2008: The Year of New Things
“And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful”
Revelation 21:5
We are approaching 2008 with great anticipation that God is readying us for a new thing, as we are reminded that our spiritual anticipation has been built since 2005 which we called the Year of the Spirit. Then, 2006 followed as Year of Promises and indeed we all saw promises being fulfilled and visions coming to a definite reality. The very beginning of 2007 came as the Year of Breakthrough, and today we can testify of a Divine Breakthrough in both spiritual and material realms.
Now, God is preparing us for something new in 2008. We are anticipating developments in every area of life and ministry. We believe it and we proclaim it . 2008: Something new is about to happen.
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
December 15, 2007 by Cup&Cross
Filed under Publication
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
December 10, 2007 by Cup&Cross
Filed under Publication
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.
The Jesus Film Project Online
The Jesus Film Project in the Bulgarian vernacular is one of our web ministry projects in progress. We first introduced the Bulgarian version of the Jesus Film on the internet in 2006. It was offered in its original DVD form and in another compressed DivX format. To much of our surprise, over 10,000 copies of the film were downloaded in the first three days after it was posted. This number doubled every month that followed, but in September, 2007 it reached its peak of 46,000 downloads. That month 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. We give God the glory.
Research Trip to Urbana, IL
Our third trip to the University of Illinois’s library to discover books and materials on the subject of Bulgarian Protestantism was successful again. Among the findings was a very important book about the famous Pastor’s Trial in Bulgaria. Its story is indeed worth sharing.
In 1949, five years after communism took over in Bulgaria, fifteen evangelical pastors were tried and sentenced to years of imprisonment for allegedly serving as spies for the United States, England and France. This was the first of several waves arranged by the communist government to behead the evangelical movement from its true leaders while implanting secret agents as pastors and ministers within the church. In fact, the Pastors’ Trial was just a small part of a larger political scheme through which the Regime attempted to remove ideological leaders of various Bulgarian professional groups like political leaders, chief of military departments, lawyers, doctors, scholars and such. Unfortunately, following Stalin’s directives, the Communist party of Bulgaria was very successful in executing or imprisoning most prominent leaders in Bulgaria, thus dooming the country to an era of political, economical and social ignorism, which ensured the implementation of their proletarian agenda. As preachers of freedom and puritan values, evangelical pastors naturally opposed the drastic move of the Regime toward dictatorial totalitarianism.
While researching the subject at the University of Illinois, it became apparent that immediately after the trial of 1949, the Bulgarian Communist government ordered the publication of a book which was intended to inform the Western world of the “crimes” of the evangelical pastors. The book was written in satisfactory English, perhaps with the help of a native English speaker, printed in the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia and then distributed around the world. To much of our surprise, the publication contained an English translation of the “confessions” which were extracted from the pastors during the trial and presented as evidence against them.
Later publications contain the memoirs of several of the pastors, as they describe the horrible ways of torture, starvation and depravity of sleep, used to obtain the confessions. Unfortunately, since many of them spent over a decade in various prisons without any means of communicating with the outside world and recording facts and events, the contents of the confessions were impossible to reproduce in their memoirs.
This publication, however, gives a full account of the texts as recorded by agents of the Communist militia. This is the first time that we have become aware of the existence of such publication, as it has been virtually unspoken of by both Bulgarian and foreign studies on the topic. In the future, we will be comparing the English translations with the partial publications of other “confessions” in various Bulgarian periodicals of that time in order to discover variants and modifications between the text intended for the Bulgarian public and the text translated and published for the Western reader.
