Hello! We had a full and rich day here in Sofia; including 3 services (one of the a baptism service) and I stayed for a youth/young adult meeting in the evening as well. 5 people were baptized in the 2nd service which included an elderly man; it was really a great service and the joy of the people was very evident. Sofia Baptist Church is quite well-known among evangelical ex-pats living in Bulgaria and we met a few of them who regularly attend and others visiting.
In the few hours we had between services in the afternoon, we had lunch with Pastor Teddy Oprenov and had the chance to see the progress being made on the church sponsored cultural center being constructed just down the street from the current church building. (below)
Shelly, Kameron and I saw this cultural center, which was will also house a new
sanctuary, 2 years ago and it is very encouraging to see the progress that is being made on it. Pastor Teddy (below) has incredible vision for this work as it will house a number of different services for the community including – a food bank, a counseling center, an internet café and offices for Sofia based Christian ministries.
Teddy told us of the many amazing ways that God has gone before them in realizing this vision; incredible stories of land acquisition, a top-notch architect and other providential ways God has provided. As Teddy put it, “God is just running ahead and we’re trying to keep up!”.
As I said above, I had a great time meeting with the youth/young adult group of the church in the evening as they asked if I would share more about Gateway Teams’ vision for discipling youth and what that really means. It was great time for me to share about what we may want to partner with them in doing in the future as well as taking a number of questions about their concerns. This is definitely a need here in Bulgaria as I have talked to a number of people about this. God may be uncovering another potential ministry opportunity here in this area of youth discipleship and raising up young leaders!
Thanks for praying.
Randy
Monday, June 11, 2007
Greetings from Lom, Bulgaria! Today was a day of travel into the northwestern part of the country. Lom is on the Danube River right at the border with Romania. Our time in Bulgaria these 10 days has kept us in the western part of the country, but whether going south or north as we are now, the beautiful Balkan mountain ranges continue to impress.
On the way to Lom, we stopped at Varshets, the site of a cluster of Baptist churches and met some of the leaders there and spent time getting to know them and praying for them. Vasil Vasilev was one of these pastors we met. He is also the current President of the Baptist Union of Bulgaria. (below – on the site of the new church property in Varshets)
And then we came to our destination, the historic city of Lom. We’d been anticipating coming to Lom because this is the site of North American Baptist Conference (that Gateway Teams is a part of) work that helped launch the Bulgarian Baptist Union and specifically churches in this area. National pastors in the area in particular were supported by NAB missions and considered missionaries of the NAB Conference. Also, NAB leaders like Fuelbrandt and Kuhn visited this area and the Lom church in support of this work in the 1930’s. The Communist regime branded Kuhn as a spy shortly after this time and all contact was lost between the Bulgarian Baptist Union, the church in Lom and the North American Baptist Conference until the present time. Because of the discovery of this past relationship, we have made our way to Bulgaria at this time! As you can imagine, the pastor and the church were very excited to have us here knowing that we represent people that helped begin their church 70+ years ago!
We headed to bed after a long dinner conversation looking forward to all we would see in the day ahead! Thanks for your prayers!
Randy
Randy
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