BULGURIA - EUROPE

Feedback from Bulguria:

The first step for the Global Day of Prayer 2008 was to reach the 10 biggest cities. Having in mind that these cities have more than 5-6 different denominations that have never thought to do anything together, it was not an easy task. That’s why we focused on them.
However we needed to raise a national awareness for the GLOBAL DAY OF PRAYER (GDOP), so we sent 866 invitation letters introducing the GDOP, the three year plan, the prayer guide and second letter for feedback. We sent these letters to pastors and leaders from every single denomination and organization in Bulgaria.
By that time we already had translated and printed 5, 000 prayer guides, 4,000 posters & 20, 000 brochures.
After we raised the awareness we organized local meetings with the pastors from the 10 cities to have a personal meeting and preparation for the GDOP 2008.  In some places we were accepted very warmly. Pastors embraced the idea very well and confirmed it with their own visions from God for such a uniting prayer.
The opposite was also faced in other regions where we found pastors preaching against each other with words like: “if even one person from his church is there, nobody from our one will come”.  Anyway we believe God for our strategy so we keep visiting these problem regions and asking them to come together and pray together.

But God did something more! While we were focused on the 10 cities, our mail box was overflowing with the feedback from other cities and villages. People were calling every day asking for materials and telling us they are going to have a prayer meeting on the 11th of May. We tried to visit some of these places, but the cities increased every day. In the beginning different pastors were calling from a city, but then we often received phone calls telling us that all the pastors form a certain city were going to meet on a certain date and asking some of us to go and visit them.

By the 10th of May we ware aware of more than 82 regions (both villages and cities). God raised more than 26, 000 people to pray as one in the whole of Bulgaria.

We also organized the 10 days of preceding prayer to the 11th of May.
We are a live witness of massive reconciliation among the Christian leaders from different backgrounds. In some cities the churches struggled to get together and pray for one day.  Today they have decided to gather every month and have common service. 
God is doing something awesome! For the 10 day of preceding prayer in some cities, churches decided every day for the 10 days, to visit a different church and pray together with them. In some cities churches opened a room where people can go every day and pray for the every day need from the prayer guide. We are aware of a region which decided to go to outside of the buildings and spend the 10 days of praying and worshiping on the main square near the people.
 
For the 11 May, in some cities churches rented public halls. In other cities people were willing to go to one of the biggest churches and meet there and spend time of prayer together.

God is doing something awesome in Bulgaria and we are looking forward to see where God is going to lead us into the His future.

Before the 11th of May some leaders accepted the GDOP as something strange and were not very confident about it, but after they witnessed what God did and the massive prayer meetings all over Bulgaria, they started to talk and plan GDOP for 2009.

There were also some churches that were not aware of the GDOP on 11th of May, but although they heard of it just a few days before the day, they quickly organized their churches to pray and fast. Some other big churches forwarded our invitation letters to the different fellowships they are linked with, even far away as USA. That’s how we reached the Bulgarian churches in America, Spain, Greece and asked them to pray with us for Bulgaria at the 11th of May.

Major Christian papers and magazines dedicated more than 4-5 pages to the GDOP information. Some of these papers have over 100, 000 copies a month and reaches almost every Christian church in Bulgaria.

For the GDOP in Sofia we rented a public hall in the National Palace of Culture, which once was built for the communist party meetings. It was hall number 3, which can contain about 1, 200 people.  We invited every Christian Church from Sofia.  We advertised via e-mails, web sites, phone calls etc.
On the 9th of May we received a phone call from the director of National Palace of Culture telling us we weren’t able to use hall number 3 because one of the political parties wants to have a meeting the same day in hall number 3. Than he offers us hall number 1, which is the largest and most beautiful hall in the whole of Bulgaria for the very same amount of money which we paid for number 3. Usually hall number 1 is 5 times more expensive than hall number 3.

On the 11th of May we were also interviewed by a Christian TV and asked us for the three years project of reaching every Christian in Bulgaria. (It was interesting after Philip answered the few questions not the reporter or the camera man were able to say anything for a few moments…)

We are hearing from the different places where the GDOP took place in Bulgaria for a new desire for uniting prayer.  It was funny to hear from some places where people didn’t know of our three year plan, they have been so moved by God in those days that they asked us to do it again and again.

Recently someone asked us: How is it possible for a group of people of which most are not more than 25 years old to organize such a massive event? We replied: “We didn’t organize anything, we just heard the call of God for repentance and prayer and we spread it to every man in the world until we  see a breakthrough and Christ glorified among the nations.