To wrap up our journey in Eastern Europe, our team resided in Silistra this month, a small town in the NorthEast part of Bulgaria.
We worked alongside Pastor Emil and his church with various types of ministries: high school visits for human trafficking awareness, feeding the homeless on Saturdays, children and young adult nights, street evangelism, manual labor, and help prepare for their 3-day conference.
Emil, his family, and the team
It was this past Friday when we attended the first night of their conference. Anticipation and excitement built up these last few weeks because pastors from different towns were invited and speakers from United States flew in to preach at the conference.
As the service was about to start, two adorable 9-year olds sat next to our team; Hristo and Kancho. With them speaking very minimal English, we communicated mostly through hand gestures and signals.
But what I am most surprised about is that they weren’t just your average kids. You know, the typical kids that are bored out of their minds at church, fighting each other, running in and out of the sanctuary, and doodling over all the scratch paper they can find.. (I was definitely guilty of this growing up)
Never have I ever met 9-year olds so devoted to worshipping God and actually understand and feel His presence. I felt and saw Christ right through these boys’ hearts of worship. Even more than any other adult in the room..
In the middle of worship, I happend to glance over to check if they were behaving well and as soon as I turned to my right, I saw them both with their hands raised, eyes closed, and singing their hearts out to God. Hristo also started to cry as the Pastor’s wife was speaking life into the congregation during a song.
Tears started pouring down my face because here I am asking God to let me experience Him in a profound way and He let me witness His presence right through these little boys. Right at that moment, I was mind blown by How God can touch anybody and everybody’s heart regardless of age.
After the service was over, I wanted to know why Hristo was crying during worship
so I asked another teenage boy to translate for me.
He responded, “Because I was so happy. I was happy that God is here and He is present at this conference so I couldn’t help but cry. They were tears of joy.”
WOW. My jaw dropped and my eyes got watery and I was touched by how this 9-year old can be so spiritually in tuned with the Holy Spirit?!
I was also very shocked that the 13-yr old translator comes to church by himself every week. His name is Demitir and he came to the conference on his own and he is a weekly attendee.
I asked Demitir why do you like coming here? He said, “Because I feel IT here.” I asked him what he meant by ‘IT’. He said, “The presence of God. I feel His love every time I come and through all of the friends I met. I love this place.”
WOW x 2! Another jaw drop!! Another bucket of watery eyes! I could not believe the passion and faith that these little boys have for God.
Many times as adults, we go to church to check it off our to-do list for the week (I was also guilty of this), but these boys come here to purely worship and simply be in His presence.
Now I finally understand what God means when we need to be more like little children.
These boys showed me that we need to be more child-like when we worship Him. They don’t ever hold back and they give it all they got. They’re not ashamed to jump up and down, raise their hands up high, cry in front of everyone because they don’t care what others think, and they just plainly worship with a pure heart.
Hristo and Kancho, 9-year old boys who love worshipping God!
Demitir, the 13 year old translator who comes to church every week by himself.
Bulgaria, thank you for teaching me how to worship with a child-like heart. It is bittersweet to leave you, but maybe we will meet again some day!
Tomorrow, our squad will start a new season! We will be heading to Ethiopia!!
Our last leg of the race! New continent, new team, new country, new everything!!! Stay tuned!! Month 9, Africa I am pumped for you!
