A month ago I wrote an article called “Good News From Bulgaria“. This was about a new friend who’s written me from Bulgaria to tell about how she’s been using the videos on the book of Daniel which I’ve been doing to share with two home church groups she ministers to on the countryside of Bulgaria.

Communion in southern Bulgaria

We’ve continued to keep in contact as she’s gone through the book of Daniel with her flocks and now she’s started going through the book of Revelation. Although I don’t have material myself on that book, I have friends on the mission field who’ve written some good classes on Revelation and I’ve sent those on to her.

But the best would be to just share what she’s told me and to add in some photos. First, about that photo above here, I’m not certain but I believe the objects in front of those dear people are glasses and a bottle of wine, and some broken bread, to be used in communion. They are sitting on a mat or carpet on the floor; the women have their heads covered. Just to mention it, if this looks like what you think of Greece or Turkey, that’s because it’s midway between those two and just a little north of there.

This all just thrills me. When people at the grass roots, in countries that don’t have a historically strong “Protestant” tradition, spontaneously come to the Lord and are zealously “hungering and thirsting after righteousness” (Matthew 5:6) and are seriously seeking to be taught the things of the Lord, then that really draws a response in me. If “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10), think how much joy there is in heaven when hundreds of people take their time and change their ways to “sit at His feet and hear His words” (Luke 10:39) through this dear Bulgarian sister who is doing what she can to feed His sheep.

In fact, my friend told me that it’s a little unusual because their fellowships are a mix of ethnic Bulgarians, ethnic Gypsies and a local people who have Turkish roots and an Islamic heritage in former centuries. So I was told that it’s unusually for these ones to come together in this way but the Lord is doing it.

Their church

And here’s their church. It doesn’t look like yours, does it? No huge parking lot, no football stadium to go with their high school. The wood stacked up under the stairs is for the stoves to keep the church warm in winter. But it kind of reminds me of what the Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

Here’s a little of what my friend Vaska wrote me about the Christians she is ministering to there and their Sunday classes.

We have just finished chapter 2 of the Book of Revelation. We are so slow, because it turned out that there is so much to say about the letters to the 7 churches that it is impossible to finish one chapter each time. So we decided to do one church at a time. We discussed the letter to the Thyatira tonight. All these letters to the 7 churches are so important and full of depth and there are lots of questions to answer and people want to know more. So, we slowed down and next Sunday we will start Chapter 3.

Now we have three different study groups – on Wednesday we study the Book of Genesis, on Friday we study healing in the Bible and on Sunday we study Revelation. It’s all so amazing. We all learn a lot and are excited. There are more and more people coming and more and more people receiving healing from the Lord. But not only that, spring is coming and the weather is lovely – sunny and warm. We went for a walk in the mountains and went swimming in a hot spring swimming pool. [End of the part from Vaska in Bulgaria]

I consider it one of the greater blessings of my life to have been able to be in contact with such a wonderful and diverse mixture of Christian brethren in many countries. So often I think of another verse from the Beatitudes when musing on folks like these ones on the southern Bulgarian countryside, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) I’m looking to the Lord for ways my friends and I here can be a help to these ones who are coming to the Lord and growing in their Christian lives. I hope these testimonies of these sweet people are a blessing to you. “For our vines have tender grapes.” (Song of Solomon 2:15)