Mission Bulgaria Week 27

NEWS – Week 27 February 16-23, 2002 Sofia, BULGARIA
Greetings from Bulgaria:

Indeed this is a report of a blessed week. We had a very successful Chaplaincy Seminar with the participation of Dr. Crick and Dr. Popejoy from Cleveland, TN. More than 60 people attended and listened to the lectures during the week. These were people actively involved in military, hospital and prison ministries, students and church members. The seminar helped greatly and was a stepping-stone for the development of the Chaplaincy Ministry in Bulgaria, and served as a beginning point of the structural development of the department of chaplaincy and caregivers in the Bulgarian Church of God.

I also must report and outstanding outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the Wednesday evening service as we finished the expository preaching on the Epistle to the Galatians. At the altars people prayed and cried out to God for hours. Some were slain in the Spirit, and several reported that they were baptized in the Holy Spirit.

A National Presbyters Meeting was held in Sofia on Saturday with the purposes of electing a new central leadership of the Bulgarian Church of God. Pastor Pavel Ignatov was reelected for a National Overseer. A significant detail of the meeting was the election of two assistants to the national overseers instead of one. This was done with the purposes of larger representation of the minority groups within the church (Roma, Gipsy, Turks, Pomaks, etc.). Again for the purposes of equal representation the same reason 2 Roma people were added to the 11 members of the Presbyters Council. Total of 269 pastors and deacons were present and represented 25,422 members of the Bulgarian Church of God.

I was able to prepare small 40-page booklets with the 20 Sunday School lessons in a 6,000 circulation. The books were freely distributed to all ministers present at the meeting.