Mission Bulgaria Week 20

Week 20 – December 31, 2001 – January 6, 2002 – Sofia, BULGARIA

Monday we celebrated New Years Eve with an address by the former President of Bulgaria, Peter Stoyanov and with firework displays all through out the capital. Then on Tuesday morning, the first day of the New Year, it is a tradition to “surovak” people. A “surovaknitza ” is a decorated branch used on New Years day to bring health and luck to the receiver of a pat on the back with it.

Wednesday night Dony preached on Revelation 21, a sermon entitled “A Place Called Heaven”. He spoke on how scripture tells us that there will be 12 gates in Heaven and he depicted the picture of 12 equal segments, which visually represents a clock and the center of all is God, the light source. Then on Sunday we moved to a different auditorium in the National Palace of Cultures and Dony’s Sunday School Lesson was on Tithing and Giving.

Some areas in Bulgaria have up to 10 feet of snow and it is extremely difficult to travel. The Danube River, which borders Bulgaria and Romania, is completely frozen and ships cannot travel freely. And because of the excess cold, the student holiday break will be increased by one week.

Dony has been invited to teach three seminars respectively on Pentecostal Ecclesiology, Pneumotology, and Eschatology at the Bulgarian Evangelical Theological Institute (B.E.T.I.) in Sofia. He has also submitted an article to a local Christian magazine called “Bulgarian Theology” in a dialog between different Christian formations in Bulgaria. The magazine will come out in February. We are also preparing to publish in Bulgarian a 14-lesson Sunday School commentary on the Declaration of Faith.