Raul, you are a good Muslim

Raul Costea - September NEWSLETTER

This is what Onur said to me when I was having a follow up conversation with him after our Muslim event that we had when the World Race was here. ​

Onur visited us to do an interview for the program that he is in. Before this, I had a deeper discussion with him. He told me that he is originally from Saudi Arabia. He moved to Turkey and practices Islam. 
I asked him, "If I wanted to follow Islam, what are the benefits? Where would I end up?” He said I would end up with God. The same God that the Hebrews and Christians have. The God of Abraham. 
So I asked him, “Can I be sure I will get to God?” 
He said that first you have to go to hell and pay for all of your sins and after you have paid, then you can go to God, but this is still not certain. 
I replied, “So Islam doesn’t have a savior, just a prophet, right? You have to save yourself?” 
He said “Yes.” 
“So you have to pay for your sins?” 
“Yes.” 
Then he asked me about what I believe. I told him that Christianity has a Savior, Jesus Christ, who paid for my sins. 
He asked me, “How did you get to this belief?” 
I told him that historical Christianity brought me more confusion than help me. And I said that because I knew about the crusades that happened long ago. I know that many Muslins were killed during the crusades by Christians. I told him that I do not identify with that kind of Christian. 
At that moment, he became more open and said, “So you do good things because you have to.” 
I replied, “I do good things because I want to. Jesus paid for my sins and I want to do things for him.” 
That's when he said, “Raul, you are a good Muslim.” 
I thought about what Paul said. With the Jews, I became like the Jews. With the Greek, I became like the Greek. I said to myself, “Lord, help me to be like a Muslim to gain a Muslim for Jesus. 


“I will make all things new”
Revelation 21:5 says. “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Isaiah 43:18-19 says “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Because of the women’s event we had recently, Ana started a new discipleship group with women. 
Because of the youth event we had recently, Rachel started a new discipleship group with 13-18 year olds. And I also started a new discipleship group with young people over 18. 
Because of the Muslim event, we have new ways to approach Muslims now. Instead of us telling them about our Jesus at first, we let them speak about their religion so that we can go deeper in relationship with them and then we can share the Gospel. 

We have 3 couples from our church that started a new family life together. 
Nicolas and Marina got married.
Lucian and Oana got married.
Lucian and Maya got married. 
May God bless each of their marriages. ​

​We are thankful for all of the new beginnings and trust God to continue the work He has started. 
Philippians 1:6 “...that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Praise Reports

1. God brought these 3 new families into our community. 
2. With God’s help, we have been able to pay the rent each month. 
3. The World Racers that were here truly had an impact in Craiova and many relationships were formed. 
4. The Muslim event went well and we have been able to continue building on some of those relationships. 
5. We’ve had 2 months with our E2E students and they are really taking everything in and God is doing a work in them and through them. 
6. Ana started a new women’s discipleship group after the women’s event.

Prayer Requests 

1. I want to start a new project. 300 for 300,000. I want to get 300 interviews and testimonies to share online with the 300,000 people in Craiova. 
2. Please pray that the COVID situation and new restrictions in Craiova will not restrict our ministry. 
3. We are still praying for someone to commit to donating $300 a month for the rent for our ministry center. 
4. I have begun a new sermon series about The Sermon on the Mount. 
5. We are expecting some more teams to come work alongside us and are praying that the new restrictions will not keep them out of Romania or restrict the evangelism that we plan to do.