The Season for Giving

In cooperation with various local businesses and partnering churches, Cup and Cross Ministries was able to donate several hundred toys during this Christmas season. We want to especially thank Wildwood Wholesale and the Spartanburg Church of God for there contributions.

In a country of plenty we often take for granted the simple things in life such as the small gift under the tree on Christmas morning. But in a foreign country where most families live in economic hardship with the reality of a past of 45 of years persecution, from the communist regime, in which Christmas was strictly forbidden, this small gift is cherished.

Our team on location was able to personally give out these blessings and transform the faces of many during this Christmas Season. We thank all who were able to participate.

Merry Christmas

Website for Church Leaders Released

At the end of 2007, our team in Bulgaria released a new website dedicated to the subject of church leadership. The website incorporates materials, study guides and Bible studies from leading authors like George Barna and John Maxwell. It is a long awaited tool for training of both ministers and laity.

Gospel of John Released for Christmas

Cup & Cross Ministries has scheduled the release of a new Bulgarian translation of the Gospel of John on Christmas day. The translation was prepared during the past three years from Nestle-Aland (27th ed.) of the Greek New Testament and follows a literal word-for-word methodology. It purposes to provide:

1. A literal translation in the Bulgarian vernacular, which common interlinears are unable to provide.

2. Preservation of the word order from the original text, except where grammatically impossible.

3. Preservation of the Greek grammatical forms, as well as the Hebrew and Aramaic linguistic uniqueness of the text.

4. Preservation of the original parts of speech and verb tenses.

Bulgarian Audio Bible

The Bulgarian Audio Bible is one of our web ministry projects in progress. We first introduced the Bulgarian Audio Bible in 2003 and since then it has been one of the most popular downloads in the Bulgarian internet space. In the very first month that it was introduced some 3,000 complete copies of the Bulgarian audio New Testament were freely distributed. The whole Bible was recorded in the Bulgarian vernacular in 2003 and became the first Bulgarian Audio Bible ever.

During our National Bible Tour in 2005, we released a new version of the Bulgarian Audio Bible making the product more user-friendly in an online parallel along with four audio versions of the Bible (KJV, Hebrew, Greek and Bulgarian). Since then, over 10,000 copies of the full Bulgarian Audio Bible are being distributed over the internet every month.

In 2006, we released the Bulgarian Audio Bible in a new DVD format. Some 36,000 complete copies were downloaded in the first month of its release making it the most popular Bulgarian software. With this in mind, our internet traffic surpassed ½ petabyte, which equals 500 TB. For comparison, San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) has a 1-petabyte hard disk store attached to the National Science Foundation\’s TeraGrid network.

You can listen to Psalm 23 in Bulgarian here: http://bible.netbg.com/bible/bg/psalms23.mp3.

Ministering at Hamer, SC

It is always a joy to minister across South Carolina and we are thankful that we have had so many opportunities to hold revival and missions services since our return. But it has been years since we have preached in the lower part of the state and it was a real trill to be reacquainted with old friends of ours this week as we ministered in the Dillon/Hamer area.

The Story of Jesus for Children

The Story of Jesus for Children is one of our web ministry projects in progress. We first introduced the film as soon as it was made available in the Bulgarian vernacular in the summer of 2006. Since then, it has generated approximately 3,000 downloads per month in its DivX version. In September, 2007 we introduced its original DVD version which contained translation in Bulgarian, Turkish, Armenian, Russian and Romani (Gipsy) languages. Some 42,000 downloads of its DVD version were completed that month as our internet traffic surpassed ½ petabyte, which equals 500 TB. We are now working toward the release of the DivX version in Turkish and Romani (Gipsy) languages.