Making Disciples of All Nations ...and one family, one child at a time

Reaching families, children and youth

Dear partners in ministry,

     When I read the story about Samuel and how God spoke to a little child, I realize that every child is like Samuel - children can hear God's voice, they can respond and obey Him. And even though, children may often grow up in very disturbing environments, e.g., Samuel was hanging around the sons of Eli who were a terrible company when you want to learn how to live in the the fear of the Lord. Thank God that little Samuel had a mother like Anna who prayed. She would intercede for her son and and commit him into the gracious hands of the Lord and a miracle happened - a mighty servant of God was born.

"He lifted me up" - Children challenge the audience by asking -

"Is Jesus living in you?"

     I believe that we live in a critical time, a perilous time for the children and youth in our nations, as Satan aims at their minds with violent videos, erotic clips, pornography and the spirit of materialism streamed via the Internet and cable. Every minister and missionary must go into the prayer closet and wage the prayer battle for his or her children and for the youth who we reach in church and in our communities. Many children come from homes where only the grandparents come to church, some come to church with the pain of separated parents and we pray to God to give us the grace and power we need to minister to them in a life-changing way.

      This Easter season we had children and parents coming to church just because it was a special time and there were some treats. We used the opportunity to have our children ministry minister to young and old. Maria and I prepared a program and the children were very excited to be involved.

My wife Maria and her Sunday School class

     We were very pleased to see how the young messengers interact with one another. I have to say with great joy that when I see Bulgarian and Roma children and their parents together in our church, showing love to one another, I realize that only the Holy Spirit can break down the walls of racial and ethnic division in Bulgaria. 
     We have a small example of the way God's Kingdom works. His love and mercy trumps the ethnic prejudices in our nation! The audience on Easter Sunday was attentive and very appreciative of the children's great work.     

     Why drama is so effective in getting a message across to somebody's audience? Well, think about Ezekiel and how God instructed him to use drama to illustrate Jerusalem's siege.

Attentive and appreciative audience

God had a lot of words for His people, but they were not enough. He used drama to help them get the point. Besides, children love it and they really get involved and creative. When the young actors imagine stepping into the shoes of prophets and apostles, the reality of the Bible message makes a lasting impact on their lives.      They begin to ask questions, stop and listen more carefully and respond to the truth of the Gospel. Our daily lives are hectic and preoccupied with many things. Our desire was for children to use drama to challenge us to pause and ask the question, "Jesus, do I live like you are really alive today?" And then to ask the guests in the audience to give their hearts to the Lord, because He is truly Risen! 

Pastor Simeon and Maria gave Sunday School

graduation certificates for 2013-2014  

     This Spring, we had a special ceremony for all Sunday School children who received graduation certificates. The point of giving them certificates was to show them how much we value their desire to learn how to know, love and obey God. Our Sunday School leader Maria had all children take a test before graduation day. They all passed. :)

     One of our strategic goals is to build up, encourage and strengthen the families of the church. Strong bonds in the families make for a strong church in Bulgaria. In the last several years, we have initiated both national and regional family ministry outreach. We gather couples and their children for fellowship, sharing and prayer. Sometimes, it's a 3 day event away from the city, but we also use the weekends for special gatherings. The truth is that the family overall is under the assault of the devil. We have never seen so much pain and divorce in Bulgaria among believers and unbelievers alike. Our prayer and passionate desire is to lead families to a place of worship and prayer. When worship and prayer are in place, the Holy Spirit will saturate these families with His presence and the Word will speak powerfully into our lives.

Family gathering - pot luck lunch, prayer and a more

    As we had families gathering for fellowship we ministered to one another, had lunch and watched a video message from Mark Gungor entitled "How to stay married without killing anybody". This man sure has a great way of getting his message across! We discussed the serious stuff about family life, shared out of our experiences, faults and successes.  

    Our children are growing up pretty fast and it seems that sometimes, we don't notice that. When we gathered families in April, Vicki in the center of the picture just turned 14. Mathew who's right behind her to her right also turns 14 later this year.
It's a special season for both of them, as they graduate from 7th grade and go on to apply at two very popular "elite" high schools - English language and Math high schools.

Vicki was happy to treat her friends with cake

     While we were discussing "how to stay married without killing anybody" :), our children had some fun together.

The youngest member of our fellowship is Krasy -
 he enjoys being the focus of our attention

    They also gave ear to some of our comments and opinions and sometimes, they just giggled as we discussed the joys and challenges of family life. We are privileged to see how children are growing together and make friends with other believers. My generation lives to see their children come to know the Lord, to love and follow Him. Most of the people my age have never come to know the Lord in their early childhood! They are still very much atheists today. We are making history in our churches by raising up a generation of believers and for that we give God all the glory!

    While studying the Acts of the Apostles and also looking more carefully into the Great Commission, we realized a few months ago, that we have many children and teens, who go to Sunday School and confess to believe in the Lord Jesus, but oops, they have never been taught the significance of the water baptism. And when we look into the narrative of the Acts, believers didn't postpone their baptism - it just came right in the very beginning of their new Christian walk.

Now, where was that verse about John the Baptist -
here's a tip - it's in the New Testament

    So, this May we began a short course using a resource we borrowed and translated from Current ...a Christian church. We divided the children in two groups in order to have them interact and began to practically teach them how to find Scripture verses, books, chapters, etc. They felt like they are in a competition of sorts and that helped them learn team play.

This is the Word of the Lord -
believe and be baptized

                             We actually used the Sunday service to do the course and the adults were excited to see how the children have learned to read the Bible and look into Scripture for answers to questions like, "How do we actually get saved?" They learned that we need to hear, believe, repent, confess and BE BAPTIZED! :)
 

WE NEED YOUR PRAYERS, YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR PARTNERSHIP! PLEASE, PRAYERFULLY CONSIDER GIVING FOR THE MINISTRY OF NEW HOPE BULGARIA USING OUR ONLINE FORM AT www.newhopeinternational.org OR SEND GIFTS TO:

New Hope International / P.O.Box 25490 / Colorado Springs, CO 

80936; Call: 1-800-297-9591