11/07/2016
I wrote a few short Facebook posts my first week in Bulgaria—my intention was to give daily updates, but as they say, “the best laid plans of mice and men . . .” In short, things got busy and lecturing every day for several hours can be exhausting, especially when your body begins the time being 10 hours out of sync with the clock at home.
I arrived in Sofia , Bulgaria on Friday the 21st of October in the afternoon. I cleared immigration and arrived at baggage claim just a my suitcase showed up on the carousel (will wonders never cease!). Dinko Zlatarov, the head of the ministry there and the national bishop for the denomination, was there waiting for me and took me to the ministry center where I stayed while in Sofia.
My room was a dorm with 7 bunk beds (it is used to house groups who come from the US to do short term work on special projects). I was there in Sofia through Monday morning, when Dinko & I traveled to Stara Zagora 230 Km east of Sofia. That night I lectured for the first of three nights on the Trinity and its centrality to the Christian faith. We had an average attendance of 15 for Mon, Tues and Wed, with a total number of about 20 different individuals. Dinko was translating for me. My source material was from my forthcoming book on the Trinity scheduled to be released early next year. The first night saw a good response but Dinko & I were still working out the rhythm of the translation. I have worked through a translator many times over the past decade- this is simply part of the process. Some translators work phrase by phrase. Some sentence by sentence, some who are extraordinary can work several sentences at a time. Over the past year Dinko had translated the manuscript so he was very familiar with the material, we just had to work on the rhythm. The students asked questions and we got into some substantive Q & A. Wednesday evening there was a collective “ah-ha” moment, followed by great excitement, as the group (as a group) got it--their eyes lit up and as the understanding soaked in, about God’s great and unconditional love.
To unpack this a bit more: the “ah-ha” moment occurred when the students understood that God really exists as a tri-personal dynamic relationship of love and because he is Love as 1 John tells us, he relates to us on the basis of love not law. (These people have always been taught that every time they sin they lose their salvation.) Learning that God relates to us as his beloved adopted children--rather than relating to us based on our performance and being ready to kick us out of the family if we make a mistake--was utterly freeing to them.
The class met at the ministry center in Stara Zagora which used to house the Theological College (an accredited Bible College) until it had to close in 2009 because of the worldwide financial collapse. Today the building houses the many outreaches of Care for All Ministries in Bulgaria, of which Dinko is the president. I stayed in the 4th floor apartment, where Kay & I have stayed many times before. On Tuesday afternoon we traveled about 15 Km south to see the new church building that is being constructed through donations raised by Macedonian Outreach, a relief organization located here in the Bay Area.
On Thursday afternoon Dinko and I drove to the city of Plovdiv, about 100 Km from Stara Zagora. Plovdiv is the ancient Greek/Roman city of Petropolis, but it is not a ruin, it is a thriving metropolis. The most specular site is the gleaming white marble amphitheater which still seats about 6000 and is regularly used for concerts. We spent about 2 hours there seeing the sites, including some Roman Roads which are still a vital part of the city’s infrastructure. After that it was back to Stara Zagora and then off to Sliven, a city of about 60,000 63 km to the east.
There I lectured to a group of gypsy (Roma) pastors at the church where I was the speaker at the Pastor’s conference two years ago. Sashel, the pastor of the church, located in the gypsy (Roma) ghetto, has been a student in several of the classes I have taught in Stara Zagora over the past 10 years. I taught Thursday and Friday nights and then again on Saturday morning. The pastors here were harder to read than those in Stara Zagora, these men came from long distances and nearly all work at heavy manual labor—as a result they were tried and less demonstrative than those students in Stara Zagora. As we debriefed on the way home Dinko was ecstatic—the pastors (whose numbers totaled about 20) were engaged and they “got it!”—same type of “ah-ha” as the group above.
The message not only touched their heads but also their hearts. The plan is to go back and continue on the same subject for the next two years—that is how much more material I have to share on the subject. Although it will be a lifetime of continuing to learn for all of us!
Saturday afternoon was back to Sofia. That evening we went to the airport and picked up a friend from our home church in California who was coming to Sofia on business, and had dinner with him. Sunday was a collapse and rest day.
The day I got home was my birthday, (to the uninitiated it is Reformation Day not Halloween!) and it was spent mostly in the air. Got into SFO shortly after 8:00 P.M. Kay met me at the airport—she had brought Duncan, our 80 lb. chocolate silver labradoodle with her to greet me.
