The Assen Fortress and other thoughts on Bulgaria

For district meeting we travelled 20-30 minutes south of Plovdiv to a Fortress built in the 12Th century a.d. It sits high on a peak overlooking and protecting the valley from all aggression. We climbed all over this fortress, looked at Acenograd far below us, and then found a quiet spot on a hill opposite the fortress for our district meeting. Our lesson was on walls, the types built, why people build walls, and the walls people build around themselves. The point of this was to help us understand how we, as missionaries, can get through their walls to present our message of love, hope, peace, and the gospel, a lesson we will not long forget.

The church in Bulgaria has so few youth and young single adults. We all know that the future of the church lies with the young people. So this week-end there were three 8 year old children who were baptized in 2 different branches. So you can imagine that all of us are thrilled to see the potential this gives to the mission and the church. We attended the baptism of a sweet girl in Sliven. Sorry we didn't get her name, but her mother Daniela used to teach our seminary/institute class, and her grandmother is also active. There is hope. Note the portable baptism font.

It is always exciting to visit a Seminary/Institute class when the teacher is prepared, the students are excited to be there. We were in Sliven on Saturday to visit this class. Miglena Alexieva has been teaching for 4 months and is very enthusiastic about her calling. The class is small but oh so needed. We have about 6 really good teachers who are Bulgarian, and several teachers who are missionaries who are transferred around every 4 months which doesn't allow for consistency. Thank you Miglena.