Dear Friends of Eastern Europe Renewal: 

The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

The Bulgaria trip was full, rich, tiring and effective. Thank you all who prayed. I was ill for a couple of days, making the 5 hour train rides to Sliven from Sofia and back a little unpleasant, but managed to keep up with things.

My host family in Sofia have a gift and concept of hospitality that approaches perfection. This was a great support and encouragement for me during the week.

We began with a weekend retreat for YWAM and HARTA, an apologetics group that runs a website and tries in various ways to make Christianity available and credible for scientific and intellectual people. They were a lively group; young families with young children, single people, mostly locals and a few foreigners. HARTA members tend to be astro physicists, engineers, corporate lawyers, educators. They were widely read and we could easily talk about many things. I gave some lectures about comparative worldviews and apologetics, which stimulated some lively discussion, but the surprisingly enthusiastic response came to the impromptu music lecture on Arvo Part, Penderecki and Zbigniew Preisner. They were mostly scientific people who rapidly developed a hunger to branch out into artistic involvement in culture and history. This was very refreshing and encouraging for me.

In Sliven we had a 2 day seminar for Roma (Gypsy) Christian leaders. Roma and Turks are large minorities in Bulgaria. The Roma were nomadic for centuries and, although stabilized under Communism, have not yet integrated very much into the general Bulgarian society. They came from India many centuries ago and look Indian. Many Bulgarians regard the Roma with suspicion and are not welcoming to them. The Roma tend to have something of an inferiority complex and fatalistic outlook on life. I found them to be friendly, creative, lively, humorous people. Coming from such different backgrounds, it was a steep learning curve for me trying to connect with them. They avidly took notes and responded very well to the interactive aspects of the teaching. It would take much more time than I had with them to make much of an impact, but I would like to try again.

Back in Sofia the Wednesday evening open lecture at the University was actually thrillingly hopeful for me. About 150 people made a SLO crowd with people standing outside in the hall. There were many good questions which had to be cut off so they could close the building. About 100 people turned in comment and contact data slips. One hears and reads about people being "hungry for God's Truth", but I don't often actually see it among non-believers. Many have signed up already for the follow-up Tuesday evening discussion meetings over the next weeks led by the HARTA staff.

Bulgaria has an emerging economy with many teething problems and is a society trying to use new freedoms positively. There is a great need and many opportunities for the love and light of Christ to bless this richly complex nation. Please keep praying. I will be looking for further opportunities to visit Bulgaria.

Roma leaders and me in front of Church in Sliven

Bulgarian food and good conversation at the mountain weekend retreat of HARTA. 

Preparing for the film discussion evening at Vitosha retreat center. 

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Copyright © 2008 Ellis Potter.