Mega Youth Rally in Plovdiv
For over a year now, we have preparing for our visit to Plovdiv, the second largest Bulgarian city built long before the time of the Roman Empire. During the 2005 Bible Tour, our team was unable to schedule a meeting there regardless of the numerous invitations we received from pastors and churches. This year we were invited by three Plovdiv churches and were able to schedule a service for the end of September. Almost four hundred youth from various churches in the region came for the service on Saturday night. The host church offered a superb time of praise and worship as pastor Simeonov welcomed the gathered youth. Our team showed a brief media presentation about our work followed by a powerful message calling for rededication to purity and faithfulness. However, the alter service surprised us all. Over four hundred young people came forth for prayer. Everyone present knelt at the alter where for the next hour we experienced the power and the presence of God. This time was so powerful and consuming that it was half an hour after the prayer when we realized that no one of the team or the youth was able to take a picture of the alter service. We have never experienced God in such a powerful way taking hold of everyone without exception in such a powerful manner. And for all this, the glory belongs to Him.
Services in Ahtopol
Since September 15th we have been holding regular services in Ahtopol and Sinemoretz. Located on the Black Sea coast, these towns are summer resorts which are left with several hundred inhabitants at the end of the season. However, it was exactly at this time when the Holy Spirit called us for a series of services in these locations. We have been holding three services a week in Ahtopol; Wednesday and Friday nights and Sunday morning. We intend to remain holding regular services except for the dates of two previously scheduled revivals and other services, and among the upcoming Mega Youth Rallys in Plovdiv, Sliven and Yambol.
Mega Youth Rally in Varna
As apart of the ten year anniversary of the creation of Bibliata.com, we were invited to hold another Mega Youth Rally in the city of Varna near the Black Sea. One of the goals of the National Bible Tour has been to unite youth groups regardless of any existing barriers including denominational ones. Since the opening of the tour in Stara Zagora, we have been able to witness how God is the uniting force which brings people together regardless of differences. The event in Varna was hosted by the First Assemblies of God, while virtually every other evangelical congregation in the region was represented in a 400+ attendance.
The service began at 6:30 with worship which continued for over an hour. The message entitled the King Can’t Sleep was based on the book of Esther chapter six. The sermon was followed by a tremendous altar call where more than 400 youth rededicated their lives in service to the Lord. The praise and worship continued past 10:00 pm.
There has been something distinctly different about each of the youth rallies we have held as part of the National Bible Tour. We are thankful for this uniqueness of each event which is a direct result of leadership of the Holy Spirit. For only the Spirit knows what is needed for a particular time and a particular people.
10 Years Bibliata.com
September 2006 marked the ten year anniversary of the creation of one of our ministry websites, Bibliata.com. Ten years ago on an old computer running on a 386 processor and 4MB of memory, the first texts of the Bulgarian Bible were prepared into a digital format. Now ten years later a consortium of over a dozen Christian websites is creating a new subculture in Bulgaria’s internet to form a context where Christian values and Biblical principles for life are again becoming motivating and governing powers of society.
For us, this anniversary is a sign that dreams can become reality. As part of the anniversary celebration in July we initiated the National Bible Tour 2006. We have already held, with great success, mega youth rallies in the towns of Stara Zagora, Yambol, Shumen and Bourgas along with our team’s direct participation at the New Wave-Sarafovo and Karandila summer youth camps. We have scheduled youth rallies in Varna, Plovdiv and Sliven for the months of September and October. Two weeks of revival services in Sofia and Bourgas are also planned as part of our Revival Harvest Campaign 2006.
Mega Youth Rally in Bourgas
The second weekend of September our National Bible Tour was held in the First Assemblies of God in the port-sea city of Bourgas. Saturday night, youth groups from town and the surrounding area gathered for a mega youth service during which we premiered our infomercial created for Bibliata.com’s 10-year anniversary. When asking the youth how many use the services of the websites, almost all in attendance raised their hands. This has been the case virtually every place which we have traveled and we are thankful to the Lord for the great potential bibliata.com and the media consortium has reached. We do ask that you keep our Bible Tour in your prayers because it is not without opposition that we are doing what the Lord has called us to do.
In the Sunday morning service we ministered to the first Bulgarian Pentecostal congregation through delivering a message on the Spirit of Pentecost. The alter serve after the message brought virtually all together in prayer, as people were kneeling and crying throughout the building. During our time of ministering in Bourgas we were asked to hold a series of revival services in various Black Sea towns, which will take place in the next few weeks with a concluding week of revival in Bourgas.
Viara TV Board Established
On September 5, 2006 the Spiritual Advisory Board of the new TV channel, Vaiara TV (Faith TV) was established and constituted in the capital Sofia. The board will be working on the new program strategy with television shows reaching a maximum public of the Bulgarian-speaking population in the country of Bulgaria and abroad.
Blagovest Belev, president and executive producer of the Shalom TV Production Company is chairman of the board. The writer Boris Ditchev and the publisher Dimitrina Nikolova will serve as board members. The young actor Daniel Angelov will be responsible for public relations and contacts, while the legal council Valery Zhdrakov will secure the legal side of the project. Dony Donev, author of the popular Christian websites www.bibliata.com, www.propovedi.net and www.hvalenie.com, will serve as a board member responsible for Internet and media.
Viara TV will reflect on the religious convictions of the Bulgarian people with respect to all delicate topics and in search for a new paradigm of religious tolerance. The faith within, as an alternative for the lack of spirituality, sinfulness and denial of moral values, will be the guiding light in all television productions shown by the new Christian channel.
30 Days of Prayer
In church today, we talk, read and learn a lot about prayer. Yet, the truth is that in today we do not pray as before. The church of the 21t century is not a praying church. Therefore, on its’ 10-year anniversary and as a part of the National Bible Tour 2006, during the month of September www.bibliata.com calls for 30 Days of Prayer – a national prayer strategy including current, urgent needs of the Bulgarian Evangelical Movement.Week 1
September 1, 2006 – Restoration of the Backslidden
September 2, 2006 – Church Leadership: Bulgarian Pastors and Ministers
Week 2
September 3, 2006 – National Revival in Bulgaria
September 4, 2006 – Spiritual and Physical Harvests
September 5, 2006 – Restoration of Protestant Evangelical Heritage
September 6, 2006 – Unification of the Bulgarian Nation and the Bulgarian Church (In observance of Unification Day in Bulgaria)
September 7, 2006 – Renewal of Family Ties
September 8, 2006 – Child Protection
September 9, 2006 – Mission Work
Week 3
September 10, 2006 – The Hopeless (In observance of World Suicide Prevention Day)
September 11, 2006 – Against Fear (In observance of Patriot Day in the United States)
September 12, 2006 – Sexual Purity and Biblical Moral Principles in the Bulgarian Society
September 13, 2006 – Sanctification and Prayer for Restoration of Holiness in the Bulgarian Church
September 14, 2006 – Return Toward Evangelical Roots
September 15, 2006 – Students of Bulgaria (In observance of the first day of school in Bulgaria)
September 16, 2006 – National Day of Fasting for the Bulgarian Evangelical Movement
Week 4
September 17, 2006 – The Country of Bulgaria
September 18, 2006 – National Prosperity
September 19, 2006 – Abortion Prevention and Prayer for Mothers Who Have Had an Abortion (In observance of Abortion Prevention Day in Bulgaria)
September 20, 2006 – Deliverance from Addictions (In observance of the National Addiction Counselors’ Day)
September 21, 2006 – World Peace (In observance of the International Day of Peace)
September 22, 2006 – Spiritual Freedom (In observance of Independence Day in Bulgaria)
September 23, 2006 – Spirit of Forgiveness
Week 5
September 24, 2006 – Restoring of Friendships and Relationships (In observance of National Good Neighbor Day)
September 25, 2006 – Against Stress and Results of Stress
September 26, 2006 – Physical Healing and Deliverance
September 27, 2006 – Peace for Israel
September 28, 2006 – A Fresh Anointing
September 29, 2006 – The Persecuted Believers
September 30, 2006 – Strength and Endurance
