Ten for God

Until 1989, Poland was a Communist state ruled from Marxist Russia. Religiously, traditional Catholicism was the dominant force. But, during the years 1975 to 1990, God used a music group Deo Decyma (Ten for God) to spread the good news of Jesus Christ in Poland. This is something of their story.

The Krol family, headed up by the father Wilhelm Krol, a professor of civil engineering in Gliwice and a lay preacher, were evangelical Christians. Though their surroundings were quite hostile to the gospel, nevertheless the children, Nina, Henio and Adas, knew the Lord and felt very secure and free in Christ.

In the late 1960s, first Nina, then Henio came across to Britain at the invitation of a Brethren man named Bill Grunbaum. He was a Christian of unbelievable vision, inviting young people from Eastern Europe across for a holiday in Britain where he would run house parties and give Bible teaching. These visits showed Nina and Henio a different dimension of Christianity. Above all it was the time of things like Youth Praise and they remembered the joyful, enthusiastic singing.

The idea planted

Then later, in 1973, Henio had the opportunity to go to the USA. Here he visited contemporary Christian music events and, when he saw how many people came to those concerts, God planted in his mind the idea that music might be the way to reach out for Christ in Poland. Communism did not want the spread of the gospel and Catholicism in Poland had no great tradition of Bible preaching, but generally music was very acceptable.

So, bringing a lot of music back with him from the States, Henio decided to start a band. The family had some musical expertise and soon, with other Christian friends, they began to practise. They were ten ordinary people. The band included a carpenter, a mechanic, an electrician, a coalminer, an architect, a civil engineer, a bookkeeper and a housewife. Henio now says that they did not have great quality, ‘but somehow the grace of God was upon us’.

Word of mouth

Their first concert was at a mission day at a Lutheran church. There were between 50 and 100 people there. At the time it seemed like an utter disaster, for it was an extremely cold day and two of the group were ill and could not be there. But they sang and spoke of Christ and it was well received. It was from there they began to be asked to perform in many different places. The concerts were publicised simply by word of mouth to keep things secret from the authorities. Being at work during the week, they paid their own costs and did it simply out of wanting to serve Christ.

Although it was illegal, sometimes they would even sing on the streets and witness. If the police came and said it was not allowed they would stop and go somewhere else. The Lutheran church began to be a little scared of the openness of Deo Decyma and backed off from support, but it was around this time that strangely Deo Decyma began to get invitations to perform for Catholic churches and youth groups. They would sing and in between each piece the different members of the band would give testimony or bring a short Bible message. ‘And’, says Henio, ‘the people would react in numbers that were absolutely astonishing to us’. Before each concert they would put out little pieces of paper on the seats for people who wanted to keep in contact to write their addresses. Often there were weekend tours with five to eight concerts.

God at work

Nina was beginning to lecture in architecture. Her colleagues, all unaware of her secret weekend travels, would assume she did not have much of a life and told her, ‘You should get out more’. All unbeknown to them she had often arrived home at 6.00 am on a Monday morning after fulfilling a very arduous schedule of concerts in different parts of the country.

‘When the Holy Spirit was moving’, Henio now tells people, ‘it was strange. The weaker we were, the better was the outcome.’

‘I will never forget one concert in Warsaw’, he said. ‘It took place in the basement of one of the most prestigious Catholic churches in the city, St. Anne’s. Outside the temperatures were between minus 15 and minus 20 degrees. We unloaded our equipment. All our brass instruments had frozen up. There were about 400 people packed into a room meant for 300. They were quite nervous because of the authorities. The piano there was way out of tune, so that my brother Adas had to try to transpose to a different key in order to be in tune with the rest of us. Then, because there were so many in the audience, the room became so hot and sweaty that fingers were sliding all over the place on the guitars. The performance was a disaster. We finished. Said that if anyone wanted to know more about Christ we would talk afterwards, then disappeared behind a curtain to pray and say sorry to the Lord for letting him down so badly. But when we came out to talk to people almost everyone had stayed. Everyone wanted to know. ‘You talked as if God is real, how can I know him?’ ‘I am astonished by what I have heard tonight.’ ‘What must I do to be saved?’ Each of the band members had 30 or 40 people around them asking such questions. The Catholic head of the academic students’ chapter, Ksiadz Rektor Uszynski, was there, asking, ‘How can I know Jesus Christ?’ He became a great friend and opened many doors for us to reach out to Catholic young people.’

Concert of the clouds

One hot Sunday afternoon, Deo Decyma arrived in a beautiful village where they were meant to give a concert. It was during the days when the band had a beaten up truck and carried an old upright piano with them. They were given the key to the church but no one was there. The village seemed empty. They did not know what to do so they set up their equipment and started to pray. Very soon a cloud appeared in the sky. Then there were more clouds. Then the clouds became bigger and it was not long before a storm broke. People who had been walking on a sunny day in the hills around suddenly came rushing to the village for shelter, and the best place for shelter was the church. At the time the concert was due to start the place was jam-packed, and the concert was very well received.

Some years later a Catholic nun came to hear the band in another part of Poland. They asked her how she had heard of them. She told of being on a train and getting talking to a man who had been at that village walking with his little daughter on the day of the concert. He was then an atheist. He and his daughter had run to the church for shelter, but amid the crowd he had lost his daughter and so found that he had to stay until the concert was over to find her. He had found himself listening intently. He told the nun that, through that concert, he was no longer an atheist and had become a seeker. That was why the nun was so interested in hearing Deo Decyma.

Crackdown and a miracle

After the rise of the Solidarity Movement there was a brief year of semi-freedom in 1980. But then followed a crackdown which saw thousands of people in prison. There were checkpoints set up on the roads, and also fuel was restricted. But wonderfully the tours and the concerts continued. Often Christian people gave the band their own petrol coupons in order to get the truck on the road. ‘A number of factors caused Communism to eventually collapse’, says Henio. ‘First, Communism did not work economically. Second, the selection of a Polish Pope brought a great momentum for freedom. Thirdly, Gorbachev and Reagan played their part which was another wonderful part of the puzzle.’ But, despite the oppression of those Communist days God was at work.

As time went on there were opportunities to sell cheap Bibles (brought in by Brother Andrew’s Bible smugglers) and to run Bible courses for those who responded at the concerts. Study groups were set up in different places and some of these became churches. With Communism being built on propaganda, access to the new copying machines, which were just appearing on the scene in the 1980s, was impossible. So all the correspondence courses had to be duplicated using typewriters and carbon paper. Many Christians helped with this. Over 60,000 pages of notes were produced this way.

God had also put a new idea in the minds of Henio and others. Music was changing. The world was changing. What was needed was a recording studio. Miraculously, between 1977 and 1986 the members of the group were able to build a house-cum-studio with up-to-date 24-track recording facilities up in the mountains. From this a radio station was later to come and a network is in full operation today.

John Benton

© Evangelicals Now - April 2008
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