U.S. sends thousands of troops to Bulgaria amid month-long protests and political unrest

Washington may send troops to Bulgaria and Romania as part of the redistribution of US forces in Europe. This was reported by the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the Pentagon’s plans. According to the information, the redistribution of Stryker brigades in Bulgaria and Romania is possible as a result of President Trump’s decision to withdraw 12,000 troops from Germany, half of which will be sent elsewhere in Europe, including the Black Sea region. The process would take years and cost at least $6 billion. The Stryker Brigades are combat teams of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of vehicles, ready to be transferred by transport aircraft and deployed within 96 hours. NATO air-force bases in Novo Selo and Bezmer are withing minutes of our long term ministry location in the area. Newly built migrant camps are also located nearby along the highway leading to the boarder with Turkey, less than an hour of (normal speed) drive.

Digital Discipleship at Lee University

Digital Discipleship is a practical training manual for the use of collaborative online tools, digital storytelling, creative websites, and mobile networking in the ministry of the Church. This course is intended to provide students with a hands-on toolbox for extending their present ministry to the internet world with the intent of soul-saving and discipleship. There are no pre-requisites to this course, and it is open for enrollment to current students or new applicants. This 3-credit-hour, fully online, asynchronous course will take place June 23 to Aug. 10. To register, visit applytolee.com and use the code DIGITAL (case-sensitive) to waive the $25 application fee.

Lee University 2020 Church of God Scholarship Program
Receive a Lee Online student scholarship of $1,000, disbursed over the academic year – Fall, Spring, and Summer. Continuous enrollment is required. Details are important, so here are some of the finer points of this special scholarship offer:

• The scholarship is open to new applicants starting a program in August 2020.
• The $1,000 will be applied evenly over the 2020-2021 academic year (Fall, Spring, Summer), so make sure you stay enrolled to reap the full reward.
• The award can be used towards Lee Online certificate, undergraduate or graduate programs.
• Enroll full-time (two classes per session) or part-time (one class per session).
• It can be combined with the ministry or military/first responders program tuition discounts (but not with other scholarships).

Make sure to use SPIRIT (case-sensitive) as your discount code when you applytolee.com so that we can reserve your scholarship funds.

Ensure Eligibility
Available to newly enrolled Lee Online undergraduate, graduate, or certificate students with a start date of August 18, 2020. May not be combined with any other offers or scholarships.

Register for your scholarship today here: https://leeuniversity.edu/cog/

Pentecost Sunday Full Gospel as Preached by the Early Pentecostals

I keep on repeating this through the years, but the need for the constant repetition comes from the simple fact that among new doctrinal teachings and Hillsong style of worship the True Message of Pentecost remains long forgotten

1. Salvation – That a man must be saved while the hour of grace is still upon us has been that teaching of every protestant evangelical since the Reformation. Why people attend church all their lives without getting saved is beyond me. But I do know that the commitment of the CHURCH to REVIVAL brings people to SALVATION.

2. Sanctification – The Wesleyan teaching of sanctification resolves that the sanctification of the believer is definite. This means that though it may progress and evolve through time, as the believer gets closer to God in his/her daily walk, sanctification must become ENTIRE i.e. allowing NO sin to abide in the believer’s body, soul or spirit. Without ENTIRE sanctification resulting in holiness, no one will ever see God (Heb. 12:14).

3. Holy Ghost Baptism – The doctrine of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost means that when baptized we speak in one tongue with God because we are ONE with His Spirit. Not just in us or upon us, but that we are IN the Spirit as John was on the day of Revelation.

4. Healing in the Atonement of Christ belongs to every believer. This means you, your family and your church members. The healing provided in the Atonement is for ALL believers – no exception. It is also for ALL sickness, disease, viruses, infections, tumors and cancers. But that it belongs to does not yet mean that it has been received by the believer. For this reason, God does not stop healing neither in this age nor through eternity, as the leaves of the Tree of Life in the New Jerusalem are still and forever for the healing (Rev. 22:2)

5. The Second Coming of Christ for Pentecostals is not simply pre-millennial, but also pre-Tribulation. There have been MANY teachings on the End Times until today. Post-millennials claim we live in the Millennium even now anticipating the return of the Lord; a-millennials that there will be no Millennium at all. Post-tribulationists expect his return at the end of the Tribulation, mid-post-tribulationists in the middle. But in Pentecost, we expect Christ to return before the Tribulation that we may be saved from the hour of trial (Rev. 3:10) and before the Millennium so we may reign with Him 1,000 years. Any other message is no message of hope for the Church of the Living God.

 

Speaking in Tongues in America Prior to the Azusa Street Revival of 1906

April, 1906 – The Azusa street revival swept the globe starting with California

January 1, 1901– The initial phenomenon of speaking in tongues occurred at Parham’s school in Topeka, Kansas

January 6, 1900 – Frank Sanford’s Shiloh school reported that “The gift of tongues has descended”

1896 – Over 100 people baptized in the Shaerer schoolhouse revival conducted by the Christian Union in the North Carolina mountains

1887 – People falling in trances and speaking in tongues were reported at Maria Etter’s revival meetings in Indiana

1874 – Speaking in tongues occurred during healing meetings reported in New York

1873 – William H. Doughty and the Gift People of Rhode Island spoke in tongues

1854 – V. P. Simmons and Robert Boyd reported tongue speaking during Moody’s meetings

FURTHER READING:

Church of God (Cleveland, TN)

• Alive, alive! (A personal testimony)
• Church of God Primitivism
• Bulgarian Church of God
• J.W. Buckalew
• Why revival came? by Dr. Charles Conn

Azusa Street Revival of 1906

• Lucy F. Farrow: The Forgotten Apostle of Azusa
• The FORGOTTEN ROOTS OF THE AZUSA STREET REVIVAL
• Azusa Street’s Apostolic Faith Renewed
• Azusa Street Sermons
• Pentecostal Primitivism Preserved

Prior to Azusa Street Revival of 1906

• First person to speak in tongues in the Assemblies of God was William Jethro Walthall of the Holiness Baptist Churches of Southwestern Arkansas
• The Work of the Spirit in Rhode Island (1874-75)
• Speaking in Tongues in America Prior to the Azusa Street Revival
• WAR ON THE SAINTS: Revival Dawn and the Baptism of the Spirit
• How Jezebel Killed One of the Greatest Revivals Ever

Back to the Basics of Pentecost: Diamonds in the Rough-N-Ready (2020)

Since the beginning of the 21st century, only 6-10% of new born believers in America receive the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, which by 2018 has resulted in:

• Over 60% within Global Pentecostalism do not speak in tongues
• A major doctrinal shift within Pentecostal Theology today claims speaking in tongues is not the only evidence of Holy Spirit Baptism
• Some theologians even claim there is no initial evidence in the Bible
• Others today go further to believe that no outward sign of the Holy Spirit baptism is necessary.

For this reason, WE are re-committing ourselves and ministry to revival and restoration of the Pentecostal Message through praying, fasting and preaching:

• Salvation of the sinner’s soul and entire sanctification through the Blood of Jesus
• Baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire with initial evidence of speaking in tongues
• Supernatural gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit
• Healing, deliverance and signs following
• Pre-Millennial return of Christ and pre-Tribulation Rapture of His Church to glory

Please consider the URGENCY of this generation!

Let us reason together what can we do to prevent this rapid decline in Biblical spirituality.

Revival will not come without preaching!

Revival of Pentecost will not come without preaching the Message of Pentecost.

 

Speaking in Tongues in America Prior to the Azusa Street Revival of 1906

April, 1906 – The Azusa street revival swept the globe starting with California

January 1, 1901– The initial phenomenon of speaking in tongues occurred at Parham’s school in Topeka, Kansas

January 6, 1900 – Frank Sanford’s Shiloh school reported that “The gift of tongues has descended”

1896 – Over 100 people baptized in the Shaerer schoolhouse revival conducted by the Christian Union in the North Carolina mountains

1887 – People falling in trances and speaking in tongues were reported at Maria Etter’s revival meetings in Indiana

1874 – Speaking in tongues occurred during healing meetings reported in New York

1873 – William H. Doughty and the Gift People of Rhode Island spoke in tongues

1854 – V. P. Simmons and Robert Boyd reported tongue speaking during Moody’s meetings

FURTHER READING:

Church of God (Cleveland, TN)

• Alive, alive! (A personal testimony)
• Church of God Primitivism
• Bulgarian Church of God
• J.W. Buckalew
• Why revival came? by Dr. Charles Conn

Azusa Street Revival of 1906

• Lucy F. Farrow: The Forgotten Apostle of Azusa
• The FORGOTTEN ROOTS OF THE AZUSA STREET REVIVAL
• Azusa Street’s Apostolic Faith Renewed
• Azusa Street Sermons
• Pentecostal Primitivism Preserved

Prior to Azusa Street Revival of 1906

• First person to speak in tongues in the Assemblies of God was William Jethro Walthall of the Holiness Baptist Churches of Southwestern Arkansas
• The Work of the Spirit in Rhode Island (1874-75)
• Speaking in Tongues in America Prior to the Azusa Street Revival
• WAR ON THE SAINTS: Revival Dawn and the Baptism of the Spirit
• How Jezebel Killed One of the Greatest Revivals Ever

2020 Drive Thru Alternative COVID Friendly VBS Ideas

 

This year churches are having to resort to unique ways of ministry.   We are doing a great job reaching our adults and being creative with virtual, online experiences for the kiddos to stay connected, but kids need routine and consistency of years pasts.  Our kids will be looking forward to their annual VBS in-person experience.  So let’s not let them down.  Let’s put our heads together to give them the best VBS they will remember for years to come beyond cyberspace.

Here are some ideas:

• Have a one night drive thru experience where volunteers dress up as biblical characters to share the Roman’s Road to Salvation at difference stations throughout parking lot
• Have church members act out skits each night of the week and families can watch from car
• Do a drive thru at church where each night families can come and pick up VBS packets to take home and  accomplish next day together
• Do a Trunk or Treat type VBS
• Perhaps do a scavenger hunt where you hide large cutouts around property that go along with a bible story
•  Partner with a radio station in which families can tune and hear word and song from car
• Do a VBS in the style of a single scene live nativity
• Watch a Christian movie together at a local drive-in theater or a theater you create
• Could do some type of outdoor social distancing praise time and story or testimony

What are some ideas you have for your church?  Please share so we can reach our kids with the greatest story in the world.  Don’t cancel VBS this year because we are too emotionally overwhelmed or too busy. Let’s be the rock they need in this time of uncertainty.   We were made for such a time as this.

Divine Connections TV: A Decade of Destiny Later

Almost exactly a decade ago, the year 2009 was monumental for this Decade of Destiny.

Upon the invitation of Logos Bible Software, we traveled to their annual BibleTech Conference in San Jose, California to present the more clear approach to Bible translation and its implementation in our new Bulgarian Bible Interlinear.

Our first stop to the conference was a very fruitful meeting with Dr. Albert Wardin at the Billy Graham Archives. This meeting became the reason to further direct our research on Ivan Voronaev and the roots of Bulgarian Pentecostalism to a new archive location in route to Berkeley University.

The trip was strategically planned to visit Bulgarian congregations on the way in

1. Nashville,
2. Chicago,
3. Minneapolis/St. Paul,
4. Tahoe,
5. Seattle,
6. San Francisco,
7. Los Angeles,
8. Las Vegas,
9. Phoenix,
10. Houston,
11. Dallas,
12. Florida
13. and Atlanta.

These short but blessed visits consecutively materialized into the 2020 Vision for Bulgarian Churches in North America. Most memorable among all was our meeting in El Cerrito, which happened to be just a few miles from our research location in Berkeley and not far from the ministry center for the Bulgarian Slavic diaspora in Concord. It was at this meeting that our missional strategy for San Francisco and Phoenix was born and later finalized in ministry with the Bulgarian church in Las Vegas.

Perhaps more needs to be said later about the Berkeley connection and the vision of the Arizona quarters in detail. Especially in part of the divine connection broadcasts that became an essential part of our own Bibliata.TV. But most importantly, now the 2020 Vision is almost completed as a Decade of Destiny, what follows is a strongly proven paradigm for church growth and revitalization. And as such, it has effectively spread to so many Bulgarian churches abroad – from a simple vision for 20 churches into 20 different countries.

10 Reasons to Be Thankful in the Midst of COVID-19 Pandemic

 

1. Families spend more time together at home and in nature
2. Gas prices have decreased
3. Eating around dinner table has replaced going out to restaurants
4. Prayer and return to the Faith has increased
5. Homeschooling has become popular
6. Open-air church meetings are coming back
7. Communities are rallying together to help one another with less individualism
8. Politicians are working more cohesively
9. We are resourceful and not wasteful appreciating small things and basic necessities
10. We are going back to the basics of a slower more grounded lifestyle

Call for Parents and Caregivers to Have Time of Uninterrupted Play with Their Children

As a Board Certified Licensed Professional Counselor with nearly 20 years of experience in the field of play therapy, I understand the vital importance of play in the life of a child.  With the COVID-19 pandemic which has swept the world, our children are being exposed to stressors and events that no child should ever have to endure.  Children need play in their lives now more than ever before.  Play is their only way to communicate and to process these traumatic times. A time of play allows for children to increase their emotional strength and reduces stress which in turn increases our children’s immunity defenses.

It is for this reason that I feel the urgency to call all parents and caregivers to set aside a minimum of 45 minutes to 1 hour during the day to play with their children. This structured time should meet the following guidelines:

1. If possible should be one parent with one child at a time even if you have to limit play to only 30 minutes
2. Play time is uninterrupted with no texting, social media, online surfing or phone use of any type
3. Should be in a safe place
4. Parents and caregivers need to offer a time which is non-judgmental in the parameters of protection
5. Needs to be led by child and not adult, offering no suggestions about what or how to play unless asked from child
6. Do not interrupt the child’s process by being impatient for child to finish tasks at hand
7. This is not a time for teaching. It is a time of reflecting and empathetic listening of feelings.
8. Repeat back to the child their actions during play instead of offering your biased insight.
9. Listen to what your children are telling you via their play
10. Provide unconditional love and support

There is always time for play.  It should not be underestimated.  During this time of crisis it is a basic necessity and will strengthen our children.  We will make it through this together.

– K. Donev, LPC/MHSP, NCC

 

We were made for these times

We were made for these times!

We know how to connect – whether in person or through phones and computers.
We know how to listen – to the stated message and to what is not said.
We also know the importance of responding to that unexpressed need.
We know how to observe – to see the fleeting worry or tender courage in someone’s eyes.
We know how to hope – to genuinely believe in our collective goodwill and shared humanity.

And, as you know, we know these things deeply and well – long before a contagious new virus arrived and disrupted our families and daily routines, we knew the powerfully contagious impact of relationships, positive emotions, and prayer!

Now, we want each of you to hear how much each of you is held in our hearts – for the work you do and, most importantly, for who you are in your families, communities, and the world.

Together we will remember the most vulnerable – near or far – and with creativity, determination, and compassion we will write a story of resilience, wholeheartedness, and collective resolve.

A story of and for these times.

We believe in you. Thank you for your continued prayers of support.

Trew General Merchandise Store

Quaint local General Store on the back roads of Tennessee history added to the National Register of Historic Places in1976 (Building – #76002159). On approach to this nostalgic setting, one could almost envision arriving in yesteryear to this establishment. Folks coming in for sugar and flour. I can imagine that some bartering for eggs and such must have taken place. The clapboard siding gives this establishment the quaintness of a time gone by. This gem of an establishment is tucked away on the back roads of Tennessee in McMinn County and west of Delano, TN

TREW’S STORE

Transcribed by: Mary Sue Mason

Revisions by: Bill Bigham

Trew ‘s Store was established in 1890 by John Wesley Trew near Calhoun, TN, the site of the first county seat of McMinn County Tennessee.

It is properly located as being half way between Highway 11 and 411 on Highway 163 where County Road 783 enters. Dentville was a one time postoffice in the store and the community still retains its name. (To the ole timers, anyway.)

John Wesley Trew’s grandparents, Dr. Thomas Trew and wife Nancy James purchased 463 acres in the Calhoun area in 1836. They came here from Jamestown, Kentucky. They stayed in the area, known as Dentville, and raised their family of ten children.

William, John Wesley’s father, inherited 1/2 of the farm in 1862. He developed the farm into a huge enterprise that produced corn, wheat and oats. He also made sorghum and raised livestock.

John Wesley Trew and wife Margaret Ella Porter were parents of nine children and continued to be very successful with the family enterprise and the store was opened to serve the family’s needs in 1890.

One of the sons of John Wesley Trew, Mortimer began as a clerk in the store in 1925.

In 1935, J.W. Trew turned the store over to his children. It operated as Trew Brothers from 1962-1975.

In 1975 Mortimer Trew and his wife Oneta Crittenden became sole owners of the store and changed the name to M.E. Trew General Merchandise.

The store was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

As an interested citizen living in the area, I made a visit to the store in 1996 and took some photos of the store and Mortimer Trew and his wife Oneta Trew. Mortimer spent his whole life in the store. He died in April of 1996. The store is “not” open for business or touring.

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