Our Ministry in the Gipsy Ghetto of Yambol
1990 We began serving in the Yambol area along with the local Pentecostal churches in the early 1990s after the Fall of the Berlin Wall
1992-93 Our team participated in a number of revival campaigns in the Gipsy Ghettos of Yambol, Sliven and Stara Zagora
1996 Along with Dr. Miroslav Atanasov of Sofia, we invested into the purchase of a building that is used for the meetings of the local Church of God led by its first pastor, who had mixed Gipsy-Turkish roots, brother Mitko Mohamed
2000 This was a turning point for the local congregation and many other minority groups in the region, as we led a Church of God campaign in several of the neighboring villages and regions stretching our outreach all the way to the Black Sea and the border between Bulgaria and Turkey
2001-04 In the years that followed, we completed a number of evangelistic campaigns in the Strandja Sakar region in South Eastern Bulgaria populated with predominantly Bulgarian speaking Turkish and Pomak people groups
2005 We renewed holding services in the Gipsy Ghetto of Yambol where by that time there were a dozen active Pentecostal congregations
2007 We helped restore the local United Church of God congregation after it had burnt down in a fire.
2008-09 After collaborating with local social services workers, our team devised an ethical guideline proposal for working with abused and abandoned children while consulting on project “Care for Orphans,” which worked with gypsy children of the area Ghettos
2010-11 We held services with many local youth groups, preaching the Gospel and praying for the people after showing the film Jesus for Children, after which dozens of people, both children and adults, accepted Christ as their personal savior confessing their sins and joining the local churches
2012 We have written extensively on the subject of Forming a Roma Gipsy Evangelical Identity in Bulgaria and our book on the subject is coming out for publication in the near future
Our Ministry Map in Europe
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Churches and Social Media
Kenneth E. Hagin: The Glory of God
Announcing BibleTech 2013
Announcing BibleTech: 2013! Seattle, Washington
Preparations are underway for BibleTech 2013. Set aside March 15-16, 2013 for a fresh look into the exciting ways that technology is affecting the way we study, visualize, and communicate the Scriptures.
Why Attend?
This is an exciting time for Bible technology! Web 2.0 and Internet-connected mobile devices offer new ways to interact with Scripture. Bible software developers are building new visualizations and data sets. Publishers are excited about delivering content electronically. And open source projects and APIs are sparking creativity and getting more people involved in developing technology for Bible study.
Yet with all the projects underway, there’s been little opportunity for focused networking and peer-to-peer learning.
BibleTech 2013 will inspire and inform you by:
- offering fresh ideas
- forging new relationships
- exposing you to the work others are doing at the intersection of Bible study and technology
Missio Nexus
“Missio Nexus,” a new cooperative missions network, has been launched as the umbrella association for world missions efforts from North America.
Until recently, two associations of missions agencies and denominations have operated in the United States and Canada: CrossGlobal Link (formerly IFMA) and The Mission Exchange (formerly EFMA). Church of God World Missions is a founding member of the former EFMA. In October 2010, the executive leadership and member agencies of both associations voted to merge, thus uniting into one association that will represent 35,000 North American missionaries globally.
The official launch of the new association and the announcement of the newly-branded network name comes in February 2012 during the North American missions bicentennial celebration. Membership and services will now be offered to individual members, missions training programs, and local churches, including participation in the next meeting of the North American Missions Leaders Conference, scheduled for September 20-21, 2012 in Chicago (see http://www.themissionexchange.org/ #mce_temp_url# for news, information, and member services).
Introducing Missio Nexus – Learning At The Speed of Life March VLOG from ehdesign on Vimeo.
MISSIONS TEST 3: Missionary Testament
Dony K. Donev, Cup & Cross Ministries International
The following World Missions series were sparked by a partial sign with the words “Missions Check,” we saw in Atlanta on our way to a mission’s trip to Europe just a weeks after the great tornado of 2011. We’ve observed the events that followed for over a year now, thus launching these series with a purpose. After serving in various ministry positions around the globe as a part of the Church of God for over 20 years, we have built a solid platform as a response to current problems and issues on the mission filed. In the past seven years alone, our ministry team has survived several consecutive denominational splits, and coming on the other side still preaching Jesus Christ and Him risen, this is what we have to state…
Check the Facts
Let’s face it – the simple truth is that as Pentecostals, we like to exaggerate. We love it when the numbers speak for themselves. The examples are so many that anywhere we look we find more numbers than actual people. The pastoral monthly reports must be there to ensure our way of life. Some even put a pen to the missionary’s statistics in order to calculate that every $33 or $55 or $77 given to missions returns as one saved human soul.
But do these numbers tell our story right? Hardly so! For who can count the tears shed in one’s intercessory prayer? And who can count the words of one’s heart cry toward God? Jesus Himself considered 99 as equal to the one lost, and the poor widow’s offering as much as all given by the rich. Seems appropriate to suggest that these are the real facts that count in the Kingdom of Heaven and they are the facts we should consider even in this earthly life.
Check the People
When you get down and personal with the issue, the problem is not in the numbers, but in the people who create them. Because before they are seen by all around us, facts are created first and foremost in the hearts of people and there lays the weakest link of any group of people. Wrong attitudes like jealousy, gossip, unconstructive criticism, disloyalty to leadership and negation of goals will ultimately affect the performance and can even destroy the group.
Even secular corporate companies for years have searched for people with a certain level of emotional intelligence (EI), defined as the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. It is said that EI has a direct effect on maximum performance and building relationships with personality. But working in the spiritual world, the control of emotion is not sufficient. What the church needs is people with spiritual intelligence (SI); and not merely a corporate based combination of Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ), but a truly Pentecostal, in-the-Spirit formed form of spiritual inelegance identified with spiritual knowledge, professional training and adequate experience in the ministry.
Check Yourself
The truth of the matter is that many see neither the people nor the facts, but are out for number one. This self-indulging political agenda has brought us to a point in the history of our church where we are not who we say we are anymore. The contrasts in our identity are so many, that five Pentecostal generations later, we stand at the verge of unprecedented identity crises for which very few have realistic answers or solutions.
1. Check your overall motives for missions and ministry. Thirty days of solitude fasting always helps clear the mind and the body from unnecessary baggage.
2. If there is sin, it is you at fault, not someone else. Make sure it is dealt with in a timely and proper fashion or it will destroy you within.
3. Forgive without forgetting. This means to keep on forgiving every time you remember the fault of the other person. If your brother has offended you, it is you that needs to find forgiveness (Mt. 19)
4. If you see one fallen by the road, it is you that must take care of him/her. You may be the only solution for the problems nearest to you.
5. Take responsibility in owning your feelings. Bitterness is a strong weapon in the hands of the enemy, but even negative emotions are a powerful tool in the hand of the Lord.
6. Express yourself. Start a blog and keep posting at least twice weekly. Then sum it all in a book and publish it. You will be surprised how many followers will find you.
7. Start preaching out of your comfortable zone, without a pulpit or set time. Broadcast it on uStream, publish it on YouTube. Whatever it takes you, get out there and just preach Jesus.
8. Appoint a morning hour for prayer and keep it just for you and God regardless of what may be going on around you.
9. Read all the books you were supposed to read in seminary. If you missed seminary, now may be a good time to submit your application.
10. Find other ways to grow. Not just as a professional or an expert, but as your own person. Be a self worth being.
11. Whatever you do, do not stay in the dry, out in the desert. There is a whole new promised land waiting for you. Surpass the midlife urges to bottle up your emotions and just keep on walking.
12. Remember: the place where you are going is worth all the effort.
Related articles:
Missions Test 1: Mission, Method & Message (2012)
Missions Test 2: Means, Motive & Opportunity (2012)
MissionSHIFT (Part 1): Paradoxes in Missions (2011)
MissionSHIFT (Part 2): Free Will Missions (2011)
MissionSHIFT (Part 3): WebMissions – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (2011)
M3: Missions for the Third Millennium – A Public Position (2010)
8 Simple Rules for Doing Missions in the Spirit (2009)
Church of God Eastern Europe Missions: Leadership, Economics and Culture (2009)
Read also: Why I decided to publish Pentecostal Primitivism?
