National Chaplaincy Meeting
Our team just returned from Northern Bulgaria where we participated in the national chaplaincy meeting of which we wrote you a few weeks ago. Ten Bulgarian regions with active ministry to the military were represented. Among the participants were people who work with families serving in the air force, army and navy. The major issues discussed were (1) media presentation of the chaplaincy work before the major evangelical denominations in Bulgaria and the secular society, (2) dealing with stress-related issues at the work place, (3) system restructuring to meet the needs of the growing ministry and (4) the mandatory legal affairs currently restricting chaplaincy in Bulgaria. The participants discussed and approved a national agenda for the next six months, which will work on the above problems and provide timely practical solutions. A priority on the list was the presentation of chaplaincy ministry before Bulgarian evangelical denominations, which will take place through a series of media events in the next few weeks.
Services at Samokov Church of God
We just returned from Samokov, which is one of the oldest industrial towns in Sofia. Almost 200 years ago the first protestant missionaries to Bulgaria discovered its strategic location and used it as a halfway point between Europe and Asia in their mission trips. Soon a modern American school opened its’ doors and some of the brightest minds of the Bulgarian Renaissance were educated there. We visited with one of the Roma (Gipsy) churches in town and held a Sunday service plus two youth rallies. These services were part of our national ministry and support to the Roma people of Bulgaria.
Return to Yablanitza Church of God
Because of its strategic importance in our ministry, the return to Yablanitza has been a long planned event. During a successful pastoral term in 1992-1993, we were able to encourage the church to continue and complete its prolonged building program. Several of our closest friends were also instrumental in preparing the blueprints and sponsoring the building project. As a result a modern ministry complex is now active in the town of Yablanitza as a part of the Bulgarian Church of God ministry there.
We returned to Yablanitza for a series of revival services and were able to minister to a good number of people while there. The revisiting with old friends and precious memories were both refreshing and motivating. We are praying to be able to conduct another revival series in the area and to minister in the Yablanitza church in the near future.
Bibliata.com Tour in Botevgrad
The next trip of the tour took us to Botevgrad, a small mountain town in the heart of the Bulgarian mountains. Botevgrad was a strong industrial center during the years of communism, but these times are long passed. Like other Bulgarian towns, many of the people have left their homes to work abroad.
A friend of ours organized the tour in Botevgrad. He was saved after his sister, who was part of the Pravetz youth group in the 1990s, invited him to a prayer meeting and witnessed to him. The tour was conducted as a town wide youth meeting and a number of churches were present. Our team taught several of the Bible modules encouraging and educating the youth to use electronic means to keep the Bible in their daily walk.
NATO Picks Three Military Bases
The firing field of Novo Selo, the airport at Bezmer and the Burgas port are subject of the negotiations between NATO and Bulgaria, former first diplomat Solomon Passy announced. While on a visit to Black Sea’s Burgas, Passy, who is now head of the parliamentary foreign police committee, said some two-three thousand US militaries are expected to be deployed in these three locations.
A NATO military delegation is to arrive in Bulgaria October 1, Solomon Passy added, to further talks on the military deployment with the new government of the Balkan country. Solomon Passy specified that the military port of Burgas is not at the moment on the list of negotiated locations, but he stressed that “Bulgaria should be ready to respond with provision of bases and facilities to any possible need of the EU or NATO.”
The USA and NATO have been eyeing Bulgarian military bases for troops deployment possibilities. As an expected outer door of the EU, should it becomes member of the Union in 2007, and an effective Alliance member, Bulgaria has been seen as a strategic partner in the western policy to the Near and Far East, and Russia.
Pravetz 15 Years Later
We returned to the town of Pravetz for a weekend of ministry, restoration and celebration. Pravetz was the place where the Bulgarian communist prime minister of thirty years was born and raised. Ironically, it was also the place where the Lord raised one of the largest youth groups in the history of the Bulgarian Church of God in the early 1990s. Pravetz was the place where I began ministering and the visit there marked fifteen years since these humble beginnings. Regardless of the fact that both the town and the church have changed, the anointing for ministry which God placed there is still strong. We were able to visit both Pravetz and Yablanitza where we met with old friends and coworkers. Thus, the visit to Pravetz was more than just another weekend of ministry, but rather a place of reclaiming lost heritage and re-envisioning of a new future. Because even if a man reaches the highest peaks of life, crosses the larges oceans of success or completes the most unimaginable acts of heroism, he must never forget where he has come from …
Bibliata.com National Tour in Silistra
The town of Silistra is located in northeastern Bulgaria at the Danube River. This was the location the www.bibliata.com National Tour 2005 team held services over the weekend. We arrived Saturday morning and conducted two training modules and then had two more in the afternoon session. On Sunday morning we concluded with a service where over one hundred people where in attendance. The building where the church congregation meets is an old communist hall, which for 45 years during the communist regime was used to speak against God. The building was given over to the congregation in 1990, which became the first church in the town of Silistra after the fall of the Berlin wall. Such church planting was not without with much trials and tribulations both physically and spiritually. The testimony of God’s miraculous power is that the exact location used to speak against God became the place, which God used for many other churches to come forth. It was a true blessing to be able to minister to the people of the church in Silistra and we are grateful of the opportunity that after nearly a half a century of persecution, God’s word was preached again freely.
Purpose in the Midst of Chaos
by Kathryn Donev
The manner in which God works is unexplainable and incomprehensible to the human mind. His ways are not our ways. Yet, ultimately in the midst of what appears to be chaos or random acts, His ways are always immaculately planned and in perfect order such that design by man would be impossible. Read more
Bulgaria Marks Unification Day
People across Bulgaria celebrated 120 years since the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia united. Bulgaria’s President Georgi Parvanov and Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev attended the official ceremony held at the country’s second city Plovdiv. In his address President Parvanov urged all Bulgarians to “embrace the idea of the Unification.”
More than a century ago the young and reborn Bulgarian state sought for its national unification and achieved it just six years after enjoying the air of freedom. On September 5, 1885, the Principality of Bulgaria unified with the autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Roumelia. The historic proclamation was made after a march by a handful of Bulgarians from the small town of Saedinenie (nowadays Unification) to the town of Plovdiv. But it was not until 1886 when the Great Powers recognized the almost doubled state of Bulgaria with the Bulgarian-Ottoman treaty. The day of September 6 has been celebrated as official holiday in Bulgaria since 1998.
Celebrating 15 Years of Ministry
The story of this celebration began on the back of a small Pentecostal church in Bulgaria, where on August 11, 1990 God gloriously saved my soul and changed my life forever. A week later, I was baptized with the Holy Spirit and for the first time in my life experienced Pentecost. It was that night in a Christian convention meeting in my hometown, that God called me for the ministry of the Gospel. A few weeks later, in the fall of 1990, I preached my first sermon. I was only sixteen years of age.
This month we are celebrating 15 years in ministry through two national crusades, Revival Harvest Campaign: Bulgaria and www.bibliata.com 2005 National Tour. Additionally we are calling the Pravetz youth group for a weekend of homecoming and spiritual renewal event called Pravetz Reloaded 2005.
