CLIFF NOTES VERSION:
- The day-to-day stuff
- Home group
- Something spiritual
- Needed: volunteer for construction overseeing in Sofia
- Home assignment – Jan-March 2014 – Need a mission’s speaker?
- Praises and prayer requests
THE DAY-TO-DAY STUFF:
Today is a cool and cloudy day in Sofia. The summer has been strange and been more like an extended spring with afternoon rains and the need of a jacket in the mornings. I’m in a coffee shop waiting for the copy center to finish printing out Wesley’s Christian Perfection in Bulgarian so that I can mail it out to our ministers that are studying in the theological education courses that I organize.
Currently experiencing a boom in students., we’re getting ready to start another class: History and Polity of the Church of the Nazarene. Following Zhana’s ordination last fall, there was a renewed interest in the classes that we offer four or five times a year. It’s looking like at least one other minister will be ordained this fall and several more next year. We’ve had 6 students re-engage in the program and added 4 new students and the challenge is that they are scattered all over Bulgaria.
Since my last newsletter, I have been consumed mainly with the following things: the legal work of the district and organizing classes. There’s always the volunteer that needs a ride to the airport or the pastor that needs a pulpit fill-in and there’s also my home group that’s taken off the ground. But mainly I do legal work and the classes: teaching (just taught my first class: World Religions), grading (the homework is in Bulgarian and most visiting professors can’t grade it), corresponding with professors, meeting students weekly for 2-hour discussion sessions by Skype, and mentoring new students. It’s been busy.
With regards to the legal work: by the grace of God, I’ve been able to register with the courts the changes that we’ve had in the boards of the church and the humanitarian foundation (which is how we first existed when we entered Bulgaria). We’ve also worked on updating the constitutions for both institutions. (If the church constitution – which is a slim version of the manual – was not updated, the government could have rejected our church registration based on new legislation and we were very concerned that this not happen.) It has been a labor-intensive and time-consuming endeavor with a lot of people weighing in but hopefully this will increase the effectiveness and longevity of both organizations. With regards to properties, I’ve also been able to transfer the Montana church building from the foundation to the church because it was purchased before we were registered as a church and now they will not have to pay property taxes. Next year we’re hoping to do the same with the Sofia land, where we’re still trying to build.
All of this is pretty boring stuff for a newsletter but it’s been the reality of my life in the last 9 months. The things that really are life-giving for me are the reading that I have to do for the class tutoring sessions that are every week on Skype and seeing the growth in the lives of my home group members.
HOME GROUP
We really are a motley crew in the home group. There’s a professional translator, a young accountant, someone with Ausberger’s, a Hungarian, and a young man who was made an invalid from a fall. We speak in Bulgarian and in English depending on who comes. This is the core of the group. What’s been amazing to me is to watch the transformation that happens in the lives of people as they come to know God. Sometimes haircuts and new clothes accompany the change but the most beautiful is to see the light of Christ shining in the life of someone where once there was only darkness.
SOMETHING SPIRITUAL
Some of the best spiritual moments with God this spring were in preparing for the tutoring sessions of the Holiness class that we had with Tim Green in April. One of the readings was about the rest that is described in Hebrews 3 and 4. I had always understood that rest discussed in these chapters refers to Sabbath or Shabbat and also the eternal rest that we will have to the Lord, but there always seemed to be another sense of rest that wasn’t clear to me as I read those passages. In Greathouse’s book, Wholeness in Christ, he talks about this rest as freedom from sin. “Now we who have believed enter that rest…” This attitude of rest appeals to me, a born and breed overachiever. God himself modeled both hard work and rest in creating the world in 6 days and then resting on the 7th day. The battle in striving to be Christlike is difficult, requiring effort. But it is a co-laboring together with God. It is a rest that he invites us to enter into. It is only by His Holy Spirit that little by little in intensive moments and also in the continual washing of our souls with the Living Water, that we are freed from the passions, habits, and desires that separate us from the Trinity and we are liberated to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves.
“…There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God’s rest rests from his work just as God did from His. Let us make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following our example of disobedience…”
Let’s REST!!!
NEEDED!!! -Volunteer(s) with experience in construction to oversee the Sofia building project for approximately 2 years beginning summer/spring 2014. We need someone to be involved in choosing and overseeing the work crews for the building project from start to finish. The project is expected to be a 3-story structure large enough to house the church, a café, offices/apartments, and shops. Having extensive experience with construction is a necessity. A good understanding of cement panel construction or bricking that is then plastered would be helpful (but not obligatory). If a couple comes together, I can provide my guest room free of charge. We would also provide a translator to work alongside you. It would be possible to do this in a snow-bird arrangement (for example from March to November or something like that).
HOME ASSIGNMENT: JANUARY-MARCH 2014 I have a ton of openings! Let me know if you need a mission’s speaker !
January 2014
05
12
19
26
February 2014
02
09
15 South Arkansas District Tour
23 South Arkansas District Tour
March 2014
02 South Arkansas District Tour
08-09 Faith Promise Convention in Wheatland, Missouri
16
23
PRAISES:
- My cell group has developed a solid core and all are growing deep roots in Christ.
- The Ministry of Religion accepted the changes to the church constitution and we’ve been able to remove the church from the danger of loosing it’s registration with the government.
- The new students in our classes and their hunger for Christ.
- Misho (who suffered from a brain injury coming home from district youth camp two years ago) is still doing great. He graduated from high school in May and is planning to go to university in Denmark in the fall.
- The Razgrad church had the honor of hosting one of the regional sites for the General Assembly. Their entire team worked tirelessly to pull off a fabulous event for delegates from all over the region. It is a pleasure to work with them and I praise God for them.
PRAYER REQUESTS:
- A strong team in Bulgaria and a sense of unity in our churches: Sofia, Vidrare, Monaselska Reka, Montana, Stubel, Razgrad, Osenetz, and Kubrat.
- New church planting possibilities in Berkovitsa and Varna.
- My ‘Bulgarian mother’, Tsanka, is the caregiver of her mother (who is 91) and just recently also of her brother (58) who had a stroke in June. This is not allowing her to work and creating financial difficulties for all of them. Pray that God will give her strength.
- Continuing theological education students: Galin, Valeri, Nikolay, Ani, Andrey, Goran, Geroyka – for strength as they juggle studies, ministry, work, and family.
- New theological education students: Tana, Tsetseto, Iliya, Krasimir – to know God more through their studies and love Him more passionately.
