At breakfast this morning I mentioned to Hari how I had an evil dream at night. He and Penka did also. Please pray for us to be in prayer before sleeping as well as to be sleeping (getting adequate rest).
Prayer was good but difficult this morning. About halfway through my time of prayer I started to get tired and to have some difficulty focusing. I moved to songs when that happened at points. After breakfast I checked my email on Hari’s computer and sent out pictures of Friday’s visits. Some of you didn’t receive them because of the file size. Sorry. I’ll hopefully be able to upload the pictures next week.
I didn’t have much time to address the issue, as we had to be going to pick up everyone at the church for the picnic. We arrived at the church to a perfectly proportioned group for the first trip with the van. Hari dropped Penka and I off at the Billa market to get the food and drinks and for me to purchase candy for the children. While there I was able to connect to the wi-fi and sent a couple e-mails out. After buying everything and waiting for a little while outside of the store, Hari returned, having picked up the second load of people, and we headed for the campgrounds (Bulgarian military history site). We met and greeted one another and had time to share and talk for awhile while some of the older women prepared the meal (all sorts of foods). I spoke with a girl about my age from a Muslim-background family and shared a testimony from my life. Hari wanted me to encourage her with something like that and help her see an example of someone giving a testimony as he wants her to share in church tomorrow (Pentecost). She spoke a little English and so it was slow but good. Then Hari called me over to where all the younger children and teenagers were and asked me to share something with them. I shared with them about our youth group and how we have talked in the past about how simple it is to follow Jesus because it’s clear what He desires for us to do, but that following is not easy because we don’t like to do those things. But, we can talk to Him and ask Him to help us change and help us desire like those things that He knows are good for us and are actually desirable, because He has the power and the willingness to do that. I shared about a difficult command we face as young people being to obey our parents and to love our friends and neighbors, even though God promises good things for us if we obey. I gave the example that we have to ask each other how we are doing in keeping God’s commands and if one of us needs prayer we need to know and pray for them and encourage them and be nice to them. Our friendships must be strong with each other because we’re family if we are Jesus’ family, and we need to take care of each other and help each other to be strong in trusting God. Then we split away from the group, having divided the kids into small groups to talk with each other. They did this and did pray for each other. They played together the rest of the afternoon. I played some games with the kids, took pictures, and I even taught them break dancing in the latter afternoon (after I had some coffee of course). Most of the rest of the time I tried to speak with non-English speakers, and I realized more and more the struggles and self-ostracism that non-natives must face in closed communities (like Turkish speakers in Bulgaria…the older people). I wonder a bit about non-English speakers in Fort Wayne – those who have come over with family members. Eventually, we cleaned up and left with much leftover to have the brothers and sisters take with them. During the picnic, we shared the Gospel in different ways. Hari shared his testimony with people individually and Penka taught the kids how to share the Gospel with one of the colored-bead bracelets. I know at least two of the people who joined for the picnic were new people – a brother and a sister, both adults. He was formerly in the Mafia, and also a 2nd mechanic on a ship near Senegal. His sister has a 2nd-hand clothing shop. Their recent situation has been bad, for her husband cheated on her and got into drinking, and so they divorced. She has two daughters. The brother had a business with a partner in auto-mechanic work, but the partner was the brother-in-law...thus the man squandered the business profits on his habits and it suffered i.e. the family suffers. The brother is trying to help take care of his sister and his nieces now...the sister is going to the university for Agriculture. She has exams next week. The brother and sister heard the Gospel message at different times during the picnic from different people (him from Hari and her from Penka with the kids, and individually they spoke with Hari about wanting to repent of their sins. The sister said she needed to, and Hari told her to not wait, but do it now. She did. They are coming to Pentecost service tomorrow and Hari will have them testify :) we're having communion too. We dropped the brothers and sisters off at homes on our way back, and then we came back also. I took time to write up yesterday’s journal entry and then was called over for dinner. After some short conversation after dinner, Hari showed me a video clip he was considering showing for service tomorrow. I wasn’t too thrilled as the preacher has been involved in scandals in the past few years, and the salvation that was alluded to never involved repentance or the name of Jesus. Anyway, I hope I didn’t bring Hari’s spirit down because of it. He was going to use the clip because it showed all the people in the church celebrating this man’s testimony – which I didn’t see as actually showing celebration of Jesus at work in the life of the sinner to save him. I could be misperceiving the video. After that I left for my room to work on this update. Now that I’ve finished. I’m going to review some scripture memory, pray about the testimonies I and others will be sharing tomorrow, along with Pastor Hari’s words and then heading to bed. Night.
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