REACH Romania
Dear Friends and Partners,
Jesus is wonderful!!! And His Gospel of the Kingdom is still powerful, even for the sophisticated 21st century people!!! It is an honor and privilege to serve Him!
As you know, we asked you to pray for the “Heaven’s Gates, Hell’s Flames” event we were preparing for Suceava. We did it 7 years ago and it was an extremely well attended event back then, but we didn’t know how it is going to be now – because so many things have changed in Romania! And especially the fact that large events like that are not very interesting for the people anymore. So, we were curious ourselves to see what’s going to happen.
Also, while last time we distributed over 30,000 hand invitations, this time we decided to only use posters (200), invitations for people we knew are going to come (450), and besides that – 3 secular radio stations and the local TV station.
So, Thursday and Friday nights last week, we did it. For the first night, we were in heavy competition with two European Cup Soccer games, with two of the important Romanian teams involved. But even so, the main auditorium of the Cultural House of Suceava, with 770 seats, was almost full. But the second night, all the seats were taken and there were quite a few people standing. Not wanting to speak “evangelistically”, we say that at least 1,500 people attended both nights – and though there were quite a few believers, the majority were young nonbelievers. Actually, I was surprised to see that at least 80% of the people were young – in their late teen years and early 20’s. Now –when we say nonbelievers, we talk about religious people (most of them would describe themselves as Orthodox), but who are not born again.
Both presentations were very good, our people did a good job and it was powerful. At the end, there was a short evangelistic message, and the possibility to say a prayer given to the people. We also told them where we meet and invited them to come and see us. Everyone got a piece of paper with a few questions – wanting to see their opinion and also asking if they are interested to know more about what they’ve seen. From the several hundred of those opinions expressed, more than 300 were from nonbelievers. We divided them between our church and Diakonia Church (a new Baptist church started in town, we try to work with them – so we did it together), and our people started calling, meeting and visiting those people. We invite them to meet us at the Cultural House again, in a smaller room, to know us, make friends with them and introduce them to the Gospel. It will happen Thursday, at 5 pm.
Another encouraging thing – many of the young believers (Baptists, Pentecostals, Brethren) who attended expressed the desire to know more (even if some of them were seriously reproached for attending). We’ll offer them some possibilities – come to our bible school classes or do some correspondence classes with them.
Now we know that the battle has just started! Please pray for the follow up process, we know it’s the most important thing, but also the most difficult. Our people are very encouraged by the results of their calls/visits – they already met people who seem interested, we had some attending our Sunday morning service – but again, our experience shows is just the beginning, and many loose their interest in the process.
So –please pray with us specifically for these people – and if you have any idea, word of knowledge (from the Lord or from your experience), any thought about how and what works well, please share it with us.
The cost of the whole operation: $1,677.63 – at today’s exchange rate. Once again, we want to thank the Lord and the people of Bethel Baptist Church, Columbiana, AL for the financial support! And thank you for your prayers and love for the people of Romania!
Together we make a difference – and we’ll see the Kingdom of God extended in Suceava and Romania! To our God and King be all the Glory!!!
For His Kingdom,
Nicu & Suceava Team
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