I went to do outreach in the dorms alone on March 17. The other students and missionaries decided to go together to share the gospel with the students. When I got to the campus, I felt an inward anxiety. I could feel Satan attacking me with lies such as, "you should have stayed home, you should give up". I had to meet with Florian. I had shared the gospel with him two days before and we had decided to meet again so that we could read together something from the gospel of Matthew. I headed to the dorm but I felt the need to read the Bible and pray. I opened it and I read the parable of the people working in the vineyard. Toward the end of the passage I read, “for many are invited, but few are chosen.” I thought to myself, "what does God want to tell me?

Could it be the Florian who had been so receptive no longer wanted to meet?"I got to the dorm and was allowed to go to room 14. I was looking for Florian. Behind the door of the room, there came an answer from a person who could not speak Romanian very well as he was Hungarian. He told me that Florian was not there. I told him I would come back later. When I got back there, I still could not find him. I looked through the questionnaires and found that a student, Robert, living in the same dorm who wanted to know more about Christian values.  I found him with three other  roommates of his, Mihai from Satu Mare, Tibi from Sibiu and Ionut from Prahova. I introduced myself and then started to talk about several things related to college. It was not hard to talk about God. I shared the Word with them and I could see the Holy Spirit touching their hearts. They kept their heads bowed. At a certain moment, Ionut left the room. He went to invite a student from the Orthodox Association of Students to join the talk. These people had written several slanderous articles about us on the internet and the local newspapers. The dean of the college heard about it and went and held accountable the manager of the hall where we get together. The lady assured him we had not done anything wrong. On the contrary, she told the Orthodox leader to stop accusing us. They eventually removed the slanderous articles from the internet but we saw the consequences among the students. They started to be more resistant, and more apprehensive than before. Like I told you, Ionut invited someone to come.  It was Alex who was one of the Orthodox Association leaders. It is interesting that the Holy Spirit had let me know that I was going to deal with a spiritual fight. When Alex entered the room, they all got silent. He sat right in front of me and began to shake with anger. I thought he was going to hit me. I prayed that God would give me strength and show His glory. The apostle Paul's words to Timothy came to my mind that God's servant was not to quarrel. I told Alex my name and then I briefly shared with him what I had already told the others before. I mentioned some Bible verses that talked about the sin of anger and adultery (Matthew 5: 21-28). To my surprise, he said, "you are right". Then he turned to his friends in the room and he started to tell them something. "There was this family of Orthodox people. The husband was a drunkard and would beat his wife. One day, he met a Baptist man. This man invited him to come to church with him. He eventually went there. Ever since he started to go there, he quit drinking. His wife, who had left him, came home. When she heard that her husband had repented of his sins, she went to the priest and told him about her husband. The priest asked her to bring him to him. When they came, the priest told the man, "you stopped drinking because when you started to go to that church, Satan stopped tempting you. Satan never temps his own. While you were part of the real church, he tempted you. But when you started to go to that church, he no longer tempted you. If the truth were in that church, you would continue to drink." This is what that priest said.  Alex went on saying, "we, the Orthodox have the truth. The man was attacked by the devil while he was part of the Orthodox church. The devil does not attack his own, the repentant. And now that man went back to the Orthodox church and he no longer drinks!!!" That moment, Alex contradicted himself.

Dear friends, when I heard his story, I was completely shocked. In other words, we had our lives changed because we no longer were attacked by the devil. That was because we left the orthodox church. Was not that what the Pharisees thought about the Lord?

I went on telling them that if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creature, the old was gone and everything made new. The Lord would tell people to repent of their sins. When Alex heard that he said, "it is true, we have to repent, but not the way you say it. The sins are removed through baptism." I told him that the Bible said that it was only the blood of Jesus that could remove all sins. He then wanted to know if people in our church practiced sin confession. I told him that people confessed their sins to one another and that some of them came to me to confess them. He said that did not mean confession because we did not have a priest. It was the priest who could forgive sins. That was why Jesus said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” I told them that the context of the verse was the Church, all the believers who repented and believed in Christ as sacrifice for their sins.
I then asked Alex if he felt forgiven when he confessed his sins to a priest. He said he did. I asked him if he confessed all his sinful thoughts and he said yes. Then I asked him where he would go if he died. He said, "it is God's mercy." I showed him a few Bible verses, John 5:24, 1John 5:21. Those passages talk about where the believers will go after death. He said, "we'll see in the end who's right". I asked him a question, "if the Orthodox church is the true one, how come so many Orthodox people in this country live sinful lives? There are students who do terrible sins. The people who produce dirty movies, I am pretty sure they say they are orthodox too." Alex said, "we are not to judge them, God will." I said, "you talk about loving your neighbor. If you cared about them, you would warn them, you would tell them about God". He said, "they are struggling, they're weak".

I was very troubled and sad in my soul even a few days after that because the Orthodox church covered sin. They make excuses for their people. They live like pagans and people like Alex make excuses even for criminals. I realized they did not have a real desire to repent of their sins. I saw and felt the power of evil to cover sins. I also got my answer why priests came to the dorms for Christmas and Easter and sprinkled "holy water" even on the students' pornographic posters. I told them that my grandfather used to be a singer in the Orthodox church and the Orthodox people from the village would mock him and his family because they tried to stay away from sin. I told him, "Alex, even Israel, made excuses for their sins, saying they were Abraham's sons. And yet, God allowed them to be taken slaves in Babylon.  Don't you think God is the same today too? Christ died for sins. Sin is a serious thing in God's eyes."