In the early months of 2023, Teach All Nations began to receive online donations from a donor with an unusual name and no contact information other than the email address which is automatically connected to the online giving account. After several of these mysterious gifts came in, I decided to investigate this donor to find out who he (or she) is and how he (or she) had come to know about our ministry. The donor quickly responded to my email and explained that he is a Bulgarian and had taken my Finally, My Brethren course from Charis Bible College as an online course. He followed up his studies by doing an online search of my name which led him to the website and the decision to begin to support the ministry. When he asked in follow-up emails if my books were available for international purchase, I explained that the international postage was more than the cost of the books and offered to send him electronic copies of any book he wished to read. He immediately requested Finally, My Brethren, which I sent out as soon as I received the email. Thus, a whole new chapter of the outreach of Teach All Nations began to unfold.
When I began to make plans to visit Albania, I contacted our Bulgarian connection and asked if there was any possibility that he could arrange a meeting with some pastors if I were to add his country to my itinerary. His response was that, since he was a layman, he didn’t have connections with many pastors but that he would welcome my visit. In the process of the discussions about the possible visit, he mentioned that he had shared the electronic files of Finally, My Brethren with a friend of his who had translated the book into Bulgarian. When I heard this, I suggested that Teach All Nations would be willing to pay to have it published as a book if he could arrange with a printer to produce it in time for my visit. It turned out that the books came off the press on the same day as my arrival – in perfect timing for distribution to the pastors that we were to meet.
When I arrived in the country and met my host in person for the first time, I learned that he serves with the border patrol, stationed at the border patrol between Bulgaria and Romania along the Danube River and that his wife is an attorney. More interestingly, I discovered that he is an adamant follower of anything related to Charis Bible College and has followed all the teachers and guest speakers at the school. It seems that he has listened to every online broadcast from the school and researched everyone on social media. He seems to know all the stories I have shared about my life and ministry around the world. Even though he had originally said that he didn’t have contact with many pastors, it turned out that the time I was to spend with him was filled with back-to-back meetings with pastors all over the country, meaning that we were to travel hundreds of miles from one city to the next. I was especially thankful that the roads in Bulgaria are as well maintained as those in the United States – unlike the roads in most countries where we minister, with barely enough paving to hold the potholes together.
My first meeting was with the gentleman who had translated the book. When I thanked him for his service, he asked for more manuscripts for future translations. As we traveled from city to city to meet the local pastors, I discovered that – as was also the case in Albania – everyone had been listening to Andrew Wommack’s teaching and were also familiar with Lester Sumrall, with some of the older gentleman having actually even been in his meetings around the time of the fall of Communism in their country. They were really intrigued as I told stories about my personal experiences with such heroes of the faith as Kenneth Hagin, T.L. Osborn, R.W. Schambach, Yongi Cho, and even more contemporary evangelists like John Bevere. One of the highlights of the mission was the opportunity to share on the only Christina television station in Bulgaria which covers not only the entire country but also extends into the rest of Europe where there are Bulgarian-speaking communities. The owner of the station knew Dr. Sumrall and had had him preach for him when he was pastoring in the late 1980s. He gave me almost an hour of airtime and graciously promoted the book. Following the interview, we headed to yet another city where I spoke at a meeting in which three congregations had come together for the special service.
I was also blessed to be able to help some of the pastors with aspects of their ministries by connecting them with other ministries Teach All Nations has partnerships with such as Faith Comes by Hearing for audio Bibles that one prison ministry wishes to share with illiterate inmates and Every Home for Christ for discipleship materials for other churches.
The relationships that I was able to establish during this whirlwind tour of Bulgaria promise to be the foundation for an ongoing ministry in the nation.
