COVID-19 Supplies

“We got some help last week from a Bulgarian sister in Chicago to buy social distancing help — 50 bags.  Most of the supplies are needed things, for most poor people, old, widows and poor families! We bought and prepared them today. Next week we hope to start the distribution. Please support us in prayer about this. We hope not, but is possible, the most difficult time for people at risk (for Covid19) to come next month. Blessings!”

Hari & Penka

RMM Update: Money Received & COVID-19

Happy Spring!  It may not yet be here, but it feels like it is trying.  I think we are all ready!

Since we have so much more screen time these days given the “stay home” orders and the need to practice social distancing, I thought I’d provide a bit of an update from our brothers in Bulgaria.

For the past six months, we, Rhodope Mountain Mission, have been providing our Bulgarian pastors with $600/month.  As I’ve mentioned before, with the exchange rate and the lesser cost of living, that amount provides about $1,500.00 of real world value to Hari, Dancho, and Theodoro.  For the work to be done in the villages at Christmas, we provided an additional gift of $1,000.00.  Hari provided the following accounting and information regarding the Christmas work and ministry:

__________

“After wire transfer, bank, and tax fees, we received from you the total sum of $928.83 with an exchange rate of 1.72 BG leva to 1.0 US.  We had $1,597.00 BG leva.

We used the money as follows:

$300.00 each to the families of Hari, Dancho, and Theodore for Christmas ministry related expenses;

$550.20 to purchase 4 floating tables for the teaching process (3 tables for Theo’s church and one for Hari’s);

$147.39 toward expenses of publishing the book, “Basics of the Christian Faith” in Bulgarian.

We are very thankful again to God for your support and ministry.”

__________

We will soon be posting new pictures on the website.  The pictures will illustrate the Christmas gift related ministry that our Bulgarian brothers are able to provide to the area residents; children and adults.

Just yesterday, I received additional information from Hari.  We provided the monthly RMM gift and he wrote to me about the present ministry work and the Covid complications:

__________

"Thank you, dear Jonathan, just on time.   Yesterday we talked with brother Teodoro about the virus situation. He told me that because it, his wife Mariana was fired from her job; he is freelancing as an electrician.  Our situation about our jobs is similar, but God's work has not stopped.

For the last two Sundays ago we have provided our people with online services.  Already we organized online Communion, the Lord's Supper, for the people in Kardjali and some area villages. 

Everyone prepared, the bread and the vine, for his family.  We joined with them by messenger on Facebook, or by phone, and we took communion together.  We shared the word of God.  In this case Exidos 12, and 1 Korintian 11.  Everyone also invited all his family to join and to come to Jesus.  We pray that we are able to provide communion in all existing groups who are ready!

For now, about 60 people took Lord's Supper, some of them for first time.

Also, during the week we started online Bible teaching from our home by Facebook. A new online group has about 80 people. We see new people are coming to Jesus.

Please pray for us, for strength, so that we do not get sick, so we are able to continue, and for protection of the people.

Also, we are moving forward with the architect on the building for the missionary training center.  We do the best we can.  Thank you again.  You are all a great help in this situation.

Many blessings and love!”

__________

Thank you for partnering with us as we partner with our Bulgarian brothers and sisters.  You contributions are invaluable.  They are both an encouragement and an investment in the family of God — those already within the family and those who will be brought in.  

For further updates, information, and opportunities to give financially, please visit www.Rhodopemm.com.

Thank you.

Jonathan

Spreading the Gospel Through Art & Technology

Penka and Hari Atanasovs update April and May 2019

Dear Friends we are very happy to share about our work last two monts! It was a very busy time with many activities and we praise the Lord for the new things happened in our service to Him.

Evangelism in Bulgarian village Careva Poliana

28th of April 2019 was Easter in Bulgaria

Christmas boxes for Easter

On 27 of April with the local cultural house we set up a meeting for Evangelism in Careva Poliana village. In the village in the past were living only Bulgarian Orthodox people, but now is there some Orthodox families with mainly old people. Now a lot of new Turkish speaking Gipsy families came, they have the houses and they do not know Jesus. With our coworker brother Gunay Sherifov and our church in Kardjali we organize a Easter meeting to share the Gospel with them. We preached about Jesus and His resurrection, and invited people to accept Jesus in their life and most of them about 30, responded in prayer. We use the shoeboxes with gifts to bless the children, adults and families, the Turkish Gipsy and the Bulgarians. One woman open her home for us. In the same village we already have a home group another Gipsy ethnic group who had helped us in prayer to organize the meeting. The work in this village will continue. Many other villages in the region are similar situation of changes. We are praying God to help us to reach them and have more people to help us

Bible teaching for new believers from the churches 9,10,11 of May

On 9,10,11 may in the Resurrected Christ Church in Kardjali we had pastors meeting with new believers from the churches in the region. The focus of it was to teach new people and leaders on the basic thinks of the Christian faith. Many new people in the churches have no good foundation of basic of Christian faith and the relationship with God, some leaders do not know how to teach them.

To reach this goal we got help from Jeff and Jonathan, who for years are very good friend of the region from Indiana. They came to help in the beginning of May. The presents of God was with us, and the meeting was full with questions, discussions and unity in God. On the meeting with us participated our new bishop pastor Teodoro Serafimov, the former bishop pastor Jordan Ivanov and the bishop from the National leadership Stilian Mihailov. All we felt how great is the need to teach new people from the churches on the most important things from the very beginning. Unfortunately we realized that some pastors and deacons from the region also need teaching on this. We hope God will help us to continue helping the pastors in the future.

Our Art blessed from the Lord

In the beginning of May in City of Fabliano Italy was organized International Biennial watercolor exhibition. About 1000 artists from all over the world are participating there. Penka and I had no possibility to visit Italy this year, but we also had art works on the exhibition. Our surprise was that out of the exhibition a watercolor of Penka – Rahab, made two years ago there was set up in the Museum of the Watercolor in Fabriano. On the photo the Bulgarian artist Stella Canfield is showing Penka,s art work on the exhibition.

.My art watercolor A Child was nominated on the BG International Triennial Watercolor And Spirit Bulgaria Varna 2019. The picture was nominated from International Jury in portrait category like one of the best portrait. On the Triennial between 1000 artists were accepted about 250 from all over the world. We praise the Lord for His blessing on our art. The girl I painted was one from the Art Work Shops we did last year in the villages.

.Also here is Penka’s art work on the Triennial in Varna Bulgarian Bulgarian Girl On A Sunny Day and other my art work, The Drawing, which was accepted for the International Biennial in Albania which will be open on September 2019.

Another good think happen in May was that on 23th of May in our City came out of print the second part of the book Kardjali City From Year 1912-2018, with 500 pages telling the history of the City. Penka and I were included in the book among some other artists from the City. The General story about us in the book is our Christian Art and faith, the Bible Illustrations we did for the Bulgarian Family Bible with the Bulgarian Bible League, that we had started the first private Art Gallery in the City after the changes in Bulgaria after 1989. Our Christian testimony like artists and the Newspaper Spiritual Light.

Helping and honoring BG teachers in a School and Kindergarten for the National Celebration Of the Cyrillic Alphabet - 24 Of May 2019

God had put in our hearts to prepare and do gifts for the teachers and stuff working in the School and the Kindergarten of the BG Muslim village Chakalarovo. We shared our idea with director of the School and with our friends from Sofia and they supported it. On 29 of May we visited the teachers in the teachers room in the School and we shared with them about our work in the area, the Christmas boxes, the Art Work Shops and for our faith. We prepared 31 bags for the people who are working there. They were very happy, surprised and touched, because they never received gifts like this and they never have been honored like this before. Penka and I, like former teachers understand very well the situation of the BG teachers and especially in a Muslim village School. We are invited from them again for the next Art Work Shop with the children at this Summer. The bags for the teachers included first daily need food and a Bible study book The Parables Of Jesus written by Robert Martin who is a US partner of Bulgarian Bible League. The illustrations in the book were made from us in the beginning of the year. Praise the Lord. The good news is that we have open doors and we can do this idea in other School in the region if we have extra support for this. For 31 bags we spent about USD 300.

Supporting pastors ministry with Bibles

For the pastors from the region we always had helped to grow up in the Lord. This year from a Christian Ministry in Greece we got free Bibles, New Testaments, children and youths books in Bulgarian, and Bible study books. We spread about 2000 book and bibles for the pastors and the people for 40 churches from the region.

In our region we still have pastors and servants of God who have no computers or their are very old! This is a big problem some time for the communications. Unfortunately some pastors and deacons in the churches are not very well educated. We had prayers about this and shared last year the idea for help the pastors with pastor Toni Blair and Pastor Jo Ann from Hosanna Fellowship Church in Lititz PA. They both gave us a hand of help, buying 10 tablets and 5 second hand lap tops. Almost half of them already came to Bulgaria and were given to the servants. On the photo left is the bishop of the area Teodoro Serafimov who got his lap top, brother Gunay with his wife Boriana and brother Velin and his wife Fanka. We would like this project to continue, even to teach some servants in the churches how to work on the computer. A big testimony for this help is that the Bulgarian New Life church in Chicago had helped us to delivered the computers to Bulgaria.

We are trying to help more people from the villages to get shoes, clothes and blessed mothers with babies with quilts made in America. Last months we gave help like this in more than 10 villages. This is giving us open door among some unreached groups and Mayors of the villages.

In April we started to build a Baptistery of the bag yard of the church. Two Roma pastors from the region came to help on the work of the construction. The work is still under construction, but we hope it will be finished soon. When we finish it this will be the first baptistery build in the region from 6th century till now and we will have possibility to baptize the new believers in Christ coming from the Islam on back yard of the church. The design in it will be with a cross.

And at the end of this report please pray with us for our vision to find a property in the region - Kirkovo village region and to build Art House center where we will do Art Work Shops with the local children and meet other activities for the Gospel.

Thank you very much for your prayers, help and support. We are very encouraged to know that we have friends for our service in the Lord!

Blessings, with love in the Lord!

Penka and Hari Atanasovs

New Challenges & Changes

16.10.2019

Dear friends in Lord Jesus Christ

It has been more than an year and a half since I began my serving as regional bishop of Bulgarian Church Of God in the Southeastern Bulgaria. We call it Parvomay region, by the name of the city of Parvomay – from region started with the serving of brother Dancho 30 years. I took my serving where the ago from the second regional bishop - Hari Atanasov. This region is second by growth in the country and it has nearly 20 town and village churches. It has 20 more home churches with nearly 1000 desciples of our Lord.

From the very begining my serving was filled with many new challenges and changes in my and my family's life. I am grateful to The Lord that I have the opportunity to continue serving and I have the support of two blessed and dedicated to The Lord brothers - Dancho Ivanov from Parvomay and Hari Atanasov from Kardzhali.

Two main things have come forward in my serving. First - to work with the pastors and the deacons from the churches - to encourage them and give the assistance for their spiritual service.

Second is assistance and coworking with the missioners from mission "Rhodopi"- work amongst the muslims in South Bulgaria.

Especially the education of the pastors in the foundation of Christian doctrins is a big challenge, because that in the regional churches I found many legalism, inheritance from the far away past.

Besides that more of the pastors are from the gipsy community and don't speak bulgarian language very well and are not educated. I had among the pastors and servants about 30 trips and personal meetings.

Throughout this year we did a few trainings and seminars of servants, for wich I am grateful to you brothers and to the churches that send you to help us.

Here is some statistic of my service in the region with pastors seminars we did in Kardzhali and Haskovo

"Freedom in Christ" 11 - 14 november 2018

"1st message of John" and teaching for the "Method of evangelisation in the life of Jesus Christ", teaching for "Foundations of faith", 9,10, 11 May 2019.

With the help of foundation Biblical league - Bulgaria in our church

in Haskovo, from the begining of the 2019 we did 3 seminars for "Founders of churches" with people that serve in churches from different denominations from the region, that will continue in 2020.

Water baptisms in the region – 68

Pastors gathering - 2, including discussions about the vision and strategy of the region, individual prayer for each pastor, educating.

Dedicated new pastors and deacons for ministry – 5

Meetings with the missionary team from the Rodopi Mountain for prayer with them – 8

New church buildings under construction - 5

For Educated belivers for the

Needs for the region:

According our vision for the region for education for the pastors, deacons and young belivers in the foundations of the faith the need is to be able to continue the process of spiritual growth of their ministry and in deep relationship in the Lord.

Regular needs for the my bishop service: seminars; Funds for seminars.

Personal needs: support for the vehicle; funds for my regular needs for fuel and to have enough funds for the needs of the family.

Praise God I am very thankful for the spiritual support of my wife Mariana, my daughter Yana and the family of Hari and Penka Atanasov. The help of real friend in the Lord is very important to me!

Dear friends I will appreciate very much every your prayer and spiritual support for helping me and all my coworkers in the region to continue in best way for the future of our work in the Lord. You are very much invited to come again and continue with us together next year.

With best wishes in our God Jesus Christ!

Teodoro Serafimov

Email: teodoro.serafimov@gmail.com

Phone number: +359 898 298695