The outreach in the student dorms before Easter was very good in terms of discussing the Gospel with the students. I talked with seven different students. One evening I talked with a student at Orthodox Art, then her brother came and he would not let us go until we had dinner with them, two courses and dessert! She showed us her paintings of Orthodox icons and other religious things. She was very influenced by the Orthodox traditions and knew very little about the Bible itself. In the beginning of our discussion she answered our questions by trying to remember everything she learned in the Orthodox faculty and she was frustrated she couldn’t remember much.

At some point we were only debating and it was not very helpful, so I prayed for wisdom, and immediately God changed her attitude and she started understanding the Gospel. In the end she said that she is content with the teaching she has from the priests as they explain the Bible to her. She told us she cannot read the Bible because she needs authorized interpretation from the priests. They were very serious in practicing Orthodoxy, as they insisted to show hospitality to us, and we had dinner with them. They prayed for the food before eating and for us when we left their room to go home. That was very unusual because Orthodox people usually don’t pray.

I also talked with a student who was seeking God, but with the wrong means: science. Since the primary school he struggled with the question, Does God exist? He kept telling me that if the ‘determination theory’ is demonstrated, than he will have the proof that God exists.  It was difficult to follow him as I am not an expert on science. I told him there is no other way than Jesus to know God as He really is. Another student was an atheist who had a very independent and rebellious spirit, but I was amazed he understood the Gospel very well and then rejected it completely.

We invited all of them to the evangelistic Easter Confernce on April 19 that we organized in down town Bucharest, near the University at Sala Dalles with Dr. Bruce Ware. We distributed six thousands flyers and put many posters in facilities. We couldn’t believe our eyes that in some facilities our posters didn’t last even for half an hour! They tore them up probably because the theme of the conference was “The Resurrection of Christ, The Proof that He is the Only Way to Salvation.” We were glad to see that in spite of this, over 150 students came to the conference. Many of them were non-Christians, some came through the flyers, and most of them because of personal invitations. I was glad to see that many of the non-Christians from the ski camp came to the conference. Also one of the students that I met in December while doing questionnaires came and heard the Gospel. I stayed near a student who came in response to the flyers and we had a good conversation. She seemed very interested to keep in touch with us. An interesting thing was when I was at the xerox machine to copy the conference brochure, an older man showed an interest in coming to the conference and came! The Gospel was very clearly presented by Dr. Bruce Ware and we praise the Lord for this opportunity to give out the good news to many students!

The HeartCry conference with Dr. Bruce Ware from Southern Seminary, Kentucky, was an incredible blessing for our students. He preached on the major themes of salvation (election, justification, regeneration, sanctification, etc.) and he gave such a great overview of salvation for our students, praise the Lord! I talked with many of them after the conference and the Lord used it greatly to teach them about the need for salvation, the message of the Gospel, their identity in Christ .... I was blessed to think over the wonderful doctrines of salvation once again and God spoke to me about the reality of the Day of Judgment when each of us will give an account of our life and how that only what we did for Christ will last in the judgment fire.

This semester I started another discipleship group with Elena and Diana. Elena has some Evangelical background but she said she turned to Christ this year. The Lord was drawing her to Himself over the past few years, but she was with one foot in the world and another in the church, as she said. One Sunday a pastor was at her aunt’s house and he asked her if she had repented of her sins. She said she hadn't but she had decided to do that very soon, probably that evening. The pastor said, “no, now is the time of salvation”, and she said, “yes, I want to turn to Christ right now.” Immediately they prayed and she gave her life to Christ. The next day she made some changes in her life such as not going in some places she used to go with her roommate. At the moment we are studying Romans and it is very exciting to see her growing in the knowledge of Christ. The other student, Diana, is a freshmen student and very mature in her faith. The Lord encouraged me very much through this discipleship group.

One Saturday I led a Bible discussion about worship with four students. We went through many verses to see what it is authentic worship and how to live our lives as a daily worship given to the Lord. This lesson was part of a training course we do every year. I was glad to see that one of the students who still considers herself Orthodox learned so much through this first lesson. She said she understands much better what Christianity is all about, treasuring and obeying Jesus Christ, living in holiness, destroying the idols from her heart.

Thank you for your prayers. God bless you!