Praise God, the months of October and November have been full of wonderful things from the Lord. I would split these into ministry in the church and the literature ministry.
MINISTRY IN THE CHURCH – “that I may be more passionate for the glory of God”
By the grace of God, we have been received very warmly at Providence Baptist Church in Brasov and served faithfully by the leadership team. For about a year, my role in the local church consists of acclimating to the philosophy of ministry and of helping brother Emanuel Ivan with the evangelistic ministry in the NW part of Brasov (Bartolomeu area). I had the privilege to serve in the local church by leading two Wednesday night prayer meetings, and by preparing and leading two Sunday afternoon Bible study meetings in Bartolomeu. We have studied through Matthew 7.
I visited the church in Fieni, where I was asked to preach. The passage I chose was one that has been very instructive to myself, Acts 17:15-34. One of the key things that I noticed was that the Scripture does not tell us how nice that city was (keeping in mind its ruins attract today about 4.5 million tourists every year), how great was the architecture, or how skillful were the Greek philosophers in crafting their ideas. Paul’s assessment of the great city of Athens, arguably the greatest city in the world at the time, was this: “a city full of idols”. That made me think of the many times I visited a lot of places, admired buildings, enjoyed places or meals, but was not careful to do first the spiritual assessment of those places. And I think I learned a lesson that when I am captivated by the glory of God and zealous for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then everywhere I go, the spiritual assessment and the preaching of the Gospel would take priority over the outward beauties. May God be pleased to give me the zeal and the passion I see in Paul as he did not rest content with the assessment over the city of Athens, but witnessed Christ faithfully everywhere and everyday!
EVANGELISM – “The older- the harder, plus migration and blessed inconsistencies”
The area of the city we minister in is well-known as one of the poorest in Brașov and this comes with spiritual issues of all kinds – drunkards all over the place, idolatry, violence, poverty etc. I have been there on the streets about two times a week.
Once we met three old guys in a bus station and tried to witness to them. Soon we found out that one of them was a Jehovah Witness and, as I asked him to be honest about his life of sin, he tried to first deny he had sins in his life, yet admitted that sometimes he does sin indeed. The strike came immediately through one of his friends, who laughed saying that the “sometimes I do minor sins” means going to the “house of pleasure” on a weekly basis (house of pleasure” meaning adultery). Surprisingly, the otherwise “very pious” JW started bragging about his adultery, claiming that his god is a god of love and would never send him to hell. And of course, his god would never send any adulterer or fornicator to hell because, simply put, that god does not exist. Upon opening the Scripture and letting him know that NO adulterer will inherit the Kingdom of heaven, he started justifying himself with side stuff, like his good deeds, not accepting blood transfusions, and not touching a gun (no Bible verse to support these). I soon realized that it was not this self-righteous JW who was to be evangelized, but his two friends, who seemed much more conscious of the severity of God’s judgment. We gave them some Gospel tracts and literature, and are praying that the Holy Spirit will do His work of spiritual enlightenment in their hearts, so they would have their eyes opened to see their sins and flee to the cross!
We witnessed to other people as well, most of them older (even 80+ yrs old). The more I get involved in one-on-one evangelism, the more I get this clearer. The older one gets, the harder his heart becomes to the Gospel. By this I am not saying God has no power to break the hearts of stone in any man (ultimately all the unsaved, younger or older, have their hearts of stone by nature), but, as J.C. Ryle once said, “a young sinner becomes an old devil”. And this applies particularly to the Communist generation here; there are those who have been born and raised most of their lives under Communism and are now over 50 years old. Their atheism and arrogant unbelief is so hard to break, their values being a strange mix of relativism, atheism, and a thin veneer of outward religiosity. While any conversion is a miracle of the grace of God, that of a former Communist must be a reason for even more praise to the Lord. Please pray for them!
Gospel Tracts in Mailboxes
I have been also involved in preparing the field for door-to-door evangelism by placing about 5,000 Gospel tracts in mailboxes in two areas of Brasov, covering Bartolomeu and Fagetului-Crisan, I had the opportunity to meet and share the Gospel with a number of people on these occasions.
Oltenia Heartcry Outreach
During the first week of November, I had the privilege to join the HeartCry group of Romanian missionaries in Stoenesti (Olt county) in an annual two-day outreach project they organize. It was a wonderful time in sharing the Gospel in three villages, but also in prayer and fellowship with my brothers. We had the opportunity to speak to a number of people in these villages, and I was surprised at their openness to learn more of Christ and the Gospel. Among the encounters that impressed me most was one with the deacon of the Eastern Orthodox church in Gostavățu village. Although he admitted that he would stop a train ride in case of not being 100% sure that it would take him to the desired destination, he said he would remain with the EO even if he admitted he is not sure EO and his beliefs would take him to heaven. Following the discussions we had with young people, I realized that immigration is a tremendous blessing for the Gospel ministry in rural Romania. Many of the young people we shared Christ with worked in Western countries and there they met with Evangelicals, who, by the grace of God, gave some very good testimonies by either sharing the Gospel with them, or helping them in any way possible by providing food, shelter, or even a job to these people. So now they seemed unusually open to the Gospel, as opposed to the times when the EU borders were closed to Romanians.
Another wonderful encounter that we had was with the soccer team goalkeeper in Stoenesti, a man in his 30s, who was very interested in learning what we had to say. Towards the end of our meeting, he wanted to know if the rituals of the EO have any support in the Scripture. So I showed him a catechism of the Eastern Orthodox church, in which a statement by their Patriarch says that the EO most practiced rituals have no ground in the Bible, but they are man-made. He was shocked as he could not believe his eyes what he read in the EO catechism. I call these “blessed inconsistencies”. At times, showing common people that their belief system has no foundation in the Bible by means of confronting them with the official statements of the EO church may be the only means of plucking some of them from the fire. I realize at the same time that many of us, evangelists and missionaries, know very little about these “blessed inconsistencies” and how to use them wisely in our evangelistic ministry.
Literature Ministry
We rejoice over the launch of the first 9Marks Journal in Romanian, being the first fruit of our partnership with 9Marks. The launch of the Journal has sparkled a lot of interest among seminaries and Christian schools, as well as with the Romanian Baptist Union. One of the seminaries in Bucharest has even asked our permission to put it on the mandatory student reading list, along with other titles we translated and posted for free download at Coresi Missionary Society (the e-publishing ministry). We also launched our second issue of the Romanian newsletter of the Free Grace Broadcaster, in partnership with Chapel Library; this time, FGB is focused on what the Gospel is and how it is to be preached, with articles by Thomas Boston, J.I. Packer, Thomas Manton, J.C. Ryle, Charles Spurgeon, and Jonathan Edwards.
Don is serving as the HeartCry Coordinator for Eastern Europe. As an itinerant evangelist, his pulpit ministry is directed toward preaching on the inner life of the believer and the spiritual need of the lost. With HeartCry, his ministry includes organizing Bible conferences and corresponding with the HeartCry missionaries in Europe. He and his lovely wife Cindy live in Tuscumbia, AL.
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