YOUTH FOR CHRIST International

Youth For Christ is : YFC reaches young people everywhere, working together with the local church and other like-minded partners to raise up lifelong followers of Jesus who lead by their godliness in lifestyle, devotion to the Word of God and to prayer, passion for sharing the love of Christ and commitment to social involvement.

YFC began in 1944 when a group of Chicago evangelists shared their vision to reach teenagers with the Gospel. Currently, nearly 1500 adults are working in YFC ministries in nearly 200 local chapters across the United States. These staff members, together with 7500 volunteer workers and board members, are reaching out to lost teenagers in 1240 communities nationwide.

YFC, which is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, has chartered ministries in 74 other countries of the world. Overseas activities are directed by national leadership teams in each country.

YOUTH FOR CHRIST ROMANIA

Youth For Christ Romania started in 1991. Mark Montgomery, was members of European YFC, made first contact among Romanian Churches. He had good contacts with Romanian pastors and youth leaders. In February 1992, Mark and I, we went for 2 weeks to visit churches and youth groups. In 1993, I moved in Romania as YFC missionary.

YFC Romania ministries are to help local youth group and churches to develop Evangelizing among Youth and Teenagers.

YFC Romania is a N.G.O. registered in 1997.

I’m the only full time worker. I have several volunteers mainly in Arad, Zalau, Timisoara and Hateg.
– Evodia (teacher) and Lajos (pastor) Budai, are leading YFC ministries among Hungarian youth in Zalau. They are leading many clubs and discipleship trainings in Zalau, Cluj, Targu Mures and Satu Mare.
– Claudia (doctor) and Stefan (pastor) Ghinescu are leading discipleship groups in many villages in south Romania. Evodia and Claudia, they are helping me since the beginning of YFC Romania in 1993. They started first prayer groups.
– Dan Ivanc and Flavius, they are leading a group of 90 students in Timisoara. Every week they are helping several churches in Timisoara and around. And once a month we are going in Oltenia, in south of Romania, for helping very small churches in Orthodox Area.

Our ministries are: organizing music concerts, sport events, service projects, leading mission teams for helping small churches and Triple prayer groups. We have started to help sport mission with physical disable young peoples. And soon we will fish the renovation of our youth centre in Arad.

YOUTH FOR CHRIST Romania

In 1992, I was asked by YfC Europe to start up the evangelism ministry of YfC in Romania. This was quite a challenge for me, since I really started from scratch and I needed to organize everything: from administrative and legal matters to finding Romanians to help me in developing our ministries. On top of that I had no colleagues from abroad, all my partners were Romanian, and hence learning Romanian was the first big priority.

I prayed and prayed, since starting up a mission from nothing is not self-evident. By God’s grace I was been led to pastors who shared the same vision in bringing the Gospel to the youth of Romania.

The first ministry of YFC Romania in collaboration with local churches was to mobilize hundreds of youngsters to pray in triplets for young people in Romania. We have a very practical “prayer triplet” programme that helps youngsters to commit their non-Christians friends to the Lord in prayer on a weekly basis. I deliberately didn´t want to start off with an evangelism programme since I believe that every ministry must first be brought before God’s throne and supported by a committed group of people who pray for it.

It’s somehow like serving plates on a solid table. The table is the group of hundreds of people who are regularly praying and on whose shoulders we can drop all our evangelistic activities, which I believe are pleasing to God. 

Youth for Christ Romania is leading youth christian to share the Gospel to non-Christian youth, to create opportunities and situations in which non-Christian youngsters are confronted face to face with the Gospel. 

We have to particularly preach the good message of Jesus Christ where there are non-Christians.  Our responsibility is to go out to them and not to wait until they come to us. Therefore we encourage and build up young Christians and
confront them with their responsibility as described in Romans 10: 14: « How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed. And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard.  And how shall they hear without a preacher ? »

– Currently YFC Romania has three kinds of activities:

Prayer groups

Evangelism ministry

Social activities

In my function, my main responsibility is to organise activities. I’m the only full-time worker, but I am surrounded by more than 40 volunteers who give me a lot of their free time.

Prayer. We have not only hundreds of youngsters who pray but also almost 200 elderly people above the age of 60 who pray very specifically for the youth of Romania. We have a prayer programme and the prayer triplets that help young Christians to make prayer a priority in their Christian lives.

Evangelism. The ways to confront youngsters between 10 and 25 with the Gospel are very diverse. We organise sports activities in schools and in the open air. We have several open-air clubs. We organise numerous concerts and Christian music festivals.  These sport, music and other activities are just a means to attract youngsters. The real aim is to share with them the Gospel. And that’s why we preach during each of these activities the message of Jesus Christ.

Social. Among a multitude of social activities we have the possibility to share the Gospel.  Those social programmes mainly aim at giving schooling to children, adolescents and very poor gypsy families. We organise camps for youngsters with physical disabilities who use wheelchairs. To manage these social programmes well, we regularly welcome Christian teams from abroad, most often from Denmark and the USA.

God gave me lovely passion for Romanian peoples and I dedicate my life to serve our wonderful God. It’s my desire and prayer that YfC Romania may continue to have a place in missionary work in Romania so that thousands of youngsters may hear the wonderful good news.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. – Jeremiah 29.11