Pazardjik Conference June 23-25, 2017

Hello family and friends:

On Friday June 23, Pantelis, Jim, Elaina and I left Litochoro, Greece for what turned out to be an amazing 10day journey of two weekends and a five day conferences with our Bulgarian, Turkish and Roma pastors and other people whom we have come to love and call family over the years. In Pazardjik, Ilene and Mike from Alamo Travel were waiting for us along with pastor Sasho, his wife, Christina and others.

The first weekend we spent in Pazardjik at the Turkish church where Sasho is the pastor. Pantelis and Jim did a mini-conference and Saturday evening we went to a village church where Jim gave the message.

I was at this village over ten years ago with a Greek pastor Kostas and his wife Nina. A parishioner of that village church, which met outside in the summer and different homes in the winter, told us at that time that he would legally give part of his property and trust that the Lord would build a church for them. At that moment, the Greek pastor said, “if you do that then I will give you the money for the foundation”, which he did. You can see from the picture the foundation was built with the possibility of holding over 100 people.

To be honest with you as the years went by, I totally forgot about this. They didn’t ask for money then and they didn’t ask for any now. However, the fact that they brought us to this village was an indication to me to remind me of that day many years ago. I didn’t promise anything but since they do the building themselves, I did ask how much was needed for the architect (new EU rules) and for the materials. Pray with me asking the Lord, if it is His will, to help us build this village church.

We then finished Sunday worship at the Turkish church and on Sunday afternoon we went to Yundola for the Pastors’ conference.

Jim and our wonderful translator Teo

The village congregation with all of us

Turkish congregation