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Help us train 100 student leaders this summer!

Bucharest, the capital of Romania is home to about 3 million people. Most of them are busy, annoyed by traffic and usually harsh.

Evangelical Christians make up less than 1%. We can put all of them in the National Arena (55.635 seats) and the stadium will be half empty. In addition to that all the churches, regardless of their denomination, are losing people. In the last 10 years the Orthodox Church lost 14,3 % of its believers, Catholics - 14,8%, mainline protestants -17,5%.

The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few

But at the same time we see unprecedented openings in the Bucharest Universities. Ionut, the team leader for the Bucharest Campus wrote that over 80 new students signed up for one-on-one mentoring on the first day they went to campus. It's a great problem to have.

But students that are in a mentoring relationship with our staff and volunteers urgently need a church community of faith with people their own age that live the faith on their daily circumstances. Otherwise it is very hard for them to stay in the discipleship process. See Mihai's story below.

Mihai joined our community in the fall of 2017. He was a student in Junior High.

Alina, his classmate and a strong believer, brought Mihai and five other students to our community almost every week. Soon Mihai decided to participate in a Bible study and he was mentored by one of our staff. His family was not very happy with his new spiritual interests.

However, in 2018, he transferred to a different school where he was the only believer. As he spent his time mostly with non-believers, he began to struggle with questions about life and purpose. Eventually, anxiety took hold of him. His new girlfriend didn't help and instead pushed him further away from the truth. He got into Yoga and had some occult experiences which made his situation worse. He kept avoiding his mentor and there were no believers on his campus to look after him. As a result, Mihai drifted away from God.

If only there would have been someone like Alina in his campus, who would speak the truth into his life and help him deal with his doubts and invite him to a church where he could meet Christians his age. Someone to show love and care like Jesus.

In Bucharest we need thousands of people like Alina.

This is how we are trying to accomplish that goal

Two years ago Octavian, invited by his friend Bogdan, came to our Summer Project. As a believer he went through the mentoring process, learned how to ask good questions and how to connect with unbelievers and shared the Gospel using the Worldview diagram. Last year Octavian came again at the Summer Project this time as a mentor for other Christian students.

This Spring, Octavian was one of the 12 people who went to Rome, to share the Gospel with Italian students. This way he learned to do ministry in a different context and took one more step into his training.

This summer we are looking forward to training 100 students like Octavian. On August 14th students from all over Romania will start the same process Octavian started 2 years ago. They will trained on how to share the Gospel and practice their new skills with people they will meet in the city.

Another great way of connecting with new people is through social projects. Two years ago we did kids games in a ghetto after we cleaned the field. Last year we renovated a kindergarten building in a village. Both times non-believers joined us as they've seen our Instagram/Facebook ads. We worked together, we ate together and we invited them into a mentoring relationship where they heard the Gospel. Some of them even went to a church for the first time in their lives. This year we pray that our studenst will share the Gospel with 200 non-believers students from Bucharest.

100 Students for 100.000 Students

Training 100 students may seem like not much compared to almost 100 000 college students that study in Bucharest alone. But Jesus is known for multiplying the very few loaves of bread and the fishes of a young boy to feed the multitudes. We are praying that He will multiply our resources again this summer!

The total cost per participant for the 5 days of the project covering the cost of accommodation and food is $270. The student contribution is $150

We are looking for people who will cover the rest of $120 scholarship that we want to provide each student. And this is where we need our help!

Would you be willing to support one student attend the project by making a donation of $120?