Provow Celebrations

“Good morning from Shumen!

I pray that all of you are well.  I know that these days of quarantine are incredibly hard for almost all churches.  Please know that I am praying for you, just as you are praying for us.

Last week we had a really good Easter service.  We were almost without any technical glitches.  The only thing was that I started the live video about 15 minutes before the service and did a screen share, so that people watching online saw a sign “The live service is starting soon”.  I forgot to turn off the microphone during that part, so anyone watching was also hearing our last-minute praise practice.  I finally am going to get this whole technical set-up right around the time the quarantine is lifted! 😊

On Thursday, we had a really good Bible study, where we read the story of “doubting” Thomas. The seven of us were a mix of more seasoned believers, new believers, and a nominal Muslim.

Yesterday, we had a good- albeit small- group for Alpha.  In total there were five us.  After that we went on a family walk in the woods with V and A.

Today is a day of celebration for our church because we are celebrating our first birthday!  We met for the first time on April 28^th, 2019.  One of the most unbelievable things is that we never had a week in which there weren’t enough of us to have church.  A large part of that is thanks to Sevdi, who is batting 51/52 right now.  God has been so gracious to our church!  Sometimes it feels like ministry moves at a snail’s pace, but when I think back to a year ago and then see what God is doing now, all I can do is say “Praise the Lord!”.

One of my projects this week has been putting together a ten-minute video for our church’s birthday.  This week I received 13 video clips of people wishing our church a happy birthday.  Some of them are from our different FWB churches in Bulgaria and some are from friends in the States that have come here on short-term trips.

One of my best friends is a Southern Baptist pastor in Missouri.  I saw recently how he did a really cool interview with a missionary in Germany.  If your church is doing much online right now, I would love to do something like that with you!  One of the benefits of this quarantine is that we aren’t limited to Sundays and Wednesdays!

Thank you for keeping and spreading the faith! – Josh”