This last week with the help of God we were able to make a short missionary trip to Rhodope Mountains, where we met several of Bulgarian missionaries there. Our purpose with this journey was to encourage them in their difficult job, and to get personal impression from their work there, so that we can pray more effectively for them. Our departure from Bourgas was on 30th of June, Wednesday. In the same day we arrived in Dzebel, and every next day we were in different place. We returned in Bourgas on July 3rd, Saturday.
In comparison with my last stay in Dzebel in January 2003 when I was teaching in the missionary school there the town now is changed a lot. There is new modern cafe right in the centre and in these new places of public resort you can see not only men but women also. May be because I have not seen it during the summer or because of economic uplift, from my point of view this time Dzebel was much more fresh and attractive. It looks like there is answer to prayers and break-through in spiritual world.
I would not say the same about the church. The people there are still spiritual babies that need much attention and care. It is strange that most of the members are not former Moslems, but Russians. Please pray for spiritual seriousness, spiritual appetite, and spiritual maturity of these young people. Pray that at least one family from local people could accept Jesus - family that has good standing in society. Dzebel is very important because its population is more Turks than Bulgarian Moslems.
Taki and Megi together with their children Joan and Emanuil who have lived and worked there in the last four and half years have moved to Plovdiv. (This year Joan starts school.) There he together with Pastor Angel Peltekov (his father is businessman) and his church "Life through Christ" organized several months mission school. In the same time in order to finance his ministry he tries to start international business as jobber for clothing that will be produced in Bulgaria and exported to Western Europe.
Fruit of this Plovdiv's missionary school are two families who came to live in Dzebel in May - Gunay and Boriana, and Vasil and Zlatka. Gunay is from Krichim and speaks Turkish although his dialect is a little different than that in Dzebel. Vasil and Zlatka are from Yambol and are graduates from Pentecostal Bible College in Sofia where I was honored to teach them. The main sponsorship for these two families comes from the church "Life through Christ" and their initiative "Churches in unity for God's purposes".
On our way from Dzebel to Devin we passed through Nedelino. There we met Anton Donchev who has started his missionary work there just two months ago. I know Anton from the course in New Testament Survey which I taught in Missionary School of Taki and Megi in Dzebel in 2003. Then Anton impressed me with his good heart and stable character, and now I am glad that he remained in Rhodope Mountains and now he starts his own missionary work in Nedelino. There with great difficulties he rented apartment in the center of the town and now tries to rent a room that could be transformed in "Christian Enlightenment Club". Let's pray for success in his work - as in Nedelino so in his evangelical work with Jesus film.
Our travel from Nedelino to Devin was most difficult. We pass by unknown road through Padina and Bjal Izvor. But before Padina we lose our way and went to the road to Sredetz. After returning on the right road we pass through Smoljan and Shiroka Laka and about 18.00 arrived in Devin.
The missionary home of Encho Todorov is quite big and has facilities for receiving many guests, but he said that for the past year no body has came there. In the past he had groups from the West who came there for rest and missions. Also he gathered about 50-60 people as local church there. But now they remained 5-10 people. So the main focus of brother Encho now is his monthly magazine "Brotherly love". His office is on the third floor. On the second floor are kitchen and one big room where he packed the magazine in order to send it throughout whole country.
Brotherly love magazine is "magazine for common people". Its audience includes Muslims in Rhodope Mountains, prisoners, and invalids in Bulgaria. Its circulation is 15000 (the biggest for Bulgaria) and the price is very low, because it is printed on cheap paper. It has five main headings:
- News
- Letters from prison
- Witnesses
- Teaching
- For children
The first three are directed to unbelievers, and the last two to believers. The purpose of the magazine is to reach out to those who are out of reach to the gospel in Rhodope Mountains and prisons. Brother Encho is doing the entire job around magazine alone. Editing, communication with the print shop, packing… He even does the distribution of the magazine to the churches with his own car which is small and fragile for this heavy job. When we leaved he (of course) did not miss to load our car with 2000 copies for Bourgas area.
In our way back we passed through Madan and Turun. In Madan is the biggest mosque in the region, and the mosque in Turun is the only one with three rings. It is incredible that since 1990 the muslems here have build 220 mosques for very short time. And almost all of them were sponsored from abroad!
In Friday afternoon we arrived in Zlatograd to meet Nikolay Somov. He is graduate of Pentecostal Bible College in Sofia where I was honored to teach. He is from Plovdiv and he is missionary in Zlatograd for more than two years. He went to Zlatograd with the help of Western foundation whose project was to give full support to a missionary family for two years, and then reduce this support with 25% every next year. After a short walk in the old ethnographic complex we went to the church. The church is located in the basement of former cafe which they rented. They made this cafe "Christian Enlightenment Club". The service pass very well and here we noticed bigger seriousness and dedication in the young people in the church.
