Faraway Family

Al and Diane Mellinger are American missionaries living in Petrich, Bulgaria, a city of about 14,000 people just a few kilometres from the Greek border. They are helping to develop local leadership in Bulgarian churches which often struggle because they are so young and inexperienced.

On Thursday evening, Al and his translator Peggy took us on a hair-raising trip through the mountains to the town of Gotse Delchev. I didn't bother to take any pictures, first because it was hard to stop on the winding road, but also because I knew my camera wouldn't do justice to what I was seeing. But it was nothing short of breath-taking. Here's a picture of a mountain that looks like where we were, that I lifted off the internet.

Gotse Delchev is a typical small Bulgarian town with the tile-roofed houses and apartment blocks that you see all over Bulgaria. And like most of those towns, it has an area consisting of rambling houses, existing in a kind of shadow land on the fringes of legality and modern services like proper roads. We parked the car and walked up a steep hill to a house where a Turkish speaking congregation meets. We were met by a group of young and astonishingly good looking young men, including Andrej, the pastor, who looks more like a member of the youth group.

Andrej was the youth leader at another church but became disillusioned by controlling leadership, so decided to start a new church with some of his kids. Those who gathered to talk to us in the late afternoon were all young men in their 20s. They were very soft-spoken as they described the peace and joy that they have found in Christ. Being Turkish, most of the people in the community are nominally Muslim, but in practice are nothing. Everyone in the community knows each other, but the church has given them a sense of purpose and togetherness that is new for them.

Employment is always a problem. A few are fortunate enough to work locally, but most travel to Greece to work in agriculture or the garment industry. Greece is the prosperous neighbor just over the hills. A lot of businesses in southern Bulgaria carry merchandise that Bulgarians can't afford. Greeks come over the border in droves to take advantage of cheap prices. But there was a sense of pride and hope that we had not sensed in some of the other communities we had visited.

Their meeting place is the first floor of a house owned by Sergei and his wife. Diane and I both had to use the washroom and Sergei, who really speaks no English at all, took great pride in showing us his lovely home.

They meet for prayer and worship on Thursday nights as well as Sundays. The young guys who were there were the music leaders. They sang songs in Turkish that had that slightly melancholy timbre that one associates with Middle Eastern music. It was a nice change from American praise and worship songs. I wish we could get young guys at home to sing like them!

The room where we met has room for about 40-50 and by the time the service started at 7 p.m. it was full. Everyone who came in recognized us as newcomers and greeted us with the words (in Bulgarian) "Praise God." It was genuine and unfeigned hospitality.

We have now realized that guests -- especially guest pastors -- can't get away without speaking. So we were both ready with a short message. Peggy (who is awesome!) translated into Bulgarian. Even though their first language is Turkish, everybody speaks both.

I spoke about 1 Corinthians 13 because we were told that one of their songs was based on that text. I said that even though we don't speak either Turkish or Bulgarian, we speak a common language because we are bound together by the love of Christ.

Al preached a sermon on the parable of the sowers. Pastor Andrej led in prayer. He also said some really gracious things about how important it has been for them to have people come to them with help, encouragement and prayer.

At the end of the service, everyone embraced us with spontaneous warmth and you got the feeling it was much more than a formality. They were really glad we had chosen to come and be with them.

Every day has brought a new surprise. Here we were, in a place more out of the way than we ever expected to be, embraced by this community of wonderful young people who are filled with joy at the faith they have found in Christ. We felt like we were in the presence of family.

Breaking down Loneliness

Roberta Bustin is our other host in Sighisoara. She's from Arkansas and speaks with a gorgeous southern accent, even when she's speaking Romanian! Roberta retired from teaching chemistry at a Nazarene college twelve years ago, and decided in her retirement to come to Romania and plant churches!

One of her responsibilities is as the leader of a Nazarene congregation in Sighisoara. She also leads a church plant in a village about 30 minutes from the town. Roberta led us up and down over Sighisoara's famous cobbled streets (currently all torn up as part of a never-ending "improvements to the infrastructure" of the citadel area, which has been going on for several years now with no end in sight) to her little church building in a pleasant neighborhood.

What she wanted us to see was the club the church runs for elderly folks. Many are quite poor, they live alone, and without the church they would be almost completely isolated. The church is open each day from 10 till 12, and they can come and socialize, drink coffee, have their blood pressure taken, and receive a time of precious human contact. We were greeted by Mia who runs the program. Each of the seniors shook hands and gave us a hearty "Buna ziua!" (Good day.)
So much of what Christ calls us to do is very simple -- to open our eyes to those in need and simply to love them. The church may not be able to meet every need, but it is such a simple thing to overcome the loneliness and isolation that would otherwise be the daily lot of these folks. As a result of coming to the seniors club, many have joined the church, extending their "family" further.

Czech hospitality

Dave Patty, who told us about Malenovice, said we should go to the church he attends in Frydlant nad Ostravici, a town of about 10,000, 15 minutes from our hotel. The only hitch was that both he and his wife Connie wouldn't be there this past weekend. But, they said, there are lots of wonderful people who speak English.

Both Diane and I are good with languages, and everywhere we've been we can kind of puzzle things out based on our knowledge of French and German. But I have to tell you, Czech is a totally different ball of wax. There is almost nothing recognizable about either the sound or appearance of Czech.

So going to a Czech worship service, not knowing who would be there or if we would understand a blessed word was a bit of a leap of faith. But we've discovered on this trip that if we just go for it and take that leap, wonderful things happen.

Church was to be at 4 p.m., so we booked a taxi to pick us up at 3:30 and drop us off at -- who knows where? The taxi pulled up in front of a squarish building that could have been a house, an office, or a small community center. There was a sign over the door and we asked our taxi driver what it said. "House of gardeners" he replied, cryptically.

A man, woman and little boy came along just as we stepped out of the cab. "Do you speak Czech?" he asked in very good English. "Not at all," we said. "But we heard there was church here." "I'm Lubo," he replied, "I pastor the church. Come and join us."

Lubo was full of apologies. "It's summer. Many people are away, and most of our youth are away working at English camps. So there may not be many people here." At 3:55, there was Lubo, his two daughters who were leading the music, his wife and an older lady who may have been her mother (not sure.) But, by 4, about 20 people had arrived, (down from an average of 60) including young families, a Korean man with his little boy, and an American from Mobile, Alabama, named Charlotte. Charlotte heard us from the other side of the room and came over. "I heard you speaking English!" she said.

Before the service, Lubo said, "I'm afraid you won't get much of the service without some help," so he called over a woman in her 30s named Marcela. "Here, Marcela will translate for you." Marcela is Czech, but lived in England and speaks very good English. She sat between us and provided us with simultaneous translation!

Lubo's daughters led a couple of songs which we immediately recognized as "I Could Sing of your Love Forever" and "Here I Am To Worship" -- in Slovak. There was a time of sharing concerns for people in the congregation. Two young women were driving to a camp in Romania when their car was rear-ended and totaled. We prayed for them as well as for others.

The Scripture text was Ephesians 4: 11-16. The sermon was on how God equips the church with people who have gifts for prophecy, apostleship, teaching and evangelism. Lubo told a story of when he was a teacher. He had an especially recalcitrant student who wanted a better mark than his work deserved. In dealing with this student, Lubo eventually had an opportunity to share with him his faith in Christ and the young man, full of attitude, became a Christian.

After the service, Lubo told us that the congregation is really struggling with how to extend hospitality to non-Czech speakers. They have a lot of visitors and feel compelled to find ways to make them feel at home. That's what Marcela did for us and we told him how welcomed we had felt. And I thought, "Wow, how attentive are we in our churches to people who 'speak a different language?'"

Il Song, the Korean man, wanted to talk to me when he found out we were Canadians. "My son is playing hockey!" he told me, and showed me some pictures on his iPhone.

Our taxi was waiting, but Lubo said, "We must pray for you before you leave." And so he did.

Earlier in the day on Sunday, part of me wanted to say, "We don't know where the church is, who will be there or what it will be like. Maybe we should just spend the day at the hotel." We were both so glad we went and so blessed by this wonderful Christian community in a little Czech town.