30 Years of Miracles: 2002

Week 22 of Mission BULGARIA 2002 (January 13-20, 2002 – Sofia, BULGARIA)

This past Sunday we traveled to Pravetz for a coordinating meeting with pastors and members from the area. In the small upper room 64 were present not only from Pravetz but also from the towns of Botevegrad, Yablanitza, Etropole and I brought a short message on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, after which we had prayer for healing. People were coming to the front crying and kneeling wherever they found a place to receive prayer by the pastors. There was hardly any room to walk around the pulpit, as God poured out His Spirit and many were touched.

Week 24 of Mission BULGARIA 2002 (January 17-February 2, 2002 – Sofia, BULGARIA)

On Wednesday we started the service with a new worship team of seven musicians and singers and then I preached on Galatians chapter three. During the altar service we witnessed a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit as many cried, prayed and received miracles from God. Another good report came from the small village in the Rodopi Mountains (Southern Bulgaria). The village is close to the Turkish border and it is completely Muslim. The only three Christian converts were Pentecostal. In the beginning of this week they were approached by the Muslim imam (local chief of the town mosque), who asked them of their faith. As they explained what they believed, the imam who was in a wheel chair said, “If your God is real he can heal me now, can’t He?” The Christians prayed for him right on the small city squire in front of the mosque and the village people. The imam was instantly and completely healed. It was reported that by the end of the week the mosque was closed because no one attended any longer.

Week 24 of Mission BULGARIA 2002 (February 3-10, 2002 – Sofia, BULGARIA)

On Sunday we held a Communion service in the Pravetz Church of God. There, the more traditional for the Bulgarian Church of God style of taking Communion is still preserved, as it includes foot washing and a special prayer for the sick with anointing. After the service two reported instant healing.

Reporting from Bulgaria (October 1, 2002)

We have had services every day since July 9, 2002. Our team was able to start a new church in the Nedaialsko village. At first we began our meetings in the Orthodox temple there. As the congregation is growing rapidly, we believe for miracles among the younger people in the village. In another village, Kamenetz, the mayor sent us firewood to prepare for the coming winter. He and two other men cut and split the wood themselves and now we are ready for the winter. We have 5 services every week in that village. The believers have organized a continuous chain fast and prayer as God has answered many prayers, healed and given miracles in various situations. They are also very committed in helping our team.

December 2002 Day by Day Ministry Report from Bulgaria (December 31, 2002)

December 1: Dinner at the Gipsy church of Apo, Yambol

Services in Alexandrovo, Polyana and Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 2: Services in Polyana, Kamenetz and Leyarovo (80 miles traveled)

December 3: Regular radio broadcast and Bible study seminar at Kamenetz

(60 miles traveled)

December 4: District service with people from Polyana, Kamenetz, Saransko and Leyarovo (60 people present/ 86 miles traveled)

December 5: Services in Lulin, Bogorovo, Polyana and Kamenetz (80 miles traveled)

December 6: Services in Blatetz (44 miles traveled)

December 8: Services in Alexandrovo, Polyana and Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 9: Services in Polyana and Kamenetz and Leyarovo (80 miles traveled)

December 10: Regular radio broadcast and service at Kamenetz (60 miles traveled)

December 11: Services in Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 15: Services in Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 16: Services in Alexandrovo, Polyana, Kamenetz and Leyarovo (83 miles traveled)

December 17: Regular radio broadcast and service in Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 18: Service in Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 19: Services in Lulin, Bogorovo, Polyana and Kamenetz (80 miles traveled)

December 21: Services in Lulin (65 miles traveled)

December 22: Services in Alexandrovo, Polyana and Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 23: Services in Leyarovo (86 miles traveled)

December 24: Regular radio broadcast and service in Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 25: Christmas service in Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 26: Christmas service in Lulin (73 miles traveled)

December 27: Christmas service for the churches of Saransko, Tamarino and Lulin (110 present)

December 29: Services in Alexandrovo, Polyana and Kamenetz (65 miles traveled)

December 30: Home prayer service in Yambol because of heavy snow

December 31: Home prayer service in Yambol because of heavy snow

This book should have been published seven years ago in 2013. Its original subtitle was going to read “7 Years in Bulgaria.” Instead, it took seven years to finish it with all documents, research archives and new cases. Now, it is finally here and it finally reads like a story – not just choppy interviews, deposition documented testimonies or court records, but a story of struggle, strength and solitude. A story of life and a story of us.

1995-96 The establishing of the first Bulgarian Church of God in Chicago and its first split

2000-01 The contracted building of the ministry center for the Central Church of God in Sofia

2002-03 The church split in Southaven and what followed next

2005-06 The post-communist split of the Bulgarian Church of God and consecutive sub-denominations

2010-13 The social media network that cost us millions (of souls)

2016 The vote that forced to kill a church

2019-20 The sale of the ministry center for the Central Church of God in Bulgaria

READ: CONFESSIONS of a Pentecostal Preacher

CONFESSIONS of a Pentecostal Preacher

To Mark Alan
We know not why good people have to die,
but we do know we must tell their story…

Chapter I: Beyond the Church and into God

Be without fear in the face of your enemies.
Be brave and upright that God may love thee.
Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death.
Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong.
That is your oath.
~Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Separation of church from politics of false religiosity

The phone rang heavy and long. It was 4 AM in Bulgaria, but I was already up. A friend on the other end of the line was calling from South Carolina with a warning of some bad situation. The following morning, I was going to be contacted by the Director questioning why we were ministering in churches outside of our denomination.

The truth was we had ministered in some 300 local churches across the Balkan country of Bulgaria crossing all denominational boundaries and gathering youth from just about every confession. God had used us not only to reach and minister and to lead, but to step into an untouched spiritual realm, to undertake an unfamiliar ministry paradigm and to approach a brand new dimension of reality where He was to be the center of it all. And we had obeyed without questions. Now it was time to pay the price!

* * *

Our denomination, the one to which I remain both critically loyal and loyally critical, spreads over some five generations. Through its century old existence, the struggles and tension between theology and praxis has been in the center. And there, in the very essence of Pentecostalism itself, while some are always celebrating and being celebrated in the office or temple, others are always pushed in the periphery of normal life, hidden from the world behind closed doors and seeking a much deeper experience with God.

These modern day mystics are not only forgotten, but often forbidden. For their riot for righteousness cannot be conceived, contained and controlled by the religious norms of organized officiality. They speak as prophets to a world they so fervently try to escape from, about a reality that does not exist in the normal believer’s mindset. A stage of spirituality that cannot be preached without being lived in the social existence. And a relationship of God that goes far beyond common relationism and into God himself. That God, Who does not abide in offices and temples, but on the cross outside of the city walls…

But I knew nothing of this until that cold winter morning when the phone rang through darkness of the night. Knowing what is coming, rarely changes what we have done to get here.

7 Years in Bulgaria: CONFESSIONS of a Pentecostal Preacher
by Dony K. Donev, D.Min.
Upcoming Releases for United States (October, 2020)