Dear friends and coworkers from MWOA, Warm Christian’s greetings from Bulgaria! First at all I want to thank you for your sacrifice to come in Bulgaria and work hard! That is means a lot for us. One month ago we finished the first floor – the church hall and now the church have place where they can have a services. I want to inform you that we start the build of second flood of church in Sliven. As you know we will build there the parsonage for Pastor Stefan Chakarov.
I attach you the pictures from first service on 4th of June in the church with Pastor Stefan Chakarov from Sliven – which building you build last year. Again and again thank you for your dedication for us and for Kingdom! I love you and I am praying for you!

In Christ: Stilian Mihailov
smihailov@cogsz.org - www.cogsz.org

Well, we all made it home. I have uploaded many, many pictures into the Yahoo photo album to the left of this screen. You may also double click on any of the pictures on this blog sight for a full size display. Isn't God so good?

The concrete is scheduled to come on Friday morning. We will be leaving tomorrow at 5:30am so we will miss out on this one. However, I am hoping to get follow up pictures as the church is completed.

This afternoon our hosts took us up a mountain on a sky lift which gave us a beautiful view of the city of Sliven. We had a nice lunch at the top.

At the main job site we put up the rest of the wooden forms and rebar for pouring the ceiling/floor. We are having trouble finding a contractor who will deliver premixed concrete in the Gypsy neighborhood. We would like to do this tomorrow morning, please pray for this need.

Today we were able to finish painting the other church. We will be returning there shortly for service tonight. Then off for some dinner.






At a third, Turkish Gypsy church we sent out 3 of our team members. They poured a concrete floor for the church and adjoining sunday school rooms. The concrete had to be mixed with water and wheel-barrelled in. It's amazing how much they were able to accomplish today. They had lots of volunteers from the community to help. A local lady made lunch for the team members and even washed Brittany's jeans.

The church we are working on is pretty small. The team has split up to do some repair work and painting at another church.



Today we were able to build the forms on the top of the walls that will be used to pour the concrete ceiling / floor for the second story. We hope to have it poured before we leave.

We were told that 40 people from the Stara Zagora congregation coordinated a trip down to Sliven on Sunday afternoon. God is so good. We have recently been made aware of the huge disconnect between the people. To top that off, when we arrived this morning and it seemed as if the street had been swept. Many women were sweeping out their homes and the trash had been moved into piles in the street which were later carted off to the dump at the end of the street. There were fewer naked toddlers running around and it seemed as if they were beginning to take a bit of pride in their neighborhood. The children helped us pick up loose nails and some more people volunteered to help from the community.

We also took $200 to the grocery store today and made 20 gift baskets of food for some families of the church. The pastor selected the families from the church that had the largest needs. We were invited into their homes and took the time to pray for each one of them. Listening to thier needs make my own pale in comparison. Yet in thier troubles, they still have thier faith in God which they cling to.

Two more full work days and then another long air plane flight. The trip has been long but good. We may need another vacation after this vacation. ;-) I can't wait to share all the pictures and videos with you all.

Today we got up and drove to Nesbar, to Sunny Beach (The Black Sea). Thats right, another day off. We were able to do a little more shopping, had a nice lunch, and played at the beach. Tomorrow its back to work.

We drove to Stara Zagora today for church. The service was awesome. They sang alot of the same music we do here in the states, but in Bulgarian of course. Everyone was so friendly and wanted to practice their english with us. The pastor of the church encouraged his congregation to take a 3 hour trip to Sliven and see the church we have been working on. He is also making an effort to bridge the gap between the Bulgarian people and the Gypsys.

We were treated to an absolutely wonderful lunch and then spent some time shopping. Our hosts have been so wonderful to us. They made sure we were all able to call home at a cheap phone rate. After shopping we visited a seminary school and learn a lot more about the "Care for All" ministry that had taken on the task of carting us around and making the mission trip possible on the Bulgaria side. I cant say enough about how well they have treated us, they also have taken it upon themselves to join us in building the new church.

The concrete was waiting for us when we got there this morning. The concrete had to be mixed by hand and lifted to the top of the forms and poured in manually. We quickly formed a line-up for bucket passing.

We got to know the local volunteers of the congregation a little better today as we pass buckets up and down the line. We poured all the columns and a wall.

A few team members went to another church today, where they painted walls. Yet another good day.

Today we finished building the block walls and creating wooden forms for the columns. We hope to pour the concrete for the columns tomorrow.

We attempted to minister to the children of the community with games, toys, and candy. The kids grew in number very quickly, we were not prepared for the mob of kids pressing in for hand-outs. We are now planning on leaving the goodies with the pastor of the church to distribute after we leave. God is good.

It's Thursday already. We lost a day somewhere on the air plane along with my (Julie's) lugage. One of our vans broke down on its way from the airport to the hotel. Five of the six ladies helped the driver push it to a near by gas station. God is still good, we are all safe and sound, we were able to get another van without much of a delay, and my lugage is suppose to arrive shortly. We had a good chicken dinner at a near by restraunt and crashed immediately after dinner for some much needed sleep on a soft bed.

Sliven welcomed us today as we began our building project. No less than a hundred gypsy children watched us as we worked. The whole team worked hard building block walls, mixing cement, and moving and removing blocks from one side to the other. The people of the village all wore smiles, yet the poverty is unimaginable. We made great progress, we got the walls half up today. We hope to finish the walls tomorrow.

We dont know what tomorrow holds, but we know who holds tomorrow.

Incase you missed the last minute change. The day before we left we all received a phone call and email from Rich Tonti to let us know we would be working at a different church. There where some problems with the local officials and the permits at the church of Tavarditsa. Since there are many poor Gypsy churches that need help in Bulgaria the project took a major, and quick turn to the right (or east, I should say). We will be building a smaller church in the city of Sliven (which can be easily found on most maps) for a the Gypsy neighborhood of Hope. We were told that the hotel and city would be nicer, however, the Gypsy neighborhood would be in a much more desperate state than that in Tavarditsa.

CHURCH OF GOD TVARDITSA, BULGARIA

Church Building Project

August 9th - 19th, 2005

• Area 442,5 sq.km.
• Population:14 998
• Situated in the southern outskirts of the Sredna Gora Mountain,40 miles north-east from the city of Stara Zagora

We will be building a multipurpose building and church for the small gypsy village of Tvartidsa.

The congregation is currently meeting for church in a small garage which overflows with people into the street.

This is the church building site, they are currently pouring a foundation so we can put up walls when we get there.