30 Years of Miracles: 2001

October 1, 2020 by Cup&Cross
Filed under Featured, Missions, News

Week 7 of Mission BULGARIA 2001 (September 30 – October 6, 2001 – Sofia, BULGARIA)

We had two meetings in Varna – on Saturday night in the largest auditorium in the city and on Sunday morning in the Evangelical Pentecostal Church in town. More than 3,000 attended. The Lord touched us all, as the Gospel was preached. Many were healed and testified in the services.

Week 8 of Mission BULGARIA 2001 (Week 8 – October 7-13, 2001 – Sofia, BULGARIA)

On Saturday we had two meetings in the largest auditorium in Bulgaria at the National Palace of Culture. More than 7,000 attended as people came with buses from their local churches. More than 150 Church of God congregations were represented, as many of the visitors were from other denominations as well. We preached, prayed worshiped and ministered to the people throughout the whole day, as the Lord confirmed his Word with miracles and healings. The services continued on Sunday as well. At the later service some 300 men, women and children gave their lives to Christ. More than 40 people testified that they have been healed since we started the series of crusades four weeks ago. The most amazing fact is that God touched children who testified of their healing.

Week 9 of Mission BULGARIA 2001 (Week 9 – October 13-20, 2001 – Sofia, BULGARIA)

My further work has daily included a few hours as coordinator at the Bulgarian Church of God Headquarters in Sofia and the participation of the last four crusades organized in the cities of Lom, Samokov, Varna and Sofia. The numbers total to more than 300 saved and 40 healed.

Week 14 of Mission BULGARIA 2001 (Week 14 November 17-24, 2001 Sofia, BULGARIA)

I had to take a trip to my hometown Yambol this week to check on the ministry of the mission team there and to renew my driver’s license. On the way back to Sofia on Friday, we stopped at a town called Sliven nearby Yambol. As mother and I walked in the street a lady in her mid 40s stopped us and asked if we recognized her. I did not, but mother did and even remembered her name, Maria. Maria attended the church in Yambol a few years ago when I served as an associate pastor there. She had a large tumor-like mass in her back and the doctors urged her to let them operate. In one on the services, she said, I prayed for her and the Lord healed her. As she went back to the doctors a few weeks later, they could not find even a trace of a tumor or cancer formation.

Week 15 of Mission BULGARIA 2001 (November 25 – December 1, 2001 – Sofia, BULGARIA)

This past Wednesday night (November 28) we had the best church service since I have come back. About 150 were present and I preached on Revelation chapters 14 and 15. The text finished with the passage about the glory of God. Then God touched us. At the altars people were crying everywhere, kneeling and falling on their faces. Four were healed – one from severe headache, one from pain in the kidneys, one from heart problems and one from pain in the lower back. I praise the Lord for all these and expect even more reports.

This book should have been published seven years ago in 2013. Its original subtitle was going to read “7 Years in Bulgaria.” Instead, it took seven years to finish it with all documents, research archives and new cases. Now, it is finally here and it finally reads like a story – not just choppy interviews, deposition documented testimonies or court records, but a story of struggle, strength and solitude. A story of life and a story of us.

1995-96 The establishing of the first Bulgarian Church of God in Chicago and its first split

2000-01 The contracted building of the ministry center for the Central Church of God in Sofia

2002-03 The church split in Southaven and what followed next

2005-06 The post-communist split of the Bulgarian Church of God and consecutive sub-denominations

2010-13 The social media network that cost us millions (of souls)

2016 The vote that forced to kill a church

2019-20 The sale of the ministry center for the Central Church of God in Bulgaria

READ: CONFESSIONS of a Pentecostal Preacher

CONFESSIONS of a Pentecostal Preacher

To Mark Alan
We know not why good people have to die,
but we do know we must tell their story…

Chapter I: Beyond the Church and into God

Be without fear in the face of your enemies.
Be brave and upright that God may love thee.
Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death.
Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong.
That is your oath.
~Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Separation of church from politics of false religiosity

The phone rang heavy and long. It was 4 AM in Bulgaria, but I was already up. A friend on the other end of the line was calling from South Carolina with a warning of some bad situation. The following morning, I was going to be contacted by the Director questioning why we were ministering in churches outside of our denomination.

The truth was we had ministered in some 300 local churches across the Balkan country of Bulgaria crossing all denominational boundaries and gathering youth from just about every confession. God had used us not only to reach and minister and to lead, but to step into an untouched spiritual realm, to undertake an unfamiliar ministry paradigm and to approach a brand new dimension of reality where He was to be the center of it all. And we had obeyed without questions. Now it was time to pay the price!

* * *

Our denomination, the one to which I remain both critically loyal and loyally critical, spreads over some five generations. Through its century old existence, the struggles and tension between theology and praxis has been in the center. And there, in the very essence of Pentecostalism itself, while some are always celebrating and being celebrated in the office or temple, others are always pushed in the periphery of normal life, hidden from the world behind closed doors and seeking a much deeper experience with God.

These modern day mystics are not only forgotten, but often forbidden. For their riot for righteousness cannot be conceived, contained and controlled by the religious norms of organized officiality. They speak as prophets to a world they so fervently try to escape from, about a reality that does not exist in the normal believer’s mindset. A stage of spirituality that cannot be preached without being lived in the social existence. And a relationship of God that goes far beyond common relationism and into God himself. That God, Who does not abide in offices and temples, but on the cross outside of the city walls…

But I knew nothing of this until that cold winter morning when the phone rang through darkness of the night. Knowing what is coming, rarely changes what we have done to get here.

7 Years in Bulgaria: CONFESSIONS of a Pentecostal Preacher
by Dony K. Donev, D.Min.
Upcoming Releases for United States (October, 2020)

Tags: 2001, 25, miracles, years

Establishment of the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association (2001-2006)

July 1, 2016 by Cup&Cross
Filed under Events, Featured, News

Leave a Comment

We are proud to announce that the Master’s of Chaplaincy Ministry Program, we designed and launched in Bulgaria in 2006, has been selected to be part of the Social Service Program of New Bulgarian University. After being for years a valuable part of the regular curriculum of the Bulgarian Evangelical Theological Institute and the St. Trivelius Institute in the capital Sofia, the chaplaincy program has received the highest level of recognition as successful graduates will be finally able to receive government recognized degrees and apply their knowledge and training in chaplaincy on a professional level. The chaplaincy program can also serve within the Integration Proposal of local NATO programs and be instrumental in dealing with the enormous wave of Middle East migrants crossing through Bulgaria today.

The Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association was envisioned in the summer of 2001 to unite all underground chaplaincy workers within the territory of Bulgaria. This included several ministries already active in Bulgaria serving in various contexts like military, healthcare, benevolence, jail system and commercial marine. The main goal was to establish a context in which all of these ministries could come together and be represented before the Bulgarian churches and government.

Although various other projects in the area of Bulgarian chaplaincy had been undertaken in previous years, the foundation initiative was formed in response to an invitation of the Church of God Chaplaincy Commission to hold a training seminar in the National Palace in the capital, Sofia in the fall of 2001. Due to the September 11^th crises, the seminar was postponed and held February 16-23, 2002 under the patronage of the Bulgarian Church of God. More than 60 people, actively involved in military, hospital and prison ministries, students and church members, attended the lectures. The seminar was a stepping stone for the development of the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association. Similar seminars were held consecutively in 2003-2004 in various locations.

The following strategic actions continued the endeavor. On August 13, 2005 a regional meeting in the Sliven area discussed the implementation of future strategies in the light of NATO’s decision to place airbases on Bulgarian soil. Individual and group meetings with chaplains from various professional fields and geographical regions followed.

Additionally, a national training seminar was held in Veliko Turnovo on October 8, 2005 where ten regional chaplaincy ministries were represented. 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 six-month national agenda toward solving the above problems and developing timely practical solutions. A priority on the list was the presentation of chaplaincy ministry before Bulgarian evangelical denominations.

The presentation was successfully achieved October 18, 2005 before the national leadership of the Bulgarian Evangelical Alliance. Three educational levels were proposed in the area of chaplaincy: candidate chaplains, church and government.

A consecutive regional meeting on October 23, 2005 in Nova Zagora addressed current dilemmas and outlined the necessary steps to complete the above educational strategy. The first goal was to develop a basic chaplaincy course for the Bulgarian Evangelical Theological Institute. The course was designed in the winter of 2005-2006 and after a series of meetings with denominational leaders and educational representatives, was submitted to the board of directors of the Bulgarian Evangelical Theological Institute on June 12, 2006. Prior to its submission, the course was presented in a pilot form to the regional directors of the Ministry to the Military at a training seminar in Veliko Tarnovo on April 8-10, 2006. The basic chaplaincy course designed by the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association was scheduled to be taught in the fall semester of 2006 and plans were set to include it in the larger scope of the master’s level chaplaincy program with the Bulgarian Evangelical Theological Institute in 2007.

After much anticipation, on August 19, 2006 in the city of Yambol, the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association called a founders meeting to discuss its legalization by the Bulgarian government. Active chaplains from various fields, ministers, pastors and scholars were present at the meeting to represent over 200 Bulgarians nationally involved in chaplaincy ministry. An official resolution was accepted and signed by the delegates to become the establishing document of the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association. With this event, the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association, which began in 2001 and has been instrumental in creating, recognizing and implementing such opportunities for ministry in the military as well as other fields of chaplaincy, has begun its final approach toward becoming a legal non-government organization active within the territory of Bulgaria.

Also important [click to read]: