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Dear friends,
An advertisement on many
billboards around Sofia states: “Not everything that looks like pizza is
pizza.” The ad shows a Pizza Hut pizza slice and a Lego’s made pizza. Pizza Hut is obviously trying to say that they offer
the true pizza. The problem with this
add is that Pizza Hut in Sofia make their pepperoni pizza with the Bulgarian “lukanka” salami and not with real pepperoni! Something that has
frustrated me to no end!
Being truthful in our
relationships as Christians is a fundamental part of actually being the church
of Jesus Christ. Not all is what it
seems in the church and we must be what we claim we are—no matter how difficult
it may be. Walking with Jesus does not
guarantee that we will not experience the “fake pepperoni” type relationships
while seeking to serve and build the church.
But this must not stop us from getting to the core of what Christ died
for—sincerity and truth among His followers.
Paul the apostle encourages us:
“Purge out therefore the
old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ
our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with
old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians
5:7-8 KJV)
Christ did not die so we can
lower the standard he put in place. He
did so we can ask the grace from God necessary to be sincere and true indeed.
IN THIS ISSUE
* Vacation in Greece
* Bridges of Life: last conference
* Visit by short-term
missionary couples: the Shaw’s and the Kjos’s
* Discipleship—struggling
with serving God or mammon
* Matty’s birthday
* Prophetic web site takes
off slowly
* Reports and Requests
We spent 8 days in Greece at
the end of May for our 10th wedding anniversary. We traveled by car to the island of
Thassos—a beautiful place with rocky shores, strong sun even in May, nice beaches,
and nice food. It was a short but
refreshing time of rest and thanking God for our marriage. We also visited the site of ancient
Philippi, the first town in Europe where the gospel was brought by the apostle
Paul. There we saw the prison where
Paul and Silas sang hymns although they were in chains, and the earth shook and
made their chains fall off. We prayed
that God may give us the same zeal and anointing as these men of faith. I always thought that the prison was huge
and massive, as is appropriate for a site that is connected to the making of
history. But it was rather a small
cell, see photo!
We finished the Bridges
of Life project by holding the last event, Roundtable talks, on June 19th. The goal of that event was to get the
representatives of different non-profit organizations and government agencies
to cooperate with each other in order to help the youth who leave the orphanage
to find jobs and a place to live.
Although not a strictly “Christian” project, it is a very practical way
of helping the orphaned and abandoned youth handle their lives in a responsible
manner. At the conclusion of the
day’s event, the Directors of both orphanages asked us if we could serve them
in the capacity of “advocacy” before the state and it’s agencies AND if we
could consider finding the resources and running a center for “transition and
life-skills development” for the youth of both homes. Our prayer remains
focused on finding practical ways to help the youth transition out of the institutional
home and so, please pray for us as we seek God for the way and timing to
continue serving these youth.
VISITS BY SHORT
TERM MISSIONARIES
Kelly and Ryan Shaw are
recently married and working with the Student Volunteer Movement 2 trying to
raise-up missionaries from among young people worldwide. It was exciting to see them come to
Bulgaria—Kelly was in our small group which we led in our church back in
Pasadena. They were meeting with
Christian and mission leaders from across the board in many countries—Romania,
Bosnia, Armenia, Bulgaria, France. The
picture they got showed that Bulgaria remains a difficult soil for Christian
mission and has little to offer in terms of sending missionaries. We traveled to the orphan homes, to minister
to the kids there together. Ryan shared
his experience of being saved from a pit of snakes as toddler and as a
missionary kid in Papua New Guinea years ago.
Kelly encouraged the youth with how the love of Christ comes to us
through His people when we find ourselves in a difficult spot. The times of
conversation, meals and prayer with the Shaws was a time of refreshing
fellowship for us.
Andy and Bi Kjos were
traveling to visit New Hope Ministries, a mission organization which widely
operates in a number of Eastern European countries. Andy is a lawyer and the chair of the missions committee of a
church which supports our work. Bi is
an author of Christian books and maintains a web site which has
visits from interested Christians and non-Christians alike. We visited the orphans again together and
spent time with them in some teaching on Jesus, games, fellowship and giving
away shampoo and soap. Teresa and I were greatly encouraged and refreshed by
our times of conversation and fellowship with Andy and Bi, who have in their
heart God’s work in the world and in Bulgaria.
MATT TURNS 7
Mattias was happy to be the
birthday boy for two days. The first
day was the actual day of his birthday and the second day was when we traveled
to NW Bulgaria and he had fun and cake with his cousins. Both evenings he and his brother went to bed
at a time way past 11pm!
DISCIPLESHIP
ISSUES
Our discipleship program
goes well—the numbers are going down.
Aside from this statement being somewhat of a joke, the challenges of
counting the cost of discipleship does put pressure on people here. For example, a woman in the discipleship
group in Vidin has recently left; the group has gone from 7 to 6
individuals. Her reasoning was that the
pace was too intense for her and that it was too difficult for her to keep
trusting God – that He could and would provide for her needs.
Jesus was clear—you cannot
serve both God and mammon (Luke 16:13).
The culture in Bulgaria is seriously influenced by worries about money,
regardless if people have or haven’t money.
These worries are not unknown to Christians as well. A Christian lady recently complained that
she does not have enough money to meet her needs. As it turns out, her salary
is about 5 times higher than the average amount for the nation. Recently, I spoke on the encounter between
Jesus and the rich young ruler (Luke 18&18-30). The man left saddened because he was called to sell everything
and then follow Jesus. It is difficult
to choose true discipleship—you must give up first your most valued thing and
then you can follow Him. Many
Christians in Bulgaria find this request for following the Lord a novel
idea. Those who face the challenge,
however, see significant growth in their knowledge of God and their faith.
WEB SITE
I started the web site at
the end of 2003, yet it is only now that we are starting to have visitors. The web site has a twofold purpose: (1) to
encourage Christians to follow Jesus in a committed and radical way; (2) to provide
teachings and information about the prophetic ministry of the Holy Spirit in
the church. For those of you, who might
wonder what “the prophetic ministry means” you may want to look into my
article on the matter of the prophetic on our web site. In general, prophetic ministry encourages
the saints to return to the ways of God so that their lives reflect better the
glory of Christ and not that of the world.
These messages could be often more specific than a usual teaching or
sermon which sharpens the focus and vision.
I believe that the Bulgarian church is in a strong need of such a
message—only seeing ourselves clearly, through God’s eyes, can make us humble
and effective for His mission. So far
the publications on the web site are by Stuart Watkins, Yavor and myself. I have left an opportunity, however, for
Bulgarian Christian authors who are interested in the themes of prophecy,
mission, and following Jesus radically to suggest articles for publication. The web site is in Bulgarian but we can
translate articles from English as well.
We offer free teaching tapes on various subjects, as well, to
those who contact us.
REQUESTS &
REPORTS
We have the somewhat usual
praise report. The Lord has provided for
the VBS again! Amen! I don’t mean to diminish this report as
something routine. Just the opposite—I
am excited to see a pattern where God’s provision is as steady and reliable as
the sun, although it is on faith that we know such certainty.
Please, pray for the
following 2 weeks of ministry with the orphans. It will be hard work and there is usually a lot of spiritual
opposition so all of your prayers are welcome and needed! The theme this year
is: THE PARABLES OF JESUS.
Please, pray for the take
off of the discipleship, prophetic and teaching ministry through the web site
and the materials we offer. Our team
(Yavor, Stuart and myself) have started to think of doing something new with
the ministry in regards to outreach and training. It will be great if you pray for clarity of vision and protection
of the direction God wants to take us.
Pray for friendship and protection of our roles in the team and our
relationships.
One more request: I (Viktor) have had a skin condition of
small rashes around my eyes since 2002.
They get worse sometimes and are quite itchy. My visit to the doctor was partially encouraging—this is a
condition that will not go away, she said.
It is typical for menopause-aged women.
Go figure. My request for prayer
is to have God heal me from this irritating skin attack. Any wisdom or ideas you may have are welcome
over the e-mail.
Thank you for all of your
prayers and for reading our prayer letters.
I often feel discouraged and lonely in the work here, and even though I
repeat to myself “This is a spiritual attack, raise the shield of faith!”
someone’s encouragement and a timely word also helps. So, send some emails our
way!
We love all of you in our
Savior. Drop a line whenever you’re
able.
In Him,
Viktor and Teresa Kostov
Photos: click here
You will see photos from our
trip in Greece (Thassos coast and Paul’s prison in Phlippi), Matt at 7,
pictures of the missionary couples—the Shaw’s and Andy and Bi Kjos.
Please,
visit our website for more photos and information: http://kmission.netfirms.com.
We are grateful to all of you who pray for our work and give
generously. The work we do is possible
due to the sacrificial giving of God’s people. To support us financially, mail checks to: Door of Hope International S-15 PO Box 303,
Glendale, CA 91209-9984. To use your
credit card click
here. To subscribe to
our e-mail newsletter write to vikkostov@hotmail.com with the text “send prayer letter”
in the subject line or in the body of the message. To unsubscribe write: “stop prayer letter.”