In 1984, I became a born-again Christian.
In 1990, God healed me instantly of a major muscle sprain in my back.
In 1992, I went with a missions organization to Bulgaria for 6 weeks.
In 1993, God gave me the baptism with the Holy Spirit (necessary for successful evangelism),
and a former Pentecostal pastor told me that God had given him a message for me,
which was Isaiah 60:1-3, and He asked seriously, “Are you willing to serve Him?”
During 1994—2007, I made 10 evangelism trips to Bulgaria (8 weeks per trip).
Prior to July 1991, it was “... illegal to mention the name of Jesus or quote a Scripture verse in newspapers, or on radio or television. Bulgaria had been the most Stalinistic of all the Communist nations in Europe;
even more so than Russia itself.” … a quote from evangelist Peter Youngren’s book, “Fire From Heaven”.
I went for the first time alone in 1994, and the following is from my diary.
In May, God called me to go to Bulgaria that summer. He put a heavy burden of love and compassion for the village people on me, and with tears I gladly agreed to go. But was I to go alone? Where was I to stay? How was I to travel - by bus or bicycle? Where was I to evangelize? What materials could I use?
Would anyone help me? I wrote to the one address of a **Christian-family** I had in ***city***,
saying that I was coming, and asking if it might be possible to rent a private car. I organized some of my
plan of salvation notes into a gospel tract, and I was able to locate a lady who would translate it. It took us 6 weeks to produce a small 8-page gospel tract in the Bulgarian language. My wife entered the cyrllic (alpahabet) characters in her computer at work after hours. One week before leaving, an enormous rattlesnake showed up in our back yard and it stayed 1½ hours until removed; our mobilehome park manager said this was unheard of in our area. With God’s help, we had 4000 gospel tracts printed up just
3 days before I was to leave. Our church prayed over them and me, and I was ready to go with 3 large suitcases. So off I went with great humility, “blind and naked”, but with peace and trusting in God.
My byline was, “Lord, if you can use a donkey (Numbers 22) you can use me!” I didn’t even have a visa,
and the Bulgarian Embassy in Washington, D.C. couldn’t promise entry into the country!
God, of course, had everything all worked out.
The **Christian-family** had a missionary apartment waiting for me in ***city***, and I was able to rent a car. The **Christian-family** welcomed me like a son into their home for meals. To everyone’s surprise, I was able to register and get a 3-month visa from the Police. After 3 weeks, I felt led to have 10,000 more copies of our gospel tract printed; and then 4 weeks later I felt led to order 30,000 more. They were to be distributed later by various evangelical groups who were really desperate for materials to evangelize with. So, the Lord had multiplied the original 4,000 tracts into 44,000! I spent 8 weeks during a hot and humid summer driving an old Russian car with various Bulgarians to 81 villages with gospel tracts and New Testaments (with Psalms). I found the best way for me to evangelize was with one Bulgarian who knew some English, and the Lord always provided one for me. For 2 years at home, my 3 best friends had all been BIG talkers, so God had trained me to not talk much … because my Bulgarian helpers didn’t know much English! He really moved on our behalf in many and various ways. The old car kept running most of the time, but when it did break down we were either close to a garage or someone came by who could fix it quickly for us. The police stopped us 5 times for various violations, but we only got one $2 ticket! One time, the car died as we drove into the capital city late on a Friday afternoon and we pushed it to a large mechanic’s shop. They really didn’t want to help, but God had other ideas. One mechanic rushed off to the parts store before it closed to get a water pump and another one stayed late to install it. Later, our Bulgarian friends said it was quite a miracle for those mechanics to stay so late on a Friday afternoon, that this is absolutely unheard of in Bulgaria! Another time we were driving through steep mountains when the radiator boiled over with the temperature gauge showing "Hot". All we had were about 4 cups of water to put in the radiator, but the gauge showed "Cold" all the way to our church destination. It was here that the Holy Spirit helped **Christian** (who knew only a few words of English) translate very well for me. Later, when **Christian**’s church heard about this they were really amazed. Then, two or three times, while speeding on dangerous mountain roads, I really sensed God saying to me, "I raised you up for this purpose; I gave you the necessary skills and abilities to do this work for Me." (Years later, I was shocked to read Jeremiah 1:5-8, feeling these verses applied to me also.) One time, a policeman caught **Christian** and I parking illegally and also found many violations with my driving documents. He said the total fine could be as much as 20,000 leva ($400), but after some discussion (and many silent fervent prayers) he let us go free! About an hour later, we went to order the 30,000 gospel tracts, and half of the cost had to be paid in advance, and amazingly it was exactly 20,000 leva! Contrary to many warnings, we had very little persecution or problems from the communists or the Orthodox church. We blessed and encouraged many Christians, some of whom live in very isolated villages and have few, if any, other Christians to fellowship with. In some cases, it was obvious that the Holy Spirit had brought us together. One lady reported to the regional newspaper about the first American missionary to come to her village in 100 years. Many of the older people in several villages were reminded of the faith they had years ago before the burden of the severe communism, which they endured for 44 years after WW II (during 1947-1991).
This trip was such a sacred and humbling experience for me that when I returned home I really didn’t feel like sharing it with anyone. While I was away many prayers went up to God on my behalf, and He sure was faithful to protect me and provide for me abundantly! In 2001, a Bulagrian pastor told me that an official of a large evangelical organization in Bulgaria had said that our 1994 gospel tract had been very successful.
Okay so far ... only 9 more trips to go.
