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Issue link: http://magazine.kcm.org/i/1132066
His life until now hadn’t been bad. He lived with his parents and younger brother in a loving family. His father worked at a technical facility as a mathematician. His mother worked in schools as a dentist. Back in 1992, computers, phones and the internet weren’t available in his country. For a kid in a communist state, he’d lived a normal life—occupying his time by playing sports and games outdoors. Still, when Nikola assessed his life, he considered himself adrift. Untethered. Irresponsible. Out of 1250 classes required to move to the next grade, he had skipped 1200. It wasn’t that he couldn’t grasp his studies. He just didn’t want to bother with them. He preferred working out, strengthening his body for what he loved—sports. He did graduate eventually, but he really didn’t care. The first quake in life as he’d known it, had been the fall of communism. That had opened the door to waves of people who had previously been forbidden to enter the country. Missionaries had come with outrageous stories about God and how He loved people. They spoke with reverence about a Name no one in Bulgaria knew—Jesus. Nikola had just returned from another city where a guy had told him about the Name. He’d heard about the Garden. Sin. The Fall of Man. He’d heard about Jesus, Calvary, death and hell. He’d heard about a new kind of life as a believer. The message had tugged at his heart in a way that nothing else ever had. That was the choice he had to make—whether or not to follow Jesus and serve Him. Nikola stood still, listening to the sounds of children playing. The hustle and bustle of city life. Making a choice, he bowed his head, pouring out his heart to God, repenting of all his sins. Then, as his friend had suggested, he asked Jesus into his heart. Afterward, Nikola felt different. No more adrift, he felt tethered to something or Someone greater than himself. In that divine connection, Nikola felt something about his life he had never experienced. Purpose. A New Life in Christ “Jesus’ presence in my life instantly filled it with purpose,” Nikola recalls. “I was a different person who made different decisions. Until then, I’d been interested in sports. Now I wanted nothing more than to serve God. “The first thing I did was lead my brother to the Lord, then my parents, and my grandparents on both sides of the family. Before long, every member of my family was a Christian. My mother was 41 years old, and she had never heard the Name of Jesus. None of my family had—not even my grandparents. I later learned that there had been an underground church all along, but it had been persecuted so hard that after the fall of communism, only a few pastors, now in their 90s, had survived the atrocities of the regime against the evangelical church. “I spent a lot of time praying, asking God to connect me with other believers. We lived in a block of apartments, 100 families in each block. One hundred apartments on eight floors with four entrances. I witnessed to my best friend, and he became a Christian. Together, we started evangelizing the kids on the block. Soon, we had won about 25 other young people to the Lord. We started meeting together in my home. * * * * article continues on p. 16 * * * * BVOV : 15