УВЕРЕНОСТ И МИР ВЪВ ВРЕМЕ НА БУРЯТА НА ГОСПОДА

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

Strategic Missions in Bulgaria and the Balkans

Dear friends and ministry partners, 

         Thank you for uplifting our ministry and families before the Lord! Last week, we praised God for answered prayer, as we met with church leaders from several denominations on a challenging journey in intercessory prayer and in-depth study of the New Testament command to go and make disciples of all nations. 

Training Facilitators for Kairos in Bulgaria -
resource for strategic missions to the nations

We feel that we live in a time, when many believers and that includes myself and my team come to a point of holy desperation for a new supernatural blast of God in the lives of both believers and unbelievers alike. And we are not talking about trying to be religiously abnoxious - God forbid! Our discussions and corporate prayer was focused on the effort to get our hearts and minds and those of the leaders we encouraged back to a place of passion and educated zeal - we are desperate to see more and more Christians in Bulgaria burn with passion for the fulfilling of the Great Commission!

Praying for the Least Reached Groups of the world -
Among them our Turkish neighbors

         We dedicated the week of May 11-17 for that purpose. In partnership with the largest denominations in our country, we facilitated the Kairos Course. We had the President of the largest denomination in Bulgaria at the course endorsing the strategic value of Kairos. 

A day of culturally contextualized fellowship -
The theme was the Middle East

Our team has now undertaken the translation and publishing of the Kairos materials for Bulgaria. This Kairos training was a precursor for involving the entire body of Christ and its denominations, consisting of more than 1500 churches, in strategic mission!

A small step toward preparing leaders 
to think like World Christians

Please, pray for: 

- Our children and family outreach in May and June

- Our Muslim outreach in June

- The situation in Ukraine and growing number of people coming from Ukraine to live in our city area

- Our daughter Victoria and her friends from church who will have important math and literature exams in a few days

- For Jan and Stefan (our new friends) who will travel for more Kairos trainings this summer.  

CHRIST IS RISEN! MAY HIS RESURRECTION POWER FILL OUR LIVES!

Praise God for a living Lord and a living hope! 

Dear friends,

          I trust that you have enjoyed the celebration of the victory of Christ over death last weekend. This has been our prayer in the last month and we long for the Presence of the Lord to bring a supernatural touch of God in your lives and in the lives of your loved ones. 

Vicki celebrated her 14th birthday on Easter this year. She was born April 20, 2000 

       During Easter week, we had a large number of people coming to our church for the first time. We spent time in prayer for their different life situations. The day after Easter weekend, we had a special family outreach and pot luck lunch, where we invited families to share food with them and spend time in discussion on the challenges families face in their relationships and in raising children. 

Family outreach and pot luck lunch

       In a few days, our team will be  traveling to the capital city Sofia, where we'll be facilitating a national training for churches across the denominational spectrum. The goals we have are to inspire and encourage more and more leaders to work with their congregations and pray so that our churches think, pray and act missional - in order for the entire evangelical community to be empowered to reach out in the mercy, love and power of Christ. 

Prayer Points: 

- Please, pray for my co-workers Simeon and Radoslav and the participants who will spend a week in studying Scripture and praying together. 

- Pray for Maria, who has lots of things to manage. She's taking a seasonal job at Burgas airport. Missionaries are not wealthy, so we need that extra income. 

- Pray for the last month of intensive study for Vicki who wants to join the English language high school and she needs excellent grades and success with her math and literature tests. 

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

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

80936; Call: 1-800-297-9591

Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end

Dear prayer and financial partners,

Maria, Vicki and George - last warm days of fall

Greetings in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ! I hope that you and your loved ones are enjoying the Lord's favor during this very special time of the year. We have many reasons to bring thanks to God and above all it's His greatest gift - The Son of God - who came down to live among men and manifest the fullness of God's grace and mercy by giving himself up for our sins and providing us with an eternal hope and salvation. I was recently researching the reasons for the Day of Thanksgiving, because like with Christmas and Easter, I really wanted to seperate the precious and holy from the heavily commercial reasons for a celebration. And it did make sense then. I could see, why we today in this modern world full of conveniences need to learn from the 53 Pilgrims who survived the harsh winter of 1621 and as people who have come to know God and His Son and our Savior Jesus Christ we are called to walk in thankfulness every day, not just once a year.

It must have been easy for the 53 Pilgrims to be really bitter and angry with God and their surroundings. According to the historical records, the Mayflower carried 102 Pilgrims across the Atlantic in 1620, but the harsh winter, disease and hunger took the lives of half of that group! Neverthless, the rest of the Pilgrims looked around and saw the mercy of God in bringing them safely across the dangerous ocean deep and providing the first good harvest and blessing them with peace among their newfound neighbors - the Native American Indians living in the area - today's Massachusetts. They gathered, gave thanks to God for His goodness and mercy and of course ate turkey! In one of the letters a Pilgrim sent to his family in England, he has said, that the area around Cape Cod abounds in fowl (turkeys among them) and the lakes and the sea in fish. They lost so many and yet their hearts were full of grace and gratitude and brought thanks to God after the first harvest of 1621. We sure have many more reasons to be thankful!

I want to bring special thanks to our Lord at this time of reminding ourselves how gracious and generous our God is. During our summer ministry outreach, we gathered most of our core ministry team with their families and children. We had been planning for that time of prayer and encouragement and really desired to lift each other's family up before the throne of Grace. One of the families which came to the retreat have been praying for a child for several years. They had the doctors say to them, that was a very serious problem and that medicine may not help. As they were sharing, they were very and and tears flowed down their faces. We said, "Listen, let us come before God in prayer! Let us intercede for you and see what God will say." We were worshipping and began to pray. After all, we felt that we need to focus on intercessory prayer back then. That was the main focus of the entire retreat.

Several days ago, I received an email from Ivaylo and Daniela saying that Daniela is now 2 months pregnant! She feels well and doctors say that there are no complications whatsoerver. PTL! He gave Samuel to Anna when she was desperate and had nowhere to go for help! Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever! He is a miracle workin God!

Christmas is coming! It's that great reason for our thanksgiving and praise, for our joy and hope!

Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever  (Isaiah 9:7)

I have been praying recently for The Kingdom of God to increase dramatically among us. And the passage in Isaiah 9:7 gives us this promise. The Kingdom of God will always increase! That is the promise of Christmas. Each Christmas there are people who experience the Kingdom of God for the first time and receive the peace only Christ came to give. When Mary placed her baby in a manger, it became the throne of our King. We the Christians of today, like the shepherds, still bow before the manger to worship their Messiah.

Jesus came to reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, to reign in our hearts to guide our lives. The Messiah's throne would be over all the people who would belong to the Kingdom of God. Jesus would be the last King the people would ever have because he was the last King the people would ever need. Jesus upholds God's Kingdom with justice and righteousness. That was true on the first Christmas and it is still true today. I wonder how the Pilgrims of 1620 celebrated their first Christmas! It would disrupt a lot of our nativity sets, but imagine Joseph and Mary, the animals and the Magi gathered around the baby Jesus – on a throne instead of a manger. 

The baby was a King. The Magi understood that. King Herod feared it. The shepherds were fascinated and awed by the tiny baby. Many would question the details surrounding his birth. But from that time until now, billions have believed in Jesus as their King. That number will always increase, according to Isaiah.

Christmas means we have a King – and we always will. May we place him on the throne of our lives this Advent season, and give him our worship.

I appeal to you to become our partners in mission in 2014! Help us reach out to children, youth and families in Bulgaria! Let us together serve and bring increase of His government and peace in the lives of many in Bulgaria! 

WE NEED YOUR PRAYERS, YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR PARTNERSHIP! PLEASE, PRAYERFULLY CONSIDER GIVING $100.00 FOR THE MINISTRY OF NEW HOPE BULGARIA USING OUR ONLINE FORM ATwww.newhopeinternational.org OR SEND GIFTS TO:

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

80936; Call: 1-800-297-9591

Training in Ireland - Mobilise 2013 - Train the Trainer

Dear prayer warriors and ministry partners, 

      Greetings in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ! As Psalm 108 says it, "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and and abounding in lovingkindness." We see His goodness every day. At our ministry we always look for possibilities to partner more and strenghthen the existing partnerships. One of those partnerships is in the area of children and teen ministries where New Hope BG has been working with BCMI - Bible Centered Ministries Int'l. 
Our BCM partners provide valuable children ministry resources and training, which we use to equip and empower the body of Christ in Bulgaria. 

Mobilise Participants - Ireland 2013

Two weeks ago, I took part in Mobilise 2013 - an international training for Master/Leader Trainers hosted by BCMI in Ireland. The purpose of the training was to have new Master Trainers prepared and equipped to use In Steps with the Master Teacher in our respective countries and prepare more children workers - a growing need for many local churches. I got certified to be the first Master/Leader Trainers for Bulgaria. Besides the training, we had a very refreshing time of sharing and prayer with many co-workers from countries across the world - from South Africa to England and from the Netherlands to Peru. The training was very dynamic and we had lots of interaction with co-workers from various countries. 

Pat Govender BCMI's Director for Africa

   

Master Trainers for Europe and Africa

I was blessed to listen to the testimonies of children workers, who have gone to places where Christians are living under heavy persecution and right there by the Lord's grace they witness about Christ and continue to bring hope to the lost. Some of our co-workers at Mobilise had just gone through the loss of a dear loved one and we prayed that the consolation of the Holy Spirit would help them go through this very difficult time in their lives. 
  In the end of Mobilise 2013, we were certified as Master/Lead Trainers and off we go, ready to equip and prepare more national workers for effective and fruitful children ministry. Nevertheless, I would like to stay humble and say that acquiring more skills and Scripture-based knowledge is great, but above all we are all dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit to make us successful and effective in every aspect of our ministry. So, with that said, I'm turning to you our prayer friends. We need you more than ever to uplift us in prayer, to partner with us in ministry, to reach the lost and fulfill the Great Commission with us at New Hope BG in our part of the world.

P.S. Thank you for praying for the Syrian refugees who are coming to Bulgaria in large numbers. Many local churches are coming together for a unified response to the needs of this desperate Muslim community. As a church community, we have already provided thousands of packets with basic necessities ranging from canned food and bottled water to medicines and toiletries. The Lord brings a challenge to us in Isaiah 58, where we see that our religion cannot remain simply a lip service. 


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



        

Summer is behind us, the harvest is finished - October 2013 Update

Dear partner,

I was reading Ps. 145 today and something captured my attention and I began to pray bringing that Scripture before the throne of grace. Here’s what the Holy Spirit drew my heart to:

“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,   and his greatness is unsearchable. ⁴ One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. ⁵ On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.”

I don’t need to preach to you today. You get a lot of that in church, I believe. But in the last two months, in the face of fear and worries about the future, our family, the families of our co-workers and our ministry, the Lord has been speaking peace to us, He’s been bringing us to a place where we trust and confide in Him, His Word and constantly urging us to remind ourselves about His unfailing love, power and mercy. As we meet with families, we seem to be tuned into the same frequency of thanksgiving and praise. Do we have all things taken care of and do we see a solution to every struggle we face? Not really. But this is where the Lord reminds us that we walk by faith and not by sight, bringing all our worries, fears and needs before a loving and caring Father, who’s graciously giving us all we need.

           

Maria keeps things under control with our fast growing children

     Our children, thank God, are back to school and doing very well. Vicki and George are the tallest in their classes, as I’ve heard. What brings us even more joy is that they excel in class. I told them, that this is all the result of God’s mercy and grace and their good mother Maria keeping them in line with their homework. That, I hope, will keep their feet on the ground. Maria is almost finished with her seasonal airport job. I have mixed feelings about it. I’d love her to take a break from all the night shifts, but at the same time, I realize that when she finishes work there, it’ll be another half a year without the extra income that we really, really need. Keep us uplifted in prayer before the throne of grace!

One mighty national team having fun and good food

On the ministry front, we were really blessed to have all of our volunteer families and co-workers in one place for three days this summer. We have been praying for a special retreat/fellowship/training for those we’ve been serving in the field for many years. I thank God for His wonderful work of raising a generation of new servants! As the verse I just shared says it, we are called to make His power known to the next generation. We really wanted to have the children there, the wives and create that special atmosphere for sharing, intercessory prayer and encouragement. That worked powerfully! The presence of the Lord was there! His power touched our children and they began to listen how their moms and dads heard the call of God, committed to ministry, struggle, fight and win by the mercy and grace of their Lord. As the prophet Zechariah once encouraged the priest Joshua, “It’s not by power (of man), not by might (of the strong of the day), but by my Spirit, says the Lord.” Our special retreat/fellowship/training brought a sweet fruit because of the partnership of our friends from Southshore Community Church in Sarasota and we are thankful for their love, prayers and support. 

       
     In August, we had to make some changes in our plans due to some financial constraints, but that doesn’t mean we had to sit on our hands. Not at all! The Lord always finds a way to prove to us, that His thoughts are higher than ours. Our team got a message from a team traveling to Bulgaria and they were all collegegrads from various colleges in the US. Fresh out of college, these guys have committed one year to missions all over the world. The World Race is the mission which has recruited them and sent them to 12 countries in 12 months! We were impressed with their itinerary. So, they asked us, whether we can use them in ministry and we said, “Absolutely! We need volunteers who are not afraid to go places they’ve never been to before. And especially young guys like them.” 

Say hello to a World Race Team in Bulgaria

     

     So, we took them and used them for 10 days in every place we needed prayer, sharing of the Gospel, more prayer, physical work, etc. We really felt that the Lord wants us to take them to serve the needs of the poor Roma communities, so that’s where we took them for a week – to Roma/Gipsy churches. We would walk the streets of our city, then we’d stop to talk to people, pray with them, ask them about anything they would like us to pray about and in many places share about our hope in the Lord. It was a very powerful and enriching week for all of us. 

     We feel that the Lord had us bond with that group of young graduate students and we pray they come back to Bulgaria, God willing. 

The Lord is good, His mercy endures forever! Please, pray for our nation! We need the Lord’s mercy and grace, we really, really need Him to open the heavenly windows and pour His Spirit on us. The churches here get another challenge. How are we going to treat and serve the desperate and the foreigner? Our government is building a temporary shelter/camp for thousands of Syrian refugees 10 ml. away from our city. We have thousands of Syrians in Bulgaria already. They all people running from the horrors of civil war, bruised, scared and looking for hope. Surely, in times of war and turmoil, we have trouble, but the Lord Jesus brings a challenge to our churches today – how are you going to treat the needy and the desperate? So, we want to find the power, the resources, partners and strength to reach the Syrian refugees with the mercy, love and hope of Christ. Please, help us do it! Pray, give for our Muslim outreach to Syrian refugees, and again pray for our churches in Bulgaria!         

 Pray for:

 1.      Our family and ministry needs – we need God’s power, wisdom, funds.                      2.      Our follow up work with children, youth and families – we don’t want to waste the fruit of summer camps.

 3. The local churches, as we all desire to join hands in reaching the Syrian refugees next to our city.

WE NEED YOU TO BE OUR PARTNERS IN MINISTRY IN BULGARIA! PLEASE SEND YOUR GIVING TO 

New Hope International | P.O. Box 25490 | Colorado Springs, CO 80936 | 


1-800-297-9591