Our Ministry in the Gipsy Ghetto of Yambol
1990 We began serving in the Yambol area along with the local Pentecostal churches in the early 1990s after the Fall of the Berlin Wall
1992-93 Our team participated in a number of revival campaigns in the Gipsy Ghettos of Yambol, Sliven and Stara Zagora
1996 Along with Dr. Miroslav Atanasov of Sofia, we invested into the purchase of a building that is used for the meetings of the local Church of God led by its first pastor, who had mixed Gipsy-Turkish roots, brother Mitko Mohamed
2000 This was a turning point for the local congregation and many other minority groups in the region, as we led a Church of God campaign in several of the neighboring villages and regions stretching our outreach all the way to the Black Sea and the border between Bulgaria and Turkey
2001-04 In the years that followed, we completed a number of evangelistic campaigns in the Strandja Sakar region in South Eastern Bulgaria populated with predominantly Bulgarian speaking Turkish and Pomak people groups
2005 We renewed holding services in the Gipsy Ghetto of Yambol where by that time there were a dozen active Pentecostal congregations
2007 We helped restore the local United Church of God congregation after it had burnt down in a fire.
2008-09 After collaborating with local social services workers, our team devised an ethical guideline proposal for working with abused and abandoned children while consulting on project “Care for Orphans,” which worked with gypsy children of the area Ghettos
2010-11 We held services with many local youth groups, preaching the Gospel and praying for the people after showing the film Jesus for Children, after which dozens of people, both children and adults, accepted Christ as their personal savior confessing their sins and joining the local churches
2012 We have written extensively on the subject of Forming a Roma Gipsy Evangelical Identity in Bulgaria and our book on the subject is coming out for publication in the near future
Mission Bulgaria 2009: Ministering at the Gipsy Ghetto of Phakulteta
The Gipsy ghetto of Phakulteta is located in the northeast side of the capital Sofia with a population of some 120,000 people, which makes it larger than the average Bulgarian town. It comprises a substantial part of the population of Sofia, which now numbers over two million people. In recent years, Phakulteta has been a place of ethnic tensions produced in the middle of extreme poverty and the war of local crime clans which rule the area.
There, we have focused our ministry efforts in the past several years through regular preaching, prayer meetings, and leadership seminars for pastors, youth rallies and music fests. As many have noticed in the recent months while we have ministered at the Life Church of God in the Sofia gipsy ghetto, the extremeness of the context in which we minister there and the deep needs of the people, often draw the attention of God with powerful anointing and supernatural miracles. However, this last service was so powerful in the Spirit that it put all present on their knees for prayer in the alter service which followed the message. We were able to broadcast live the event and we are grateful that video recorded from the service can be now watched by many showing the heavy presence of the Holy Spirit, which no words can truly describe. We are scheduled to return to Philpovtsy soon for a series of revival services, which will reunite the local churches in a regional seminar on Last Day Prophecy.
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