This month in Bulgaria my team is working in a small village tucked between towering mountains and endless fields. We’re sleeping in an abandoned bar, our sleeping bags laid out between stripper poles and bar stools. We’re working at a small church just across the street, and after ministry each day we often go running down the long country road that winds between farm fields for miles.
One evening while I was running, I heard the Lord tell me: “Stop. You need to stop running right now.” I slowed to a walk, hesitant and unsure of His reasoning. I was making good time, my lungs felt so full, and my muscles still had plenty of strength left in them. But the Lord told me to stop running, so I stopped and I listened.
I looked out at the field to my left. It rolled across the horizon until it met a mountain in the distance whose peak extended into the clouds full of color from the setting sun. As the sun sank behind the mountains, I heard the Lord tell me, “You were made for Bulgaria and Bulgaria was made for you. You are exactly where I want you to be… Now keep running.”
A few weeks later my team was invited to dinner at the home of a widow from church. The first time I met the woman, Tonka, we were at church. When the pastor asked the congregation if anyone had praises to share, Tonka stood up. She hobbled her way to the front of the room, slowly shuffling her bowed legs beneath her skirt. When she finally reached the front, everyone sat silently waiting for her to speak.
She held her hand up as her lip quivered. She gasped and then wept. Everyone watched pensively. Then, with tears pouring down her cheeks Tonka told us through sobs how the Lord had recently saved her son from a terrible car accident.
When Tonka invited us all for dinner, we were very humbled. On her finest platter, she served us beans, bread, and biscotti. We sat outside in her courtyard and were soon joined by two other older women who had wandered in to join the meal.
(Picture from a birthday dinner we went to, not dinner at Tonka's)
After eating, everyone gathered around Tonka to pray over her. We blessed her and declared the Lord’s favor would be with her, that He would be generous with her just as she was with us. After we finished praying, the two other women also asked for prayer.
My team stood in the courtyard and laid hands on six people that night. Word had some how gotten out about us being there, and several of Tonka’s neighbors came by to get prayer for themselves. We prayed for a woman with a hurting knee and for a Turkish man with a hurt shoulder. (I got to speak a little Turkish with him!)
(This woman told Jonathan he was destined to have triplets)
There was one lady who stood at the peripherals most of the evening. She sat on the garden wall observing the prayers, but never really participated. Then, unprovoked, she suddenly came forward.
Her hair was bleached blonde, though her roots were beginning to grow in. Her face was heavy with wrinkles and her eyes were burdened with age. She’d been a widow for thirty years and that had clearly taken a toll on her body and soul. She asked for prayer for her aching body, and after we prayed for her she mentioned that she’d never actually been prayed for. I asked her if she’d ever heard the Gospel. When she bobbled her head to signal she had not, I began to tell her about it.
(Jonathan Garner's photo)
That night Kalina became a Christian. After she heard the Gospel and decided she wanted to be a part of it, I laid hands on her and led her in a prayer of salvation.
It was so incredibly humbling, so encouraging, so remarkable to be the one to welcome her into the Kingdom.
On Sunday I went with the local pastor to deliver a Bible to her. At the age of sixty-something, Kalina is learning to walk with the Lord.
During lunch on Sunday, my team was telling the pastor that we were never scheduled to come to Bulgaria. It was an unexpected route change that, quite frankly, irritated a lot of us because we had to renounce our dreams to go to India so that we could be re-routed to Bulgaria. Coming into this month though, I think we all knew that big things would happen here.
And now it’s clear to me: the Lord has me right where He wants me. To think of all the things He did in my life that led me to that particular courtyard at that particular time, and to think of all the things He did in the life of Kalina that led her to that same spot at the same time as well – it awes me. It makes my heart worship His sovereignty even more.
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