 'stronghold" of the numerically strong Cierzyn church district. From my campsite by the lake, I went to the mining town of Jastrzebie-Zdroj (formerly Königstadt) with 89,000 inhabitants. Right after entering the city, there was a constant steep uphill and downhill. After a stop at Mc Doff to charge my devices, I drove to the Protestant church on the outskirts of the city for lunch and was surprised by the very modern church building of an Evangelical church in Poland (photo). There was nobody in the rectory, but the church service board stated that the church is open from 3pm to 6pm on Mondays. I decided to ride my bike to the Protestant village church in Golkowice - about 8km away - and hid my panniers under the stairs to the entrance to make it a bit easier for me as the sun seemed merciless. I reached the village via a wonderful bike path and soon found the Protestant church. As expected, the church was in the classical architectural style (photo) and the community center was closed (photo).

After a short break, I cycled back to the mining town and to my surprise, someone was there in the afternoon around 3:30pm and my panniers were still in place. The local pastor was on vacation, but a woman from the community opened the impressive bright and modern church hall for me. Unfortunately, she didn't speak English or German, so she called an acquaintance who could tell me something about the community in good German over the phone.

This church has over 800 members in the city and surrounding area and - if I understood correctly - around 200 members come to worship on Sundays. Another member of the community came and with the help of my translation device, I learned that the community has a very young pastor who is only 24 years old and is very skilled in technology. The church service is live-streamed on the internet every Sunday. The songs are projected onto the wall with a projector. The organ comes from an old Protestant church in Warsaw and a keyboard with amplifier technology provides musical variety. There is also a church choir. Every Sunday, there is a special program for the 20-25 children who attend the worship service. Of course, there is also a large kitchen for preparing the church cafe, and I was immediately given a cola, which is also available. I also learned that the community operates a rental service for rehabilitation devices and has a storage room for this in the basement (photo). I was visibly impressed. After the tour and explanations about community life, I was shown the old Protestant church, which stands about 80m away and was also inaugurated in 1911. After almost 2 hours, we said goodbye and I was very amazed by this church. Actually, I wanted to get to Rybnik on this day, but I decided to drive back to the campsite by the lake where I had spent the last night and saved myself the search for a suitable camping spot. The only downside was getting up very early again, but I was already somewhat accustomed to that.