May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you ...

No pictures today. The batteries in the camera died.

But what a last day. This morning we met another new friend. Venci Stoikov is the pastor at a Church of God congregation in Sofia. He's a friend of our new friend Jimmy Luchev from Stara Zagora and we hit it off immediately.

Venci drove us back to Samokov, to the Gypsy church we had visited last week. Pastor Sacho invited us to attend worship and he is a persuasive enough guy that we couldn't say no. And, being as this is Bulgaria, no visiting pastors get away without preaching.

Venci filled us in on the challenges and rewards of ministry in Roma communities. Evangelical Protestant churches are about the only groups in Bulgaria that treat Gypsies with respect, so they tend to respond really positively to them. But there are deeply rooted traditions of fear and superstition, along with generations of nomadic wandering make it really difficult to develop long-term commitments. However, he said, guys like Sacho are doing amazing work in developing their congregations.

There were about 150 at church. To our surprise, women sit on one side and men on the other. But we both joined Sacho's wife Reni on the ladies' side. One thing we have discovered -- that the concept of a woman being the leader of a congregation and of a clergy couple serving different churches is totally off the radar screen for people in this part of the world. Women's leadership is in its very early stages.

However, they graciously received messages from both of us and seemed genuinely honoured that we had come among them.

This afternoon, we met one of the most interesting guys that we've encountered on our entire trip. Hristo Berisov is an Orthodox priest who is one of the leaders in a movement trying to bring together Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians in one fellowship. Their efforts are rooted in the pre-Constantinian reality of the church in which local autonomy and diversity were common. Hristo argues that the official Orthodox Church in Bulgaria is not so much Orthodox as Byzantine in character. The Byzantine vision of the church was one of the church as Kingdom of God on earth, demanding uniformity over local context. Hristo's English was shaky and he brought a translator who was not all that effective. But his movement, the Christian and Ecumenical Apostolic Church, has a website, http://www.ceacbg.com/, which we're going to check out when we get home. And Jimmy Luchev will fill us in further.

This evening, we went to Crossroads, Venci Stoikov's church. Great music, passionate prayer, a lengthy but really thoughtful sermon by one of the young guys in the church, and, of course, obligatory greetings from two visitors from Canada. What we really appreciated is that they have headsets with simultaneous translation. Krasi Rafailov, a lawyer, who speaks excellent English, spoke the translation into a microphone which we received in our own personal earphone. Wow.

In my remarks, I commented on how we had arrived in all of these places, welcomed by people we had never met before, who took us into their homes, their churches and their hearts as if we had been long-time friends. Of course, we are friends -- friends in Christ who creates community among those who know him.

The Morning Office from the Northumbria Community closes with this blessing:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you
Wherever He may send you;
May He guide you through the wilderness,
Protect you through the storm;
May He bring you home rejoicing
At the wonders He has shown you;
May He bring you home rejoicing
Once again into our doors.

Those are the words that are in my mind as we wrap up this incredible trip.

It's 9:15 p.m. in Sofia. We leave for the airport at 5:15 a.m. and by this time tomorrow night, God willing, we will be "making our final approach" to Pearson Airport. Should you read this posting before that time, please pray for safe travel.

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.

Gypsy Church

On Tuesday, David drove us the three hours to Samokov, a small city south of Sofia. We drove through some magnificent mountain scenery to get there. He had arranged for us to meet Sacho, the pastor of one of two very active Gypsy churches.

Sacho met us on the outskirts of town and took us to his church a bright and beautifully cared for building on the edge of a Gypsy quarter which is home to about 12,000 people.

We talked for about 30 minutes and then Sacho said he would take us for a tour. Most people in the community are unemployed. When they do work, they work in construction which has been devastated by the recent economic downturn. Most of the houses are makeshift, built without proper building permits, which means they don't pay taxes, which means they don't receive city services. They do not have running water and what electricity they have comes from tapping into one main line that runs along each street.

Children have little or no schooling and so the prospects of getting ahead are very limited. Most people are born, live their entire lives and die in this community.

Sacho told us that they had begun a ministry with abandoned children, many of whom they found scavenging in the garbage dump for food. They fed them

cared for them and began to teach them to read. But contributions from both their own church and overseas supporters have dried up with economic downturn and they have had to suspend the program.

This is one of the great challenges for indigenous Bulgarian churches. After the fall of communism, money and resources flowed in from the west, creating a rush of growth and excitement. This created an unhealthy dependency culture, and churches don't believe that they can sustain many of their ministries without infusions of support from the west. As these churches mature, their challenge will be to become self-supporting, both in financial and leadership terms.

Ministry under challenging conditions

One of the reasons we wanted to go to eastern Europe was to experience some of the challenges that people face in difficult circumstances. In Canada, we often talk about all the obstacles to the church. I've really had my eyes opened since being in Bulgaria.

On Monday we went with David Leistrum and Stilian, another ministry leader from the church in Stara Zagora, to visit a community in Nova Zagora that is populated by Turkish speaking people. It was like driving into another world -- Ramshackle houses, dirt roads teeming with people, animals and trash. We stopped outside a gate behind which was the home of Pastor Simeon and his wife Janka. This is Simeon and Janka with their three youngest children, Maria, Islam and Yussef.

Once inside I was surprised at how clean and well-kept their home was, in contrast to the surroundings outside. They invited us into their living room where there were refreshments waiting. With David as our interpreter, we asked them to tell us the story of our church.

Simeon and Janka have seven children. Their oldest daughter is 25. She was born with crossed eyes. When she was five years old, a visitor came and said "You know, there is Someone who can help her" -- meaning Jesus. As a Muslim, Simeon didn't want to go to their church, but he told his wife to go and find out more. He learned that many of her family had become Christians.

"One day," he said "they invited me to go and for some reason, I decided to accept. They said, 'Let's pray,' but I didn't even know how to pray or who this Jesus was. But as they prayed, I found myself weeping and felt a warmth and a joy in my heart. When we came home, I vowed before God and promised my wife that I would go to church. The next night, I went up for prayer. I was such a beginner! These people were so nice, so pleasant, and I was a sinner among them. But I prayed and saw a vision of angels and heard a voice saying, "Believe in me.' I answered, 'Lord, I don't know church that had started up in the neighborhood, but being Muslim, she waif you even exist or not, but I believe, and I know that when I go home, my child will be healed. I came home in tears, leaving my wife at church, and saw my little girl asleep. I woke her, she rubbed her eyes three times, looked at me and said, 'What do you want, Daddy?' Her eyes were straight. I went back to the church to get my wife and my faith was strong from that time on."

Simeon related how his son, who was born with a hearing impairment, was also healed.

We were joined by Slav, another of the pastors at the church. They spoke about the kind of life that people lead in this community. 95% of the people are unemployed. Most have very little access to health care. A woman in the church requires medication for extreme hypertension and had to get a loan (from a loan shark, not a bank) to pay for it. This only increased her stress. The church managed to scrape together enough funds to pay off her loan, but conditions are such that many people are sick.

It occurred to me that in affluent societies we have the privilege of having theoretical debates about the plausibility of divine healing. For these people, it is what they have. Slav said that the healings and the miracles that take place among them are one of the strongest attractions to the church. As in New Testament times, people are suffering and longing for someone to make them whole, and who are we to argue?

We asked about how people's lives were changed when they came to faith in Christ. A recurrent theme is that they give up drinking. These people are called Turks, but we heard that they are really Turkish speaking Roma (Gypsies), who, like North American First Nations, are devastated by the effects of alcoholism.

But they also spoke about changes in family relationships. Their inherited culture is highly patriarchal. Women are completely under the domination of their husbands. When people join the church, it's usually the whole family, because women and children won't come without the husband and father's permission, and when he decides to join, they follow.

Simeon answered this question like this: "At our church, we proclaim the Word of God. We tell people the story of God creating Eve from Adam's rib. We tell them that God did not create Eve from Adam's foot so that she would be crushed by him, or from his head so that she would rule over him, but from his rib so that they would be close to one another's heart. My wife and I are in partnership. We discuss things and when she has the better idea, we follow her way." They said that Janka is preparing to leave for Italy to work in the harvest for three months so that they will have the funds to support their ministry among their people.

We asked if there was tension in the community when people become Christians. "Not really," they said. They can't evangelize aggressively, but on the whole people respect the decision. However, Stilian told us that he was accosted by a knife-wielding man when he was visiting. It's a pretty dangerous place to live. "The devil is always trying to scare us," Simeon said, "but we are not afraid. God will take care of us."

We were so moved by the dignity and quiet strength of these people of faith.

You can't put people in boxes

"Jimmy" Luchev founded the Church of God in Stara Zagora six years ago. He is fluent in English, having done an M. Div. degree at a seminary in Cleveland, Tennessee. The Church of God is a Pentecostal denomination and known in North America for being very conservative. What a surprise to get to know Jimmy.

As well as studying in America, he also spent four years studying in Germany. And he has a deep knowledge of the Orthodox tradition. He told us that he wrote a thesis on the church as an image, or an ikon, of the Trinity. He teaches at a seminary in Stara Zagora and one of his great interests is the mystical Russian philosopher/theologian Nicolae Berdyaev. He is a very bright, very perceptive and deeply spiritual person.

This morning we attended church, which meets in a theatre. There were about 80 people in attendance, not bad for a July Sunday. The music was your standard worship music (in Bulgarian, of course) but the worship leader was the best we have heard yet on this trip. We found out later that he is classically trained, with a position at the National Opera. But he played worship music on the keyboard with drive and energy and deep passion.

We were asked if we would preach. Diane spoke about the adventures we have had on our trip. She said that we have seen so many different kinds of expressions of church, but those that are alive have one thing in common. Jesus is at the centre.

I preached on 2 Corinthians 4:7: "For we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power if from God and not from us." The church comes in many different forms, but those forms are just the vessels in which God is willing to place the treasure of the Gospel. These clay jars are essential, but we should never confuse the container with the contents.

Over dinner last night, Jimmy was enthusing about a Russian Orthodox theologian whose works are just beginning to be translated into English. His last book spoke about the anti-Christ who, he said, will not come from outside the church but from within. The anti-Christ, he said, will take the form of Christianity without Christ. That summed up, for me, what we have learned on this trip.

Working up a sweat

On Saturday, some members from the church went to a nearby village where there is a home for mentally disabled children. First we stopped to pick up some wood and building supplies. The weather was the hottest we have experienced so far on this trip.

We arrived in the village and drove up to an aging building surrounded by a stone wall. Immediately the wall became crowded with kids who were obviously very challenged, yelling and jumping with excitement at the arrival of visitors. This was the most culturally different part of our trip. The home where these kids live is a pre-World War II school building, very dreary and depressing, that was converted by the communists as a place to put abandoned children, out of public sight where it might cause embarrassment and shame. Many of these children are very afflicted. Most of them are Roma and they suffer not only from mental disabilities but a variety of orthopedic disabilities that would probably have been easily corrected if they lived in Canada. Most are not orphans, they were just abandoned by their parents and hardly any of them ever receive visitors.

The kids were starved for contact and attention and we spent about 45 minutes just being with them, letting them get used to us, touching and being touched.

In the courtyard of the school were several dilapidated pieces of playground equipment and some broken benches which the team from the church was hoping to repair. Boards had to be sanded and metal climbers painted. They discovered they had brought the wrong size of steel bolts, so two of the men had to drive back into town to exchange them. The rest of the day was sawing, bolting, staining and painting.

One child caught Diane's attention. Because the kids all have their hair cut very short, we weren't sure if it was a boy or a girl. But we learned that his name was Ivan. He latched onto Diane who showed him how to sand the ends of the boards with a sanding block. He was very quiet and gentle and did not seem to have the problems that most of the rest of the kids had. The head of the staff at the home said there is a family interested in adopting him. That will go to the top of our prayer list. One of the men from the church is a social worker with the child protection office. He said that the government's plan is to phase out institutions like this one and place the kids in foster care. But there are 89 children between 7 and 16 years old in this facility. The ones we saw were the less afflicted. Some are unable to leave their rooms. If Ivan could find a loving family, what a difference it would make to his future.

Arriving in Bulgaria

We left at 4:40 a.m. to go to the train station in Sighisoara. The first thing we saw was an entire family of Gypsies sleeping in the waiting room. Little children were curled up both on the benches and underneath on the hard floor -- no blankets or pillows -- sound asleep.





Of course, the train was late by about 25 minutes. We arrived in Bucharest at 11:30 and then switched to a much older train bound for Sofia. Murphy's law -- the morning train (when the weather was cool) was air conditioned. The afternoon train wasn't, and it was HOT. We were pretty wilted when we arrived in Gorna Oryahovitsa at about 5:30 p.m., 13 hours after we set out.





We were met by David Leistrum who works for international teams, and Dimitur "Jimmy" Luchev who is the lead pastor at the Church of God in Stara Zagora. We had about a two hour drive to Stara Zagora through some magnificent mountain scenery. Both Romania and Bulgaria are very beautiful countries.

This is a fortress that was built in the middle ages to defend against Turkish invaders. Jimmy gave us a great running commentary on this country whose recorded history goes back 6000 years.

Stara Zagora is a very pleasant city of 170,000 people situated in the middle of the country. We are staying in the apartment that is normally occupied by another missionary couple who are back in the U. S. on leave.