Our Last Days There

After teaching at Lilly's father's church on Sunday, we spent the rest of the week in Plovdiv doing a variety of things. We spent three nights teaching in Marina Dimatrova's Bible School. These are classes for people who want to know more about the Bible and about ministry. Many of them go on to more formal training and in the last 30 years or so, she has given the foundational training to many Pastors in Bulgaria. We also had meetings. We met Salcho and his wife for a meeting and, before the meeting, we toured a 4th century church. Many people do not know that Bulgaria is a land of the Bible. Modern Macedonia was part of Bulgaria when the Apostle Paul went there so there are many ancient, Christian ruins here. We also met with our friends, the Communists! These are guys who we met a couple of years ago who are very concerned about the Muslim incursions into Bulgaria and their efforts to radicalize the young gypsy men. They know that the only people who are effective in combating this are evangelical Christians, so we find common cause to work together. It is truly amazing to see how God sometimes open doors for us! Finally, on the last Saturday, Pat held her customary Women's Conference which she has done for about 8 or 9 years now. About 150 women from about 8 denominations were there! Here are some pictures of these events.

Lilly's Church

Many of you met Lilly last summer and she is back home and doing fine. We were at her church yesterday. Her dad is the pastor and he had invited us to teach on finding your purpose. He had invited people from other small churches and several of them came. It was a lot of fun and they are great people. Lilly and her mother were our translators so that too was fun and good practice for Lilly! Afterwards, her Dad had to go home to lead a study for people in Germany (or maybe it was Norway. They do it on Skype every Sunday evening. Pretty neat use of technology. Since he had that to do, we took Lilly and her mom to dinner and had lots of good conversation. Chances are that Lilly will be back this summer, although there are still a few hurdles to jump before that can happen. Time will tell. Here are a few pictures.

Perushtrtsa

For six or seven years, we have been coming to the town of Perushtrtsa to teach in a large Gypsy church there. We have truly bonded with these people! On Saturday night, we went out there to teach part of our seminar on marriage and the family. This is an area that the Gypsy people really need to change; their marriages are, for the most part, simply living together. Many resist the idea that a legal marriage is necessary. We began by going to dinner at the home of the sister-in-law of one of the Pastors. We then had the seminar at the church and a time of worship and praise. The worship team really got tuned up and the Pastor (Salcho) and I and one of the other guys started dancing. We really had a great time together. This is always one of the highlights of our trips because we feel that we are really making an important contribution to their lives and that is what they always tell us.Here are a few pictures of the party!

Stara Zagora

We have been coming to Stara Zagora almost since the beginning. Our good friends at Care For All Ministry have a major work in the city and in the villages around it. So when we come here, we do a variety of things. Taking food to needy people is something we try to do every time. We also travel to villages and towns around Stara Zagora and teach in Gypsy churches, visit some of the people and pray for them and try to encourage them. We did all of that and also met and had coffee with two of our old friends here. We have now moved on to Plovdiv. Tonight we will go to church in a Gypsy church where I will preach. Then tomorrow, we will do two seminars there; one in the morning and another in the afternoon. I will update after that. Here are the pictures from our time in Stara Zagora.

Touching Souls Through Their Stomachs

One of the things we always try to do when we are here is to feed a few Gypsy families. So on Tuesday, we teamed up with Stefko and Gopi, two of our friends in Stara Zagora, to go feed some of them. These people live in grinding poverty and their plight is virtually unknown outside of Eastern Europe. One of our friends who has been in refugee camps and similar places all over the world told us he has never seen people in worse conditions. Sadly, the governments of Eastern Europe do little to help these people and they have lived in these conditions for almost 1,000 years. Some of our partners have dedicated their lives to touching these people for Jesus. They go into these little villages, hold church services, pray with the people and generally try to encourage them every way they can. One practical way is to feed them because many are hungry. So each time we go, we go to the store and buy basic food for some of the families. This time, we bought 22 lbs of flour for each of the families. They will mix that with a little salt and water and yeast and bake bread with it. That's about all they will have to eat for two weeks. It is humbling but very fulfilling to do what we can for these poor people. It's not much but when you are starving, anything helps.