Patrick is one of our Live Dead advocates after visiting us along the Silk Road on an intensive. Check out this story of his experience sharing the gospel with university students in one of our largest Central Eurasian cities. 

During this trip, we were near a local university in a large city in Central Eurasia. While we were walking by the campus, we ran into a Dean of the university, who happened to speak English, and he offered to show us around the school. We felt like this was an opportunity from God, because it isn’t possible to get on the campus without being a student or faculty member.

At the end of the tour, he took us to a terrace where the students love to hang out. While on this terrace, we talked to students and were able to share the gospel with some of them. The students there spoke English pretty well, so we could all talk with them freely. During that time, my group spoke with a student named Vatan. Vatan was a self-proclaimed atheist, which is significant, because virtually all locals claim to be Muslim, even if they are not devout. Later, the Live Dead missionary, Jeff, said that he had never met anyone in the country so far who claimed to be an atheist outright.  

When talking with Vatan, it was easy to argue with him since our world views clashed. Jeff, however, while he admittedly was prone to arguing and was even skilled at it, simply presented the gospel to Vatan and deflected many of his arguments. He humbled himself instead exalting his abilities to argue.

I observed that his sole purpose was to preach Christ alone and Christ crucified, and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit.

Watching this exchange was really impactful for me. I value arguing the apologetics of the Bible but preaching the gospel simply and concisely can be more powerful and certainly more humbling. I intend to do this more often, relying on the Holy Spirit, instead of appealing to my knowledge to convince others of the truth about Jesus.