It's a God thing!

I can't explain all that is happening in this Roma community but all I can say is it's simply and ONLY God! This Sunday was our first split service where Bulgarians came first and Roma attended in the afternoon. I will say Sundays will be an exhausting day for the families of the church who are dedicated to ministering in both services. Please pray for the children of our families because the Roma service starts at 1 and for alot of us, we have children who are spent by that point and need naps. God is good and He will allow us all to adjust to the needs of His church, but you can pray for our families. In addition, alot of these same families work at a church plant in the evenings and for us it meant waking up Ben during his nap and going again. With limited rest, you can imagine the sweet sounds of whinning that grace our ears all day. So pray for the workers to not grow weary and that we would see Sunday as just one day in a week that requires all of us to press ourselves a little further for the good of the body of believers and seekers. Pray also that co-labors would rise up with a heart for ministry and we can hand off some of these tasks.

Each Sunday more and more Roma come and each Sunday more accept Christ. Yesterday 5 adults accepted Christ, one being an elderly man =) Thursday of that previous week a woman who came to disipleship class accepted Christ. We are excited to see adults looking at Jesus, not as their children's God, but as their own Savior and friend.
Like the description of this blog states, it is absolutely nothing our pastor, our refreshments, our workers are doing, but is only God alone drawing people to Himself! We are just all honored to see it happening before our eyes. The neat thing is hearing testimony and seeing that the work we labor over and see no result of, can be witnessed by others years later. The Roma Christian leader who invests so much reading of scripture and evangelizing in the field during the week, became a Christian when he was introduced to Christ by a Bulgarian believer years ago in a different town. Your labor will always yield glory to God even when you do not get to witness the harvest for yourself.
Children's church is growing by leaps and bounds! Everytime we plan for a certain amount of children, twice as much show up. Every Sunday about 25 children show up for children's church. Saturday I went and purchased paint supplies for 25 kids, Sunday morning 41 children were anxious to paint! lol Our church is blessed to have people who have a heart for children helping in this ministry! I can not express how thankful I am that we are a team filled with love for kids coming to know their Savior.
On Thursdays we have discipleship for adults who have recently accepted Christ and who are seeking to know more about Jesus. Cameron and our Pastor have been faithful to meet each week, but our Pastor will be leaving for the states soon. Please pray that someone will rise up to help translate these discipleship classes with Cameron.

My Lord's Blessings

Since our first children's church it did not take long for opposition to begin. There are a few things you have to understand before I begin to update you on our last three weeks. First of all, Bulgarians are different and it would be wrong to assume based on this blog that they all act like the few I will mention. Second, these problems of racism still exist in America and in American churches so it will be wise not to cast judgement on the few who will be represented in this blog. The most important thing we can all do as Christ following Christians is to continue to have a willingness to check our own hearts with the Word of God and to reach out to all people, all nations and all tongues with the gift of eternal life.
So the second Sunday of children's church was just as wonderful of an experience as the first except this time I was made aware that some issues were beginning to stir regarding the amount of Roma attending the services. That evening, I was told that in two weeks the services would be divided, one for Roma at 9:30 and one for Bulgarians at 10:30. Though I had mixed feelings, I knew this decision wouldn't change anything for me, I would just have one more extra children's church. Unfortunately some approached the pastor for a meeting at the next service and proposed that Roma not be allowed in the church at all. This information resulted in prayer and fasting by some of you reading this blog and by some of us here in Bulgaria. I was heart broken by the information. A meeting was held last Wednesday and despite really poor arguments why Roma shouldn't be allowed in church a decision was made to have Bulgarians attend the first service and Roma attend the second so the Bulgarians do not come behind the Roma and catch their germs, lice and diseases. =( With this being the case, I don't know that we would have felt comfortable following John the Baptist who was a filthy wilderness dweller or Jesus who touched VERY contagious people with leporsy, spitting, foaming demon possesed individuals, a woman caught in adultry or a woman with a blood disease. Oh the depth of scriptures that flood to mind right now! With just a small reading of scripture we find evidence of God's love testifying to the contrary of this fear to love the unlovable! May we see people with eternal vision and see their lostness and not their dirt!

Well speaking of dirt, dirt and more dirt. We went to the Roma community last Wednesday. Those sweet woman were continually wiping dirt from my knees and off of my children. It was okay for them to be filthy but they continually served us by making sure we weren't! Unfortunately their attempts were lost on our two boys! The children who live in that field day in and day out were 10 times cleaner than our boys by the time we left!! The bath tub water was BLACK! lol Though we tried, we just could not clean their shoes and have dedicated them to be the shoes they wear when we go out to visit their community.
The picture above is of dirty hands holding life in them! You know, if you could have seen the dirty heart God had to take in His hands to bring me life when He touched me, then how could I ever attempt to keep my hands clean after that! I did not deserve a HOLY PURE God to get His hands dirty to save me and bring me eternal life, so how can I now expect to keep my hands clean? May I enter His gates one day with filthy hands and feet! I will serve Him even if it's hard and dirty because it will never compare to what He did to bring me life!
Since the short period of time the Roma have been attending, two men accepted Christ last Sunday and tonight a woman who came to the discipleship training accepted Christ! God is so amazing!