These two last months I have been blessed personally as I have had great opportunities to share the gospel with many people. In the gospel we have been given something so great and so important, and when we don’t have opportunities to share it, it is very disappointing. But the last two months I had good opportunities and it has been an encouragement and a blessing.
I had the chance to talk again with a man named Buli. One day I was waiting to get my hair cut, and since that place is close to where he works, I decided that while I was waiting I could go talk with him and ask how he was doing. As we began to talk, , I asked him, “So Buli, do you think there is any other life after this?” I started to explain the way to be saved and how the only way is through Jesus. His response was very similar to many people here. He said, “Everyone has their own way to be saved. Christians have their own way, and so do Muslims.” So I explained to him the differences between Islam and Christianity and I shared the gospel. I believe this is the second time he has heard the gospel. During this conversation he was neither completely ignoring nor arguing in support his Muslim views. But nor did he show much interest in what I was saying. Pray for Buli, that he will think through the things he heard and that God will save him.
One day as I was having coffee with a brother from the church named Menton, when a homeless man around 40 years old came by our table to ask for money. We began to talk with him, since we haven’t seen him in Malisheva before. Menton invited him to sit with us and so he did. We began to introduce ourselves and told him that we are Christians. We asked him why he doesn’t work since he is not that old. He explained that he suffers from back pain and therefore cannot work. After this conversation we started to talk about Jesus and we shared the gospel with him. He told us that he cannot change his faith because his grandfather and his whole family are Muslims. I told him that this is no reason to maintain his belief in Islam. I also explained to him that the only way to be righteous before God is through Jesus. Pray for this man, that God will save him.
One of my uncles is very sick from cancer. His name is Gani, and he is 88 years old. I visited him a couple of times and I always felt like I had a burden that I was carrying around, which was to share the gospel with him, although I have shared with him before. But I believe since he is very sick and the doctors believes he is in his last few months of life, I felt the need to share the Gospel with him one more time. One day my parents mentioned that we should go to visit him and in my mind I was thinking about how to start talking with him about the gospel. It was my prayer the whole time going there. When we arrived, I had it in my mind how I was going to begin the conversation with him. I decided to go sit closer to him and just at the moment that I began to move toward my uncle, he asked me, ‘’Who was Judas?” Oh! I thought, this is a right where I wanted to go in the conversation. I started to share the gospel and tell him that the moment we die we go before God and only the gospel of the cross of Christ can give us forgiveness of sins. My uncle was a school teacher and he has read about Jesus and the treason of Judas. Although I explained the gospel to my uncle, sadly, he doesn’t believe that there is life after this one. Pray for my uncle as he very close to the other life. Pray that he will believe in Jesus before his time passes.
During a week of evangelism in the park, I had the chance to share the gospel with three older people: Syle, Shaban and Sejfi. I went to greet these men, since I know them from previous times I went to the park. The three of them were not having a very good conversation when I went there. So I said to them after greeting them, “Do you know that one day you will need to give an account for everything you say and do, for every sin?” Sejfi, the guy that I talked with a lot in the past, said, ‘’Oh we know that, but there’s nothing we can do about it.’’ I started to tell them that sin is an offense against God and the payment for sins is eternal hell. But the way to be saved from this punishment is to believe in Jesus, as we had talked about before. Sejfa said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I have been reading the books you gave to me.” Pray for these three men, that they will surrender their lives to God.
Later, I saw one of my cousins. She was with another four friends of hers at the park. At the time I was with my wife and another girl from the church. She came with her friends and asked us what we were doing in the park. I had a very good opportunity to share the gospel with them. I told them how to be righteous with God, and I said that the reason we are all here in the park is to share what we believe and the great news of Jesus.
A couple days later, I also had the chance to share with a group of teenaged boys. The common question was: “If to be saved is only through Jesus, then what about our faith?” I explained to them that only through Jesus’s sacrifice will you be able to be forgiven of your sins. No other faith or religion will be able to forgive your sins. It was encouraging to see that, in the midst of my conversation with these boys, my cousin came back again with some other friends of hers and said, “Will you tell my other friends what you told us on Monday.” Of course, I said “Yes!” with joy. I then started to share the gospel with the new girls while the other boys were still there listening, and more kept coming as I spoke. Pray for all these young boys and girls, that God will save them.
