Mission Bulgaria Week 19

NEWS – Week 19 – December 25-30, 2001 – Sofia, BULGARIA

Merry Christmas and happy New Year from Bulgaria:

This is Kathryn Barton reporting on behalf of my fiancée, Dony K. Donev and Cup and Cross Ministries International.

On Monday night, which was Christmas Eve, we celebrated Christmas with a traditional Bulgarian dinner with Banitza, which is a baked strudel like pastry filled with egg and cheese (for the Banitza Recipe click here ). Then for desert we had Baklava with walnuts. The weather permitted for a perfectly white Christmas. Dony said he has not seen so much snow in his whole life. The temperatures were constantly –17C (5F), which is the coldest it has been for the past 30 years here in Bulgaria.

On Tuesday morning we attended a Christmas service, which was held by Rumen Ivanov, the brother of the Overseer of the Bulgarian Church of God, Pavel Ignatov. The service was opened with a skit performed by the youth of the church and afterwards Dony greeted the church, Rumen Ignatov preached and there was a time of testimonials and singing of Christmas chorals.

On Wednesday night Dony preached on Revelation chapter 20. Then on Thursday we where able to go and minister to the Church of God Congregation in Pravetz, where Dony preached a sermon entitled “Christ in Christmas”. Then while in the area we were also able to visit Yablanitza, which is about a 30-minute drive from Pravetz. Here we saw the new building of the Church of God. Dony pastored the Yablanitza church in 1991-1993. Now, one of the former members of Dony’s youth group in Pravetz serves there as a pastor.

On the weekend we went site seeing around Sofia. We visited the Alexander Nevski Cathedral which is also called the Golden Church because of its Golden dome roof. We also saw Sofia University “Clement Ohridsky,” the National Library “Ivan Vazov,” and the Bulgarian Parliament with the monument of “Tzar Osvoboditel” (The Deliverer Czar (King)).

On Sunday morning Dony taught his Sunday School Lesson in the National Palace of Cultures on “Foot Washing”. Afterwards we had dinner with the overseer’s family.