Prayer Letter - June 2007

Strengthening and challenging the church to serve God	Kmission You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene. He is risen! (Mark 16:6)
Home News Work About Us Support Us Contact Us	Kostov Prayer Letter – June 2007 Dear Friends, Thank you for your support and prayers. We thank God for all the different ways in which He meets our needs and sustains us. Here is a brief review of what is going on with us. PRAYER REQUESTS Teresa will be going to Wales, Bulgaria and possibly Macedonia or Sebia on a short-term mission trip June 24 - July 5. We are thankful for God's provision and the generous support from Antioch Church in Llanelli, Wales, and Church Without Walls in Berkeley, California, who helped with the funds we needed for the trip. Teresa will travel to Wales with Naomi Fa-Kaji, the 15 year old daughter of our good friends Troy and Marguerite Fa Kaji. They will attend a women's evangelism conference and from there travel with two Welsh Christian ladies (Liz Watkins being one of them) to Bulgaria where they will meet up with four ladies from the Vidin church. They will pray and evangelize as they travel to certain places in Bulgaria and Macedonia/Serbia. Then the group will spend two days playing games, doing arts n'crafts and sharing Jesus with the orphans in Novo Selo. * Please pray for the travel, protection, logistics, and Holy Spirit guidance and inspiration while reaching out to people with the gospel. * Do pray for Viktor who will have to take care of the three boys for two weeks and he is very limited in his cooking abilities. Noah will be for the first time away from mamma for whole two weeks. REPORTS We had to resubmit our contract with the Novo Selo orphan home. They are changing the structure of how the state orphanages are run and the higher administration seems nervous. There was also a complaint filed by someone, whose identity was not revealed to our team, against Yavor - accusing him of inappropriate behavior. This is of course slander and there is no proof of any such behavior transpiring. But it is yet another attempt for disruption in the battle for the souls of these youth. Please, keep it in prayer as God reminds you. The situation in the Vidin church is much better now. The believers there showed maturity and responsibility during the difficult times when Yavor's wife had a psychological and spiritual meltdown about a month ago. Thank you for your prayers on this issue. A small church like the Vidin one could easily be torn to pieces when the enemy brings in temptations of uncertainty and confusion. However, we spent time on the phone and through emails have kept in touch. Special thanks to Karen, Debs and Jen from the two churches in Wales we partner with - they visited Yavor and the saints in Vidin for several days of prayer, fellowship, counsel and a show of solidarity. I spoke to some of the Vidin church-members and they expressed their gratitude for this visit. It was a show of unity in the Spirit between members of the same family. Same goes for your payers. The crisis revealed the need for people in the church to take responsibility and leadership. It was a moment in which we would either "make it or break it," but the end result is a stronger Christian group. Teresa put together a 5 minute picture and music presentation about the Persecuted Church to be used by Door of Hope International. They were very happy with the clip and put it to use right away. Noah's surgery went well. He was in pain and very tired for about 24 hours, then all was back to normal. He'll have to go to visit the doctor's office just to remove one piece of thread which is being pushed up out of the wound. The week of Noah's surgery (early May) was especially hard since I had my comprehensive exams at that time. But I received a very strong positive response on how I did on the exams and that was quite rewarding! When we scheduled Noah's surgery for exam week, Teresa gave me a word from the Lord - that God would honor the fact that I was not putting my studies before my son. I believe that this good response to my exams was the fulfillment of that word. I just registered for the dissertation which is the final stage of the program. Please, pray for us to have wisdom in our decision making - it has become obvious that my finishing the program by the end of summer 2007 is too optimistic. We need to decide how to schedule our going back to Bulgaria. God's thrown a new variable into this mix. Lately Teresa has been feeling that the Lord is leading for us to relocate from Sofia to Vidin in order to help the church and the mission movement there. This makes sense although moving to Vidin seems to be an exciting development only if we keep on reminding ourselves of the hymn "The Cross before us the world behind us!" However, God does see things differently that we do and we need to follow Him. The 12th issue of our religious freedom and church-state relations discussion web site is due out on June 20. We have five authors writing for us. The topic of discussion is the Post-communist Evangelical Church and the Freedom of Faith. It was not by accident that the title is formulated in this way. Evangelical churches can be a source of freedom and vision or be a reflection of the culture of oppression. So far our experience had been that churches offer little hope, faith and love. We believe that this publication will help Bulgarian evangelicals to reflect in a healthy way on these important issues. Homeschooling is going well. Danny's taking piano lessons (due to generous support from his grandmother) and seems to be very good at it. Danny and Matty's indoor soccer team won the championship last month and they were very excited. It was an intense game which ended up 4:3 for the the Sea Monkeys - our boys' team. We did pray to win though. It worked, praise the Lord. (And no, this is not cheating!) http://kostovboys.blogspot.com/2007/05/here-we-are-with-our-trofeys.html Thank you for your love and prayers. In Christ, Viktor, Teresa and the boys Visit our website: www.kmission.org. Many thanks to all of you who pray for our work and give generously. Make checks payable and mail to: Door of Hope International S-15, P.O. Box 303, Glendale, CA 91209-9984. To use your credit card or donate via PayPal go to the Support Us page on our web site (http://kmission.org/support_us.htm). Gifts are tax-deductible except those through PayPal. To subscribe to, or unsubscribe from, our e-mail newsletter, write to vikkostov@kmission.org. Printer friendly version of this page
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Kostov Prayer Letter – June 2007

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your support and prayers. We thank God for all the different ways in which He meets our needs and sustains us. Here is a brief review of what is going on with us.

PRAYER REQUESTS

Teresa will be going to Wales, Bulgaria and possibly Macedonia or Sebia on a short-term mission trip June 24 - July 5. We are thankful for God's provision and the generous support from Antioch Church in Llanelli, Wales, and Church Without Walls in Berkeley, California, who helped with the funds we needed for the trip. Teresa will travel to Wales with Naomi Fa-Kaji, the 15 year old daughter of our good friends Troy and Marguerite Fa Kaji. They will attend a women's evangelism conference and from there travel with two Welsh Christian ladies (Liz Watkins being one of them) to Bulgaria where they will meet up with four ladies from the Vidin church. They will pray and evangelize as they travel to certain places in Bulgaria and Macedonia/Serbia. Then the group will spend two days playing games, doing arts n'crafts and sharing Jesus with the orphans in Novo Selo.
* Please pray for the travel, protection, logistics, and Holy Spirit guidance and inspiration while reaching out to people with the gospel.
* Do pray for Viktor who will have to take care of the three boys for two weeks and he is very limited in his cooking abilities. Noah will be for the first time away from mamma for whole two weeks.

REPORTS

We had to resubmit our contract with the Novo Selo orphan home. They are changing the structure of how the state orphanages are run and the higher administration seems nervous. There was also a complaint filed by someone, whose identity was not revealed to our team, against Yavor - accusing him of inappropriate behavior. This is of course slander and there is no proof of any such behavior transpiring. But it is yet another attempt for disruption in the battle for the souls of these youth. Please, keep it in prayer as God reminds you.

The situation in the Vidin church is much better now. The believers there showed maturity and responsibility during the difficult times when Yavor's wife had a psychological and spiritual meltdown about a month ago. Thank you for your prayers on this issue. A small church like the Vidin one could easily be torn to pieces when the enemy brings in temptations of uncertainty and confusion. However, we spent time on the phone and through emails have kept in touch. Special thanks to Karen, Debs and Jen from the two churches in Wales we partner with - they visited Yavor and the saints in Vidin for several days of prayer, fellowship, counsel and a show of solidarity. I spoke to some of the Vidin church-members and they expressed their gratitude for this visit. It was a show of unity in the Spirit between members of the same family. Same goes for your payers. The crisis revealed the need for people in the church to take responsibility and leadership. It was a moment in which we would either "make it or break it," but the end result is a stronger Christian group.

Teresa put together a 5 minute picture and music presentation about the Persecuted Church to be used by Door of Hope International. They were very happy with the clip and put it to use right away.

Noah's surgery went well. He was in pain and very tired for about 24 hours, then all was back to normal. He'll have to go to visit the doctor's office just to remove one piece of thread which is being pushed up out of the wound.

The week of Noah's surgery (early May) was especially hard since I had my comprehensive exams at that time. But I received a very strong positive response on how I did on the exams and that was quite rewarding! When we scheduled Noah's surgery for exam week, Teresa gave me a word from the Lord - that God would honor the fact that I was not putting my studies before my son. I believe that this good response to my exams was the fulfillment of that word. I just registered for the dissertation which is the final stage of the program. Please, pray for us to have wisdom in our decision making - it has become obvious that my finishing the program by the end of summer 2007 is too optimistic. We need to decide how to schedule our going back to Bulgaria.

God's thrown a new variable into this mix. Lately Teresa has been feeling that the Lord is leading for us to relocate from Sofia to Vidin in order to help the church and the mission movement there. This makes sense although moving to Vidin seems to be an exciting development only if we keep on reminding ourselves of the hymn "The Cross before us the world behind us!" However, God does see things differently that we do and we need to follow Him.

The 12th issue of our religious freedom and church-state relations discussion web site is due out on June 20. We have five authors writing for us. The topic of discussion is the Post-communist Evangelical Church and the Freedom of Faith. It was not by accident that the title is formulated in this way. Evangelical churches can be a source of freedom and vision or be a reflection of the culture of oppression. So far our experience had been that churches offer little hope, faith and love. We believe that this publication will help Bulgarian evangelicals to reflect in a healthy way on these important issues.

Homeschooling is going well. Danny's taking piano lessons (due to generous support from his grandmother) and seems to be very good at it. Danny and Matty's indoor soccer team won the championship last month and they were very excited. It was an intense game which ended up 4:3 for the the Sea Monkeys - our boys' team. We did pray to win though. It worked, praise the Lord. (And no, this is not cheating!)
http://kostovboys.blogspot.com/2007/05/here-we-are-with-our-trofeys.html

Thank you for your love and prayers.

In Christ,
Viktor, Teresa and the boys

Visit our website: www.kmission.org. Many thanks to all of you who pray for our work and give generously. Make checks payable and mail to: Door of Hope International S-15, P.O. Box 303, Glendale, CA 91209-9984. To use your credit card or donate via PayPal go to the Support Us page on our web site (http://kmission.org/support_us.htm). Gifts are tax-deductible except those through PayPal. To subscribe to, or unsubscribe from, our e-mail newsletter, write to vikkostov@kmission.org.

Printer friendly version of this page