Evangelical Education in Bulgaria
September 15th marks the beginning of the school year in Bulgaria. For us it is always a very special time, due to our continuous involvement in the development of Evangelical Christian education in Bulgaria through the years. This year we partnered with the Church of God of Prophecy in national leadership training held in Bulgaria. This is the second annual training event we are completing together here, as at the same time earlier this year we participated in the 2009 Development Institute of the Church of God of Prophecy in Cleveland, TN.
Upon the invitation of National Presbyter Peter Georgiev, we traveled to the Danube River port city of Rouse, where the training was held with special guests General Presbyter Clayton Endecott from Frankfurt, Germany and the director of the Tomlinson Ministry Center, Rev. Dr. H.E. Cardin from Cleveland, Tennessee. Lectures and discussions continued all day long as we were able to fellowship with one another during the breaks. The event was broadcasted LIVE on the internet and on Thursday it was watched at the chapel service in our Alma Matter, the Church of God School of Theology, now known as the Pentecostal Theological Seminary. During the brief webcast we prayed for a special blessing over the students and their instructors. The prayer video can be watched at the following internet location: http://worldmissions.tv/user/videos/bulgaria The training sessions and the church services of the conference were recorded and can be viewed online at: http://bibliata.tv/user/videos/peppiy
We will be dynamically involved in three more educational programs as the school year unfolds in Bulgaria as follows: (1) the Church of God national educational strategy in Bulgaria (2) the master’s level program in chaplaincy and (3) a mobile Bible School, with special focus on the practical and effective training of small ministry teams for the needs of local and regional congregations.
2009 X Event: Transforming the Status Quo
X youth event, which was held on September 9, 2009 in the city of Samokov near Sofia was a complete success. Six Roma worship teams from the Bulgarian Church of God with special participation of the Elley gospel band from the Central Church of God in Sofia and the worship team of Pastor Iliya Panov participated in this three hour long event, which finished with preaching and prayer provided by Cup & Cross Ministries International. Several thousand were in attendance from various parts of Bulgaria and abroad. Some pastors brought their complete congregations, others attended with family and friends, but we all gathered together ready for a new touch from God.
We named this year’s event “Transforming the Status Quo” for three reasons. First, the date 9.9.9 itself is somewhat controversial and we chose it under the leadership of the Holy Spirit to transform it from a spiritualistic superstition into a spiritual celebration. Secondly, September 9, 1944 is the date when the Communist Revolution took place in Bulgaria, and this year on this very date we asked of God to change the catastrophe of communism to the abundance of blessings for Bulgaria. And finally, our event was held in one of the largest Gipsy ghettos of Bulgaria, where thousands of Roma people were touched by the power of the Spirit.
We are truly thankful to all who partnered with us and made this event possible as part of our annually Harvest Campaign in Bulgaria. This year the Lord allowed us to create the proper environment with a professional stage and lightning, over 50kW of sound equipment, professional cameras and photography crews. The complete event was broadcasted LIVE on the internet and watched by thousands of people in Bulgaria and abroad. But most important of all, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ was lifted up above any other name at the 2009 X event in Samokov, Bulgaria.
Anouncing 2009 X Event: Transforming the Status Quo
Our team is preparing for our annual X youth event, which will be held on September 9, 2009 in the city of Samokov near Sofia, where six Roma worship teams from the Bulgarian Church of God are already preparing. Please join us in prayer and fasting in the next few days, while we are approaching this spiritual battle together as the Church of the living God. The political forecast for Bulgaria says that political unrest is on the way. The economic forecast for Bulgaria claims that this fall season will bring even heavier crises for the country. And even the weather forecast for the week calls for heavy rain with early snow in Bulgaria. But we will continue to trust the heavenly report, which says: “Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well” (Isaiah 3:10). For God called us to minister in the times of peace and prosperity and even more so in the times of crises and battles. Pray for BULGARIA.
Renewing of the Evening Services in Yambol
We report that with the assistance of our team and the help of many partners in ministry, the renewal of Sunday evening services at the Yambol Pentecostal Church has been successful.
In the course of this work, we were able to witness a dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit during a ministry event with the participation of the team of our longtime ministry partner and personal friend Pastor Vasil Petrov from the Gabrovo Church of God. This particular service began at 6 PM on Sunday and continued until 10 PM that night as some 100 hundred people were prayed for at a two hour long alter service, which followed the message. We are still receiving reports of various healings and miracles that occurred that night, among which are:
(1) A lady of the worship team, who has played the violin in church all her life, scheduled for surgery that same week due to a bone-ligament condition was instantly healed during the prayer.
(2) Deliverance of multiple cases of headache, migraines and sinus were reported at the end of the alter service.
(3) As the church continued in several hours of prayer, around 9 PM a lady threw herself on the floor with screams and convulsions and was delivered from a demon.
(4) An elderly gentleman with a chronic condition in his vestibular apparatus due to a foot injury reported instant improvement and ran joyfully through the church.
(5) Several people reported improvement in their eyesight and hearing.
(6) Instant disappearing of pain and discomfort in bones, muscles, ligaments and chronicle conditions in back, hip and neck areas were reported during the prayer.
(7) A lady with a broken arm, who was watching the service live on the internet, later reported that her pain disappeared during the course of the service.
(8) Several people, who were brought to service from the local Dialysis Treatment Center, also reported instant relief. We are now waiting for doctoral reports as confirmation for the healings.
A Truly Pentecostal Water Baptism
The Tundja River is a popular tourist attraction being one of the longest rivers in Bulgaria. It is an ancient waterway, which runs from the heart of Bulgaria down through Stara Zagora and Yambol all the way to Turkey. The river is a haven to much wildlife, a retreat to fishermen, and simply a tranquil sight to those passing by. But on August 22, 2009 the Tundja River served a different purpose. It was the location where 14 more new believers were baptized in water.
Cup and Cross Ministries along with the home mission team from the local Pentecostal church and a step-mission team from Spain met and had a baptismal service at the base of the Tundja River in the outskirts of the Hanovo village near Yambol. The service began with praise and worship in the Roma language, in Bulgarian, Spanish and English as representatives of these ethnos groups worshiped the Lord by the river. We shared a brief teaching on the subject of Water Baptism from the Church of God Declaration of Faith to encourage the new believers from the local village churches and to establish the Scriptural base of our gathering by the river.
Then we stepped into the cool waters and in the hot summer day, 14 new souls dedicated their lives to God and came out of the Thundja River resurrected for a new life with Him. Spontaneous singing, prayers of praise and cries of worship continued throughout the entire time in all languages that the people in the congregation spoke to form one truly Pentecostal water baptism service by the running stream waters, as we were all reminded of the old Gospel spiritual:
As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord show me the way …
New Sermon Series in Yambol
What tremendous services we have had at the Yambol Pentecostal Church this year again, as we began a new sermon series on II Timothy as one of our summer projects. For four weeks now we have gathered with the people on Wednesday night for payer and worship and God has honored our meetings. The church has been packed full and hundreds more have watched the service live via the internet. Miracles and healings have taken place during and after the service times, as one elderly lady reported instant disappearance of pain in her broken arm during the altar prayer as she was watching the service at home on her grandson’s computer.
This is the second year in a row that we have included the Yambol church in our summer ministry, as last year we completed a 10 week teaching on the Gospel of Mark. Our work in the region, which includes parts of Sliven, Nova Zagora, Stara Zagora and Bourgas will also focus on leadership training for the village ministry teams on location with the anticipation to renew the evening services in the church before the end of the month.
Blue Fire
By Kathryn Nell Donev
This past weekend while camping on top of the mountain of Petrohan with fellow believers, the Lord displayed his glory in many unique manifestations. Some people were baptized in the Spirit, while others received a fresh blessing with new direction for their lives. Many more were healed instantaneously, as the Lord’s presence was both glorious and gentle remaining with us throughout the night.
Saturday evening, while in prayer around one of the torches which surrounded the perimeter of the tents, the Lord revealed to me in an ever peaceful way that we are to be “Blue Fire”.
The blue fire is the part of the flame which one does not really consider when thinking about a flame. It is the element, which is at the base of the flame burning closest to the source. Therefore, the blue fire is the part with the most oxygen which allows for complete combustion. It is in this state, leaving no residue, where the flame is the purest. The blue fire is the hardest to blow out and remains light even in the strongest winds. And despite popular belief, the blue part of the flame, and not the red one, is the hottest part of the fire.
The red flame receives its color from the impurities in the air that are being combusted. These impurities absorb heat and are the cause for the red fire not being as hot as the blue fire. Since the red fire is not hot enough to reach the state of complete combustion not being close enough to the source, it leaves a soot residue, which contaminates its surroundings. And when the wind blows it does not remain strong.
We are not simply to be on fire for God with a red flame, but we are to be on fire for God with a blue flame. We are to be “Blue Fire”. We are to be the hottest and most constant of the fire. And it is in doing this that we provide true light to our surroundings and not residue. We are to remain as hot as blue fire in order to be without impurities, uncontaminated by the world. For it is the blue fire which does not to waiver in the wind; and it is the blue fire which remains as one with the source of the flame.
Village Ministry
Last Saturday we were again privileged to minister in the villages of the Yambol region. Services were held consecutively in the churches of Kamenetz, Lulin, Alexandrovo and Polyana. Normally, it is somewhat difficult to gather the people in the villages due to harvest season when they are working in the fields all day long with no way to contact them. However, when our team arrived on site, the people from the local villages have taken the day off due to being warned by national news of the upcoming heat wave. Most of them had just gathered under the tree shadows by the close convenient store seeking shelter from the sun and waiting for a fresh water supply to arrive from Yambol as it was the hottest day of the year so far of some 105(F) degrees.
This allowed for us the opportunity to minister to the crowd and share once again the Message of Eternal Life. The church members were encouraged by the service as many of their neighbors and colleagues were hearing the Good News for a very first time. We committed to continue the services through Wednesday and then our team will reconvene in Yambol Wednesday evening as we will be broadcasting LIVE our services in Yambol on the internet at 12:00 PM ET.
National Youth Camp in Bulgaria
In years past, we have visited and ministered to a dozen different youth camps in Bulgaria. Each of them has been unique and special, but it has been a while since we have ministered at a youth camp where people have been so hungry to receive from God.
We were asked to visit the National Youth Camp at Petrohan and to lecture on our new translation of the Bulgarian New Testament. Pastor Vasil Petrov and his team from the Gabrovo Church of God accompanied us for the evening services. People from the churches in Sofia, Bankia, Aheloy, Bourgas, Varshetz, Gabrovo, Nova and Stara Zagora, Kazanlak, Sliven, Yambol and many other places joined with tents and campers for the occasion. Visiting missionaries from the Untied States and Switzerland were also present.
As our publisher provided us with several hundred copies of the translation, we were able to give each of the attendees a copy to read and to study. This helped us tremendously in the presentation of somewhat difficult material from the translator’s notes. The lectures were followed by the evening services with an inspiring message from pastor Vasil Petrov. Each night, prayer and worship at the alter continued well after midnight. We prayed for the healing of dozens of people. Many more were delivered instantly from various infirmities, both in soul and in body. Eight young people received the baptism with the Holy Spirit the very first night and many more were baptized in the following evenings. You could see parents and children praying for each other around the clock. One girl saw a vision of the “Heart of God” being exalted in our midst. As we continued with our next ministry appointment in the city of Varshetz, some stayed behind to spend one more day in the presence of the Lord on the top of the mountain. We will reconvene with them this week at the next youth camp organized by the Assemblies of God on the Karandila Mountain near Sliven.
Published in the Bulgarian National Geographic
The March issue of the Bulgarian National Geographic featured an article about the Bulgarian Bogomils – a medieval Bulgarian sect that split from the Orthodox Church forming its own religious community with peculiar customs. The author of the article, the renowned Bulgarian journalist Lubormir Kiumurdjiev, interviewed a number of Bulgarian theologians in an effort to investigate the Christian roots of the Bogomil’s theology. The view of the Bulgarian protestant community was represented in the article by Dr. Dony K. Donev, who elaborates on two main points in the faith of the Bogomils namely, their purposeful simplification of liturgy, as a sign of proto-reformation theology within the context of the Eastern Orthodox Church and their continuous efforts toward a new literal Bible translation in the spoken Bulgarian vernacular of their times.
The National Geographic’s publication comes as a high recognition of long years of hard labor in the publication of three biweekly series. Two of them are still ongoing with the Bulgarian Evangelical Newspaper as one tells the story of Bulgarian Protestantism, and the other focuses on chronological paleographical examination of Biblical manuscripts, in comparison of versions and revisions of the Bulgarian Bible. The third one is published in the Pentecostal Evangel and is almost finished with the examination of early Bulgarian Pentecostal history, while many of its findings will be presented at the 2010 SPS meeting.
