"I Will Follow"

front cover of our conference brochure

That is the theme of the one-day youth conference we will be hosting in Sofia on the Saturday after we arrive. Our desire is to encourage the young people of Bulgaria to not only accept the doctrines of Christianity at an intellectual level, but to passionately pursue Christ as disciples, surrendering their lives to His plans and purposes.
Joey, Vernon, and I will teach the main sessions on discipleship, peer pressure and accountability. Joey and Linzi will be breaking out the boys and girls for a lesson on living in purity. There will also be a breakout session with several different classes for the kids to choose from. Our teenagers will be involved in the teaching on these, and we will close with a Q&A session for all the kids to ask questions of our team.

conference schedule

Be praying for the conference to go smoothly. It's a lot to plan long-distance! Itzo Yatanski of Blaga Vest has been very helpful in working out details, and we've even put together a nice color brochure for all the kids with the schedule and topic information that we translated into Bulgarian with the help of our good friend Simona Ivanova.
When its all over, we're serving a taco dinner to the whole crowd, with salad and a side of refried beans for a little taste of home BG-style.
Please keep this conference in prayer. It is a new endeavor for us, but one we've been talking and praying about for several years. We're expecting about 40 kids from Sofia, Elin Pelin, Gabrovo and Macedonia. We really need to be led by the Holy Spirit to minister to these kids and point them toward a radical relationship with Christ as His followers!

Trip Schedule

Last year's team in the airport

Less than four weeks to go! We're almost there and these last days are going to fly by because we've got so many other things going on with the church as well. On Sunday, half our team leaves for Big Bear for the high school youth group summer camp. The next week, I leave for the jr. high youth group summer camp. The week after that is our Vacation Bible School at Calvary Bullhead and we're all helping out with that. Then, the following Tuesday we're on an airplane headed for Bulgaria!
Tonight, we've got a team dinner with some Bulgarian food and we're going to share lots of pictures from past trips. We're inviting the parents of our teenagers so that we can share about the trip and answer any questions they may have at this point. We'll go over packing and travel arrangements and talk about the safety and well-being of their kids overseas.
Here is the schedule of our activities while we're there. We're going to have a busy trip, but we really feel that we need to make every moment count. We're not going for a vacation... we're going to serve, and we've got a long flight home to catch up on sleep!

• Tues, June 26 - Travel to BG (about 24 hours of travel)
• Wed, June 27 - Arrive in BG (around noon local time), attend church at Blaga Vest that evening
• Thur, June 28 - Spend the day painting and working at the Romani (gypsy) church in Stolnik... Cookout w/ Stolnik congregation in afternoon, and attend their church service that evening
• Fri, June 29 - Visit an orphanage in Sofia... Attend church service in Elin Pelin that evening
• Sat, June 30 - We are holding a one-day youth conference in Blaga Vest church in Sofia
• Sun, July 1 - Attend church service in morning... Fellowship or relax in afternoon
• Mon, July 2 - Travel across Bulgaria to Black Sea
• Tues, July 3-Sun, July, 8 - Black Sea Youth Camp with 50-60 Bulgarian, Romani, and Macedonian children
• Mon, July 9 - Travel back across Bulgaria to Sofia
• Tues, July 10 - Spend the day in Fakulteta, a large Romani mahala (ghetto) in Sofia... About 40,000 people in a couple square miles
• Wed, July 11 - We are planning a trip to an historical, cultural site... possibly a monastery or small village... We will attend the church service at Blaga Vest that evening
• Thur, July 12 - Travel back to the USA

Joey teaches with Raya to translate

Keep us in prayer for strength, rest, and health with this busy schedule. The week at camp is a lesson in sleep deprivation with us usually getting around 5 hours a night. Above all though, be praying for us to be bathed in the Holy Spirit in all that we do and that God would move supernaturally through us as we walk in obedience to His calling! God bless!

Linzi, Joey, Roy and Mike goofing off with some of the merchandise

Time is rapidly winding down to our departure for Bulgaria (only 5 weeks until we leave) and we're busy getting all the details worked out. Last week, we held our last yard sale at the church, making about $600 toward trip expenses. We really appreciate all of those who donated stuff for us to sell, and also those who came out to buy other people's stuff from us. The support of the church body continues to bless and help meet the need year after year! For instance, last Thursday Vern and I drove to Mike and Cheryl Meadows house to pick up a donation. They are a new couple in the church, but heard about the yard sale and wanted to help. We ended up filling the back of a pickup truck AND a trailer with stuff while enjoying some great fellowship. We spent some time in prayer together and drove away feeling so blessed! Thanks again to everybody who has helped out, and please feel free to continue donating your unwanted stuff. We'll be starting up the yard sales again in September to fundraise for next year's trip. We also appreciate those who have made personal donations to various members of our team to help get them there. It is so amazing every year to see how God provides from so many directions to send the team overseas.

Mike helps decorate a shirt at last year's camp

We got the schedule for the children's camp we'll be helping with at the Black Sea. Joey, Vern and I will all have the chance to teach in the evening services while we are there and the topics we've been given are AMAZING! I get to open on Monday night with a message on Coming to Christ (salvation). Vern will share two nights later on Sharing Christ (evangelism) and Joey will teach on Spiritual Warfare later in the week. We also help all day in getting the kids where they need to be and spend about 3 hours each morning at the sea with them. During the VBS-type activities in the afternoons, we will be responsible for arts & crafts and teambuilding games. We have a couple neat projects in store including:

• having the kids decorate scarves in traditional Bulgarian style
• cross necklaces made of nails
• paper flippers used to demonstrate and share the gospel message, and... 
• possibly, we will be launching colorful sky lanterns by the sea one evening

Keep us in prayer, as we order and assemble all our materials and figure out how to pack them! In my next update, I'll share about the one-day youth conference we're planning in Sofia before the camp... God bless!

Pray With Us

Our team recently discovered another blog, pray4bulgaria.wordpress.com, that deals with praying for Bulgaria. The site features a Virtual Prayer Walk through Sofia, the nation's capital. Basically, its a Powerpoint presentation that highlights 38 different topics to pray about for the nation. For instance:

This particular slide describes a deeply spiritual issue facing Bulgaria... atheism.

We as a team have decided to go through all 38 prayer topics together, taking one a day. We began on Thursday with the first slide and plan to continue through the entire series. Rather than ending there, though, we are going to follow up by adding specific prayer topics every day that relate to the individual churches, ministries, and people we are connected to.

We are going to pray specifically and daily for Bulgaria right up to our departure and we hope you'll consider joining us. Visit the Virtual Prayer Walk and start today!

We Got Our Tickets Today!

Its official... We're going!! Not that there was any doubt, but I always seem to figuratively hold my breath until we've actually purchased the tickets. As of today, that's out of the way. We will be flying out of Las Vegas at 6 am on Tuesday morning, June 26 and returning at 6:58 pm on Thursday evening, July 12.

The 2008 team catching rest in the Frankfurt airport.

Of course, the 6 am departure means we have to be at the airport by 4 am, which means we have to leave Bullhead at 2 am! Will we get any sleep the night before? Probably not ;-) We arrive in Sofia at 12:10 pm on Wednesday which is 2:10 in the morning back home, so total travel time from BHC to BG is just over 24 hours. It makes for a VERRRYYY  long day, but so worth it. We don't get a lot of sleep while we're in Bulgaria anyway, so the trip just helps get us acclimated. We have a saying while were there (that we stole from Pastor CJ)... We can sleep when we're dead!

In case I haven't brought you up to speed, the final makeup of the team is as follows:
Joey Leslie, Linzi Drew, Mike Kern, Megan Kern, Vernon Garrett, Roy Garrett, Brijon Ortiz, and Brittany Hogle.

Pastor Chuck and Lynda are taking the year off to allow him to fully recuperate from his accident last fall. The team is a bit smaller than years past (we usually take 12-14 people), but most are returning veterans and the new members, Brijon and Brittany, are a welcome addition. We're really excited about  the work the Lord has planned this year!

Later this week, we're supposed to be getting an update from the group at the Blaga Vest church in Sofia that is handling the week-long camp at the Black Sea. Once we hear from them, we'll have a much better picture of our schedule and responsibilities for that week and I'll be sharing details as soon as they fall into place. It's gonna be a great trip!

God Bless...
Mike Kern

Black Sea camp theme

Raya (right) translates while Mayla teaches the young children.

I got a message from Raya Yatanska in Sofia this week with the basic theme for the youth camp we'll be taking part in at the Black Sea this year. Every summer, the Blaga Vest church in Sofia holds the camp for 50-60 kids of all ages from across Bulgaria and Macedonia. Raya's father, Lyudmil, is the pastor of the church and she serves with the team, led by her mother Tsvetanka, that organizes the camp each year. We have been honored to serve with her and the rest of the Bulgarian leaders in ministry to these awesome kids and Raya has done a great job the past few years of coordinating with us ahead of time to help our team prepare for the work.

The Adventure of a Christian...
This years theme will focus on the adventures of the Christian life. Each day, the lessons and activities will teach the kids about another aspect of the walk with the Lord.

• Day One: Acceptance of Faith / Meeting God
• Day Two: Equipping (Preparing) / Building habits / God's Armor
• Day Three: Sharing the Gospel
• Day Four: Ministering to God
• Day Five: The Battle
• Day Six: Meeting With the King

Kids work together in team building exercise.

In addition to sharing the teaching of daily lessons, we will be responsible for coming up with team-building activities and arts/crafts that reinforce the daily lessons. The Bulgarian leaders will be using drama and dance, with an emphasis on Bulgarian history to tie in with the theme. Also, the entire group will head down to the sea every day for some beach time, and we will gather nightly for our evening church service with worship and teaching from the Word. 

The camp will run from Monday, July 2 to Sunday, July 8. Please be praying for all of the leaders in Bulgaria who are working hard to plan and organize everything. Pray for our team as we prepare the lessons and activities we will be responsible for, and that God will bless our time with the kids in ministry. Above all, pray for the kids themselves... that God would open doors for them to be able to come and that He would prepare their hearts for the work He desires to do in them.

Sharing A Taste of Bulgaria

Our Favorite Flavors
As we've done in the past, yesterday we shared a taste of Bulgarian cuisine with our church family at Calvary Bullhead. We grilled up some kebapchete, a blend of ground pork and beef seasoned with chopped garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper. We also shared some shopska, a refreshing salad of chopped up cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions with oil and vinegar and topped with crumbled sirene cheese (a feta unique to Bulgaria). Finally, we added our favorite appetizer, french fries topped with more sirene cheese.
Joey handled the grilling, while Vernon, Roy, Linzi, and I loaded up the food on plates and Megan handed them out. Special thanks to my lovely bride, Melissa, for taking donations and calling the orders into the kitchen!

Making Plans
After serving up the food, we each made a plate for ourselves and sat together to go over plans for our upcoming trip. We've got a lot of preparation ahead of us, so we'll be meeting pretty regularly from now until we leave. A good chunk of our time in BG will be spent at the Black Sea children's camp. However, we really can't start planning our ministry there until the Blaga Vest church in Sofia finalizes the details of the week (theme, lesson topics, etc.). However, we are really striving to maximize our time this year and are planning a number of other ministry opportunities while we are in Sofia before and after the camp.
Its quite a challenge to make plans each year for ministry that will take place on the other side of the planet. We're never quite sure what supplies and resources will be available there or what we'll need to bring with us in our limited luggage space. We have to coordinate with multiple people from different churches, and their day/night cycle is the opposite of ours. This, along with the language barrier, makes for interesting communication issues. Also, the culture in Bulgaria is radically different from our own and we need to take that into account in every aspect of our planned ministry and activity. Things just don't work the same or get taken the same way over there.
Having said all that, our greatest need right now is prayer. We are prayerfully considering what every aspect of our service will look like and how God wants to use us so that we can effectively prepare. We don't just want to do ministry... we want to minister and serve the Church and people of Bulgaria on the Lord's behalf and through His power. We have a number of really great ideas that we'd like to take with us, but we need to determine what God wants us to do... not just what we want to do. We don't want to get stuck doing things because we've always done them, or not doing things because we've never done them. We just want to do something for God that will bless the our Church family there and minister to those in Bulgaria who still don't know the hope of Christ (most of the country)!

The Team
The makeup of the team is still in flux, but it looks like were taking a smaller group this year. We hope that will allow us to be more flexible as the Spirit leads, and more focused on the work before us. Prayer for several teenage girls who really want to go but need to come up with the money to make the trip. As I write this, there are only 120 days until our departure and I know from past experience how quickly that time will fly by. God bless!