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Kazimierz Kowalczyk was born in 1969 in Raba Wyżna, Poland. In the period from 1981 to 1986 he studied sculpture at PWSSP (Academy of Arts) in Gdansk. At the beginning of 1988 he suffered serious injuries in a tragic car accident. During next two years he underwent a long and complicated medical treatment. These years had a groundbreaking impact on him, not only physically. Everything that “Kazik” designs, creates and sculpts in wood is permeated with his deep and passionate faith in God. |
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Kazimierz Kowalczyk was born in 1969 in Raba Wyżna, Poland. In the period from 1981 to 1986 he studied sculpture at PWSSP (Academy of Arts) in Gdansk. At the beginning of 1988 he suffered serious injuries in a tragic car accident. During next two years he underwent a long and complicated medical treatment. These years had a groundbreaking impact on him, not only physically. Everything that “Kazik” designs, creates and sculpts in wood is permeated with his deep and passionate faith in God. From when I started to be aware of the things happening around me, I had a feeling of something missing in my life. As the matter of fact, I couldn’t find out why things in life go the way they do. I became very sensitive to evil and harm I saw all around. The history of our civilization, my nation or even the streets of my own town were full of violence and suffering. I was a student. At that time my works spoke about executions by firing squads, extermination pits, the arms race, blast of the atomic bomb and people suffering from the effects of radiation. Those works emitted hundreds of questions without answers. Why has the history gone this wicked way? Why our lives look the way they do? Why is it that one man experiences something good, and the other something dreadful at the same time? How can one take hold of his life? Lead it and build some purpose into it?.. The fretting thought that everything might happen at random was destroying me inwardly. At that time I got married, but very soon my marriage became a cause of many new conflicts and personal anxieties. It did not turn out to be the long-anticipated solution to all the already existing ones. It did not seem to lead to any peace or fulfillment. I did not participate in shaping it, I let things roll. I didn’t put any effort into giving it some kind of shape or form. Very soon our marriage started to reflect the tragedy of the world we lived in. I always thought that history of a man begins when he enters into an intimate relationship with another person. In my life it was the moment when I got married. I was there with my wife, we could discover each other, but still it was difficult for us to consider ourselves unity. We both lived separate lives, one being an obstacle to the other. Even though we already had a son and everything needed to create a happy and wonderful family, a family that God wanted man to live in, we were just on the verge of a marital breakdown… Then the accident happened… Having finished my studies, I decided to move back to the South of Poland, the place I rooted from. I was travelling in a big lorry during the night, sitting next to the driver. All of a sudden, we crashed into another lorry parked on the roadside … It’s a miracle that the firefighters managed to pull my body out of the wreck. It’s even greater a miracle that there was still a sparkle of life in me. For three days after the accident I was in a comma, balancing on the edge of life and death. When I regained consciousness I did not remember anything from before the accident. It was only after one month that I started to remember things from the past. The process of rehabilitation initiated a long way back to health. I stayed in several hospitals, and was operated on many times. For the period of two years I was constantly sick and disabled. During that time to the many troubling questions of my past, there came in new, even more tragic ones - questions referring to my miserable situation as well as to the situation of the other sick people. Some patients lying next to me died. The world surrounding me was sick, crooked and unjust… But somewhere deep inside of me there was a longing for a different world, different reality. I began to read the Bible. In Leverkusen, Germany, where I was treated for 6 months, my heart started to turn to what I was reading. I saw God, whom I hadn’t known before. He was no longer scary, mysterious and distant God I had previously imagined. Until that day the word “God” meant no more than an empty utterance, at times associated with part of tradition or culture. Getting to know God from the pages of the Bible, I’ve discovered that He is in power to set me free from my sins and addictions, things I couldn’t overcome on my own. God also rescued me from my condition – I can walk and work again. But it was not only the physical healing. Our marriage was also cured. My wife and I are now one in Christ. The spiritual healing – the fact that I was born again in Spirit changed the way I perceived life and myself; people around me and my family. I am no longer in the centre of my life. I saw US: our children, our marriage, which I now understand and can see the full meaning of. I know that I am a part of God’s plan – risen from the dust of the earth - man. Kazimierz Kowalczyk
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