June 20 and 21 -- First Two Days’ Experiences in Bulgaria with ABC-IM Missionaries Tom and Terry Myers

Greetings everyone from Bulgaria! The 6-person Bulgaria ABCRM mission team (Sherry Wilson and Karla Davis from FBC of Laramie, Kent Oakes from Calvary Baptist Denver, and Dwight and Aladine Neuenschwander and trip leader Kerry Hassler from FBC Boulder) arrived in Sofia midday on Friday, June 20 after flying from Denver the previous day. We were greeted at the Sofia airport by our hosts ABC-IM missionaries Tom and Terry Myers (ABCRM special-interest missionaries), who promptly took us to our Sofia hotel to get a few hours of immediate rest after our long 14-hour trip.

Later that evening, our mission team gathered at Tom and Terry’s home to sort out materials and puppets we brought along for the following week’s Vacation Bible School our team is helping to conduct at the Baptist Church in Guliantsi. The church is about 2 hours north of Sofia. The VBS will be taught along with Tom, Terry, AJ, and Nathan, and interpreter Katya Raichinova from the Sofia Baptist Church. We then enjoyed a delicious evening meal prepared by Tom and Terry before retiring early back at the hotel for a much-needed full night’s sleep.


On Saturday morning, June 21, the Bulgaria mission team was transported by Tom and Terry to the Sofia Baptist Church (the Myers’ family church) to meet Pastor Teddy Oprenov. Pastor Teddy showed the group the new 5-story Sofia Baptist Church building (still under construction) that will be used as a multi-functional facility for future church services as well as for community outreach purposes. It will house a medical/dental staff to provide free exams to the homeless, a high-tech Internet café, shops for in-need women who sell craft items for income, rentable business meeting rooms, and a computer training center to teach young unemployed Bulgarians the skills necessary to get jobs involving office computer applications.

After the mission team’s tour of the new facility, we talked with Pastor Teddy about details of this visionary $2 million project he has led for the past four years, along with his summary of Bulgarian Baptist Union’s history. It was truly amazing to learn how Pastor Teddy has combined his skills as a church-building planner and innovative pastor to create a new way to spread the Gospel of Christ that have never been seen before in Bulgaria.









On Saturday afternoon, Tom and Terry gave the ABCRM Bulgaria mission team a tour of downtown Sofia, including stops at the statue of Saint Sofia, the former Soviet headquarters during Communist rule, the current building housing offices of the President of Bulgaria, the National Arts Center, and the 1600-year-old St. George’s Orthodox Christian church. With Bulgaria being a member of the European Union (EU) since early 2007, the mission team saw examples of the many new buildings and municipal construction projects that have been stimulated by foreign investments now coming into Bulgaria. Although there are still many smaller cities in Bulgaria who are suffering from high unemployment in post-Soviet times, Sofia is rapidly evolving into a modern city comparable to other major cities in Europe.

On Saturday evening, our mission team again enjoyed sharing an evening meal in Tom and Terry’s home that was joined by Bulgaria ABC-IM missionary Susan Linderman. After eating, Tom shared with us how he and Terry had been called to their Bulgaria ministry in the mid-90’s after spending 18 years doing farming in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. Susan (commissioned as an ABC-IM missionary in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in early 2006) also told us about her call to first be an English teach at the International Baptist Theological Seminary (IBTS) in the early 2000’s, and now her new ministry to help in-need women in Bulgaria. What wonderful servants of the Lord are Tom, Terry, and Susan!

On Sunday, June 22, our mission team will attend the Sofia Baptist morning worship service, and then travel by van to Gulliantsi to conduct June 23-26 morning Vacation Bible School sessions in support of Guliantsi Baptist Church under Pastor Ivan Vassileff and wife Tedi. During these afternoons, we’ll be putting together new playground equipment and painting existing equipment and a fence at an elementary school in Guliantsi. On Friday, the mission team will travel by van to the nearby city of Pleven to put together more new playground equipment for an orphanage there. A busy week lies ahead for our Bulgaria team!

Stay tuned for more ABCRM Missions Experiences Blog updates about our mission trip that will be sent from Bulgaria on June 29. Please keep the ABCRM June 19-30 Bulgaria mission team in your thoughts and prayers as we complete our upcoming projects on behalf of ABC-Rocky Mountain region churches and members.

Kerry Hassler
ABCRM Bulgaria Mission Trip Leader

Nicaragua Measure of Success

It is hard to measure success. In Nicaragua where everything you do requires that you solve a problem first or reschedule it for later, success is even harder to gauge. On April 13th, our Region mission team left to help build a church and school on the Mosquito Coast in a community called Kukra Hill. Kukra has a population of about 17,000, with very little industry, high unemployment, no running water or sewage, and very few prospects of a better future. The daily wage of a palm oil worker is about $1.25.

The mission team had three main tasks: to help build the church/school, to lead a Bible school program for children, and to teach adults in the evening. We were welcomed by Pastor Joel, the church planter and pastor of this new church, and Vital, our American Baptist missionary. Joel’s vision is built around the church, but it is aimed at empowering children with education and skills they will be able to use in the future. He is somewhat pessimistic about the ability of adults to change. So not only is the church new, but very young as well.

Although we were successful with all three of our missions objectives, other things emerged on the trip that became more important to us than the reason for being there.

One of the first was the emergence of a fellowship of Christians. The first couple of nights sleeping in a common room were a little stressful, but by the end of the week we could identify each other by our snores and steps. Soon we set aside all the triviality that we use to keep one another at arm’s length and began caring for each other. Soon we felt like a family. The sense that we were family gave us a unique ability to work together and to support one another. One could be passing cinder blocks to the one setting them on a scaffold or pouring water while one shampooed her hair. We miss that closeness in our sometimes busy society. A warm shower might have been an added comfort, but it was not really necessary.

On one of the nights, Joel showed a movie on the side of the house for anyone who wanted to watch. As it played on the green boards, no one seemed to be concerned about the quality of the picture or the plastic chairs, the heat, or the bugs. One tried to stay away from the fire ants, however. We were all enthralled in the moment, although most of us had seen the movie before. I doubt that I would have even considered watching a movie on the side of a house had I been stateside. I found myself wondering how much of my life is governed by distractions. There were no phones, TV, or internet. We did not have our cars to take us to the mall. There was no mall. There really wasn’t anything to buy. And yet we felt remarkably connected. I found myself wondering if the lack of distractions allowed our team to become more connected. No one complained that they missed any of the modern conveniences. Although I am sure that there were times when we all wanted to catch up on our e-mail.

You didn’t have to look hard to find a problem. I had the opportunity to visit other parts of Nicaragua after our team returned stateside. I found wide spread unemployment, poor health conditions, little hope for the future. I found myself thinking that I do not have problems. I have annoyances and speed bumps. Americans do not understand our connections to the rest of the world. When we enter into a recession, the rest of the world, especially impoverished countries, enter into a depression. They wait for us to recover because that indicates they will recover. It is in this arena or poverty and difficulty that our missionaries try to bring a message of grace, hope and future. It is surprising how well they do it.

Will the church and school be successful? Will the money that we poured into the project yield a return? A mission is an exercise in faith. We cannot measure it in the same way that we would one of our commercial ventures. I already see success, the success of love and hope. If that is all that I would ever see, that would be enough. However, I think that more is coming and I plan on seeing that as well. We have set the stage for success, because we have empowered others to teach, create, give, and make disciples. The way God works seems odd to us. God takes the collected efforts of a few and turns them into great things.

One of our team members said that this work was the first worthwhile thing he had done in a long time. In the heat and humidity, sweating profusely, and dirty, I sensed a deep meaning to what I was involved in building and teaching. I found myself rejuvenated and experiencing Christ again. Sometimes we get so bogged down in our very busy culture that the sense of Christ’s presence is lost. One of the ways I view mission is that it is a ‘reset; button on life. Missions have a way of resetting our priorities, revealing what is important, renewing our sense of direction and faith. The work at Kukra continues. Success was not that we went and completed an effort, but that we participated in something that will go on long after us. I was reminded of a comment on of my seminary professors made many years ago. “God did not call us to be successful. God called us to be faithful and to leave success to Him.”


John Turnage
Mission Trip Leader
First Baptist Church
Loveland, CO

2008 ABCRM Bulgaria Missions Team is Ready to Go!

Thanks to in-country planning by ABC-IM Bulgaria missionaries Tom and Terry Myers, a 6-person mission team from Colorado and Wyoming ABC churches is set to go on the June 19-30 ABCRM Bulgaria Mission Experiences trip. Shown in the photo L-R are mission team members Karla Davis (First Baptist-Laramie), Sherry Wilson (First Baptist-Laramie), Kent Oakes (Calvary Baptist-Denver), mission trip leader Kerry Hassler (First Baptist-Boulder), and Dwight and Aladine Neuenschwander (First Baptist-Boulder). Also shown on the right are Betty and Bill Moseley, parents of Terry Myers and the gracious hosts of the ABCRM Bulgaria mission team’s “pre-trip meeting” held on May 24 at American Baptist in Ft. Collins.

The Bulgaria mission team will first stay in Sofia from June 20-22 to meet Tom and Terry and talk with them about their Bulgaria ministries. They also meet Pastor Teddy Oprenov of the Sofia Evangelical Baptist Church (the Myers family home church in Bulgaria), and then tour the new SEBC church facility currently being built. After attending Sunday morning services at the current SEBC location, the mission team will help conduct morning Vacation Bible School classes and fun activities for Bulgarian children from ages 4-15 at the Guliantsi Baptist Church in northern Bulgaria from June 23-26. During the afternoons, the team will improve the grounds surrounding the Guliantsi Baptist Church by spreading gravel and making other improvements.

On Friday, June 27, the team will go to the nearby city of Pleven to make improvements to playground equipment at an orphanage for Bulgarian children of primary school age. The last days of the mission trip will be spent touring the historic Bulgarian city of Veliko Turnovo before returning to Sofia to attend Sunday services at the Sofia Baptist Church.

To pay for the cost of materials for the June 19-30 Bulgaria Missions Experience projects, ABCRM has provided $4400 to the Myers for use in buying project materials prior to the mission team’s arrival on June 20. These ABCRM funds are part of the total $25,000 funds designated in the 2008 ABCRM budget for in-country project costs for the 2008 ABCRM mission trips to Thailand, Nicaragua, Cambodia, and Bulgaria.

You may read about the experiences of the ABCRM Bulgaria mission team during their June 19-30 trip by reading updates posted on the “ABCRM Missions Experiences” blog at http://abcrmmissionexperiences.blogspot.com/. Please keep the Bulgaria mission team members who have answered the challenge of “Been Called? Go!” in your thoughts and prayers!
Kerry Hassler
Bulgaria Mission Team

Lending a Hand in Nicaragua

I had the privilege of going on a mission trip to Nicaragua sponsored by ABCRM this past April. The trip was led by Pastor John Turnage of Loveland and consisted of eight other members from Colorado ABC churches, including FBC Loveland, Calvary in Denver, FBC Colorado Springs, and my own church, American Baptist Church in Fort Collins.

The purpose of the trip was to help ABC missionaries Vital and Ketly Pierre, and their church, Bethel Baptist in Bluefields, with the construction of a multi-purpose building at a site in the town of Kukra Hill, where Bethel Baptist planted a new church in January 2007. Kukra Hill is about 17 miles north of Bluefields on the Caribbean Coast and accessible by boat on the Rio Escondido River.

The second purpose was to put on a Bible study for the children of the Kukra Hill Church and the community. Another important goal was to develop relationships with our missionaries, the parishioners of the Bluefields and Kukra Hill churches, and the Nicaraguan people.

It was hot and humid, and the work of masonry construction was hard and not the sort of work any of us was used to doing on a regular basis, but very rewarding. We made a large dent in the task of finishing the cement block and concrete beam walls. Better yet, we got to know our fellow Nicaraguan church member workers. Language was never a problem. Some in the group were bilingual and the rest of us found ways to communicate.

The three ladies in the group had a successful Bible school with the help of a wonderful lady named Alice from the Bluefield’s Church and Pastor Turnage, both of whom are bilingual. When they weren’t putting on the Bible school, the women helped with the construction.

My fondest memory of the trip was the rapport I experienced with my fellow team members and the Nicaraguan people. Our team meshed very well together and I found the Nicaraguans to be a very warm, friendly and inviting people. I believe that God will use the work we did and relationships we made to foster His purposes in Nicaragua. When the airplane wheels lifted off the tarmac at Managua on the trip home, a large part of me did not want to leave.

Bruce Nuttall
American Baptist Church
Fort Collins, CO