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ENGAGE: A Global Mission Magazine of The Global Church of the Nazarene Issue #04 for Wednesday, 29 October 2014
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Sergo Slavchov es el primer miembro de su familia en 10 generaciones en poseer un terreno. Y él tiene grandes planes para su terreno en las afueras de Montana, en el noroesta de Bulgaria. Slavchov y su esposa, Daniella Evdokimova, se encuentran entre los primeros participantes en el nuevo centro ministerial de compasión de la Iglesia del Nazareno de Montana, llamado "Nuevas Oportunidades". El centro, el cual abrió sus puertas oficialmente este mes, proveerá educación, asistencia, y oportunidades a solicitantes seleccionados para que puedan aprovechar diferentes becas y fondos ofrecidos por el gobierno de Bulgaria así como por la Unión Eurpoea para comenzar nuevas empresas. En 2009, Bulgaria se sumó a la Unión Europea, la cual abrió sus puertas de par en par ofreciendo a los habitantes de Bulgaria la posibilidad de emigrar hacia lugares más firmes económicamente en Europa Occidental. Pero Montana, la cuna del comunismo en Buglaria, es la región más pobre de toda la Unión Europea. Con una considerable tasa de emigración, la población de Montana ha decaído vertiginosamente de 70 mil a aproximadamente 40 mil, dejando atrás mayormente a ancianos y niños. Esta realidad tan sólo empeora la situación de pobreza, así como la escaséz de trabajos.  Slavchov y Evdokimova son dos de aquellas personas que han permanecido. Ellos petenecen al grupo étnico de los gitanos, y durante los últimos cinco años han concurrido a la Iglesia del Nazareno de Montana, donde se han convertido en creyentes. La pareja trabaja seis meses del año para una empresa agricultora italiana, recolectando fresas y otras frutas cuando se encuentran en temporada. Eso significa que durante los siguientes seis meses ellos no tienen empleo y se ven forzados a encontrar trabajos ocasionales, como la recolección y venta de nueces. Cuando la pareja escuchó acerca de Nuevas Oportunidades, ellos decidieron presentarse y así buscar una nueva oportunidad para sí mismos. Desde 2015 hasta 2020, la Unión Eurpoea estará ofreciendo becas para ayudar a quienes deseen comenzar pequeñas empresas dentro de las áreas de la agricultura, la producción de alimentos, y la ganadería. Pero muchas personas, tales como Slavchov y Evdokimova, no tienen conocimiento acerca de estas becas o no sabrían cómo navegar a través de todos los procedimientos legales y burocráticos para poder acceder a ellas. Es por eso que Nuevas Oportunidades ha decidido tomar este paso para ayudar. Valentin Kostov y Kameliya Munelska, miembros de la iglesia que actualmente dirijen el centro, ayudaron a la pareja a llenar sus solicitudes y los llevaron a visitar diferentes oficinas gubernamentales para registrarse como productores agricultores independientes y para acceder al capital para iniciar su empresa. Con su beca gubernamental, Slavchov y Evdokimova han podido comprar árboles frutales (damascos y ciruelos) así como una hectárea de tierra.  “La gente dice que este tipo de emprendimiento es imposible para un gitano”, dijo Slavchov refiriéndose a su nueva oportunidad de poseer una granja. “Yo digo que sí, es posible, y quiero que crezcamos, y quiero que podamos llegar a tener 9 hectáreas. Yo he tenido estos sueños durante mucho tiempo, pero jamás tuve la oportunidad de hacerlos realidad. Ahora sí la tengo”. Nuevas Oportunidades espera aceptar unas 30 personas dentro del programa cada año. Diez de ellas serán de 29 años de edad o más jóvenes, y las otras veinte serán de edad media o mayores. El centro ofrecerá una clase cada dos semanas, llegando a un total de 24 clases por año en las cuales se informará a los participantes acerca de las oportunidades disponibles para ellos. Ellos también aprenderán a preparar planes de acción así como a desarrollar importantes habilidades vocacionales, y recibirán información necesaria para iniciar su empresa. “Por supuesto es imposible para nosotros el solucionar todos los problemas que existen dentro de esta región, pero existen personas a quienes podemos ayudar, a quienes podemos dar esperanzas y quienes podrán ver un cambio en sus ingresos”, dijo Kostov. “Estamos convencidos de que este proyecto tendrá un gran impacto dentro de nuestra región y en esta parte tan indigente de nuestro país. Creemos que ayudará a los habitantes de esta área a tener éxito, no tan sólo para ellos sino que para futuras generaciones”.
Nuevas Oportunidades tuvo su inauguración el día 15 de octubre, y durante el evento los líderes Kameliya Munelska y Valentin Kostov presentaron los conceptos e información ante los 60 invitados que concurrieron.
 De izquierda a derecha: Lili, Kameliya, Boyko, y la misionera Jessica Morris. Lili y Boyko tienen una granja familiar donde producen manzanas, y Nuevas Oportunidades está ayudándolos a preparar un proyecto de expansión para la instalación de una bodega refrigerada, la cual les permitirá hacer crecer su pequeña empresa. Esta expansión les permitirá crear empleos locales al aumentar la producción en las premisas.  Durante muchos años, la Iglesia del Nazareno de Montana ha estado involucrada en una gran variedad de ministerios dirigidos a su comunidad, tales como visitas a ancianos, un comedor donde se les ofrece alimentos a los necesitados, y más. Pero según la misionera Jessica Morris, quien ayudó en la planificación y apertura del centro, Nuevas Oportunidades tiene como misión la implementación de soluciones de largo plazo para las necesidades económicas de su comunidad, atacando a la raíz del desempleo, el hambre y la pobreza, en lugar de tan sólo poner una venda sobre sus síntomas. -- Traducido por Ed Brussa.
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Serioja Slavchov is the first member of his family in 10 generations to own land. And he has big dreams for his land on the outskirts of Montana, in northwest Bulgaria. Slavchov and his wife, Daniella Evdokimova, are among the first participants in the Montana Church of the Nazarene’s compassionate ministry center called New Opportunities. The center, which officially opened this month, will provide education, assistance and opportunities for selected applicants to take advantage of Bulgarian and European Union grants and funds to start private businesses. In 2009, Bulgaria entered the European Union, which opened the doors wide for Bulgarians to emigrate to other more economically healthy places in Western Europe. But Montana, which was the birthplace of Communism in Bulgaria, is the poorest region of the entire European Union. With widespread emigration, Montana’s population has fallen sharply from 70,000 to the 40,000s, with mostly the elderly and children left behind. This only worsened the poverty and lack of jobs. Slavchov and Evdokimova are two of those who have remained. Roma by ethnicity, for the past five years they have attended the Montana Church of the Nazarene, where they became believers. The couple works six months out of the year for an Italian agricultural firm, picking berries and fruit when it is in season. That means during the remaining six months they are unemployed and must find odd jobs, such as gathering and selling walnuts. When the couple heard about New Opportunities, they decided to pursue a new opportunity for themselves. From 2015 through 2020, the European Union is releasing grants to help people start small enterprises in the areas of agriculture, food production and livestock. But many people, such as Slavchov and Evdokimova, are unaware of these grants, or would not know how to navigate all the legal and bureaucratic procedures in order to access them. That’s why New Opportunities is stepping up to help. Valentin Kostov and Kameliya Munelska, members of the church who are running the center, helped the couple fill out applications, visit government offices to register as an independent agricultural producer and access start-up capital. With their government grant, Slavchov and Evdokimova have ordered fruit trees – apricots and plums – and purchased three acres of land. “They say that’s not possible for a gypsy,” Slavchov said, referring to his new farm-owning opportunity. “I say, ‘Yes, it’s possible,’ and I want us to grow and I want us to have 100 decares (24 acres). I’ve had these dreams a long time. But I didn’t have the opportunity. Now I have the opportunity.” New Opportunities plans to accept 30 people into the program each year. Ten of those will be age 29 or younger, and the other 20 people will be middle aged or older. The center will offer a class every two weeks, for a total of 24 classes per year, that will inform the participants about the opportunities available to them. They will also learn how to write a business plan, as well as important vocational skills and information necessary to start and run a small business. The consultants will walk the participants through all the steps necessary to start their business. “Of course it is impossible for us to fix all of the problems that exist in this region, but the people that we can help, it will bring hope to them and it will make a change in their income,” said Kostov. “We are convinced this project will have an impact on our region and on this economically destitute part of the country. We believe it will help people in this area to be successful, not just for themselves but for further generations.”
New Opportunities held its grand opening for the community on 15 October, during which time the leaders, Kameliya Munelska and Valentin Kostov, introduced the concepts and information to nearly 60 guests who attended.
From left to right: Lili, Kameliya, Boyko, and missionary Jessica Morris. Lili and Boyko have a family apple farm and New Opportunities is helping them to write an expansion project for a refrigerated warehouse so that they can expand their small business. This expansion will allow them to do provide local jobs as they increase on-site production.
 For many years the Nazarene church in Montana has been involved in a range of ministries to their community, such as visiting elderly people, running a soup kitchen to feed the hungry and more. But according to missionary Jessica Morris, who helped plan and open the center, New Opportunities is intended to present long-term solutions to the economic needs of their community, striking at the source of unemployment, hunger and poverty, rather than simply putting a bandage on its symptoms.
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 When Valentin Kostov was a youth in Bulgaria, during the time of Communism, he wanted very badly to attend the Orthodox church on the Christian holidays. He would go, even though he knew that activists from the Communist Youth Movement would gather in front of churches and prevent people from entering. They also wrote down the names of those who had tried to attend services. After the school holidays ended, and everyone returned to school, they would identify to authorities all those believers who had tried to attend church. “It truly was very dangerous for you to be a Christian in this period of time.” Kostov suffered for his beliefs and for belonging to a Christian family. “It was my dream to study law. But they wouldn’t accept me into the university – not because I didn’t have the high grades in high school, but because I came from a Christian family.” Rejected from law school as a young man, he went to university to study history, but after two years he dropped out because he simply wasn’t interested in being a history teacher. He got into music and then just did odd jobs here and there. When Communism fell in the early 1990s, Kostov immediately took advantage of his newfound freedom to attend church. First he attended the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Yet, he felt something was missing there. One day he was walking down a street and saw some people conducting an evangelistic campaign connected to a new denomination. He loved what they were saying and felt it speak directly to himself. So he began attending their services. However, they introduced very strict, legalistic but seemingly arbitrary rules, such as forbidding the eating of fish without bones, or forbidding certain activities on Saturdays. Kostov sensed this was not normal or healthy and stopped attending. A friend suggested that Kostov attend his church, which happened to be the Nazarene church. For the past seven years, Kostov has been a faithful member as well as participant in the praise team. He was baptized in the church. Despite being unable to fulfill his dream of being a lawyer, Kostov has still found a way to help people. Today, he is the consultant for the Church of the Nazarene’s new compassionate ministry center in Montana, Bulgaria. The center, named New Opportunities, will provide just that for people in the community who are struggling economically with unemployment or underemployment. Perhaps it was his own broken dreams that gives him a particular empathy for the people in Montana who have no hope, are afraid to dream for their futures. “I felt like I wanted to be of service and help to other people and I wanted to serve them,” he said. “The high rate of unemployment, the mass emigration as people are leaving Bulgaria, all these factors have caused us to say we must do something, we must get involved. And I believe my participation in the team – I have something to offer because the skills I have and the projects I have worked in.” Kostov spent the '90s and early 2000s working in nongovernment organizations and regional administration and development projects, and brings that experience to New Opportunities. New Opportunities plans to accept 30 people into the program each year. Ten of those will be age 29 or younger, and the other 20 people will be middle aged or older. The center will offer a class every two weeks, for a total of 24 classes per year, that will inform the participants about the opportunities available to them. They will also learn how to write a business plan, as well as important vocational skills and information necessary to start and run a small business. The consultants will walk the participants through all the steps necessary to start their business. “Our goal is that we could help people to no longer be dependent on other things, [such as] the government; that they could be dependent on their own income that they generate; that they can move forward in life.”
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| Roma couple transformed in Christ, start new business
By Gina Grate Pottenger on Oct 27, 2014
 Sergo Slavchov and his wife Daniella Evdokimova tried to have children for 18 years. Finally, in spite of being very poor, they decided to adopt – a beautiful baby girl they named Nadia.
Not long after, a friend invited them to visit the Montana Church of the Nazarene, in northwest Bulgaria.
“We really liked it,” says Slavchov. “The first week after I heard the words about Jesus, I had this warmth inside my heart and I believed that truly there was something.” That was five years ago. But life for the ethnically Roma couple suddenly improved when they became believers.
They had struggled financially just like everyone in that region of Bulgaria, which is the most depressed region of the entire European Union. Being Roma – cultural outcasts in Bulgaria – didn’t help them. Like most Roma, they did not own their own land or home, and worked undesirable jobs to make ends meet. Slavchov worked in a dangerous factory job that exposed him to poisonous substances, resulting in the loss of some of his teeth.
As was customary in the Roma culture, he also drank a lot and slept with many women, and fought with Evdokimova. But that all stopped when they found Christ. He became a faithful husband.
“We share with each other. And there’s more peace between us and tranquility,” he says. “When they came to the church they were pretty rough people, I would say. Especially him,” says Valeri Munelska, the pastor of the Montana Church of the Nazarene. “When God started working in their lives, I saw a change at the very root. They became an example of a good family.”
Filled with joy in their new faith, the couple immediately wanted to give back. Munelska says that periodically they would volunteer to cook for the congregation, providing hot soup lunches or fried bread after church.
Soon they both found better, regular jobs at an Italian agricultural company, picking berries during the harvest season, about six months per year. Slavchov became the manager of a team of workers. Through the counsel of the pastor, they made wiser choices. Their finances began to improve.
Then the miracle happened. Evdokimova became pregnant.
“We had such a great joy, we were so happy,” Evdokimova says. “He was working in the fields when I told him the news. Everyone was so happy and they cried with joy. Eighteen years – that’s a long time. And people we would meet on the streets would hug us and kiss us with joy.”
They named their second daughter Maria, after the mother of Jesus.
Through their joy and peace, and the miracle of their child, the couple has become a testimony to the Roma community in which they live.
“Everybody knows we’re believers. Most of my workers are from here, this neighborhood, or relatives. In the fields we sit and I share with them about the Lord,” Slavchov says.
Even though their work of harvesting berries only lasts six months of every year, God blessed the family financially so that they were able to purchase the home they were renting, as well as to begin helping others and donating to the church more generously.When their church decided to open a Nazarene compassionate ministry center called New Opportunities, the couple were the first in line. The center is designed to assist applicants in gaining access to European Union grants for starting small businesses. With the help of consultants at the center, Slavchov and Evdokimova registered as agricultural producers and were awarded capital to purchase three acres of land as well as fruit trees to start an orchard.
Owning property is another miracle for their family.
“The Bulgarians, they have land, everybody does, but the Roma don’t; we don’t have work. My grandfather and great grandfather never had land. I am one of the first people in my lineage that’s ever bought land and I bought 12 decares (three acres).”
They believe in giving back to the community.
This past month they started serving soup to their neighbors in the Roma village where they live. More than 200 people (children included) covered their garden area – many sitting on blankets when the tables and chair had long run out. The Montana church helped with some of the costs and in the serving.
They have big dreams for their future.
“I want to have a big freezer that would freeze fruit for wild berries and a drier that would dry herbs to make tea. We would do also nuts as well. And for me to have 20 workers that would work just for me. I want us to grow and I want us to have 100 decares (24 acres).
“I’m sure that God is with me and that I can do this and I see that I am reaching these goals and that the Lord is the best. I know that the Lord is with us and He’s never going to leave us.”
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A brand new Matru Nazarene church in Buldana, in the Central Maharashtra District of India, gathered to learn about and give to the denomination’s Alabaster Offering on 12 October, in order to fund critically needed buildings for ministry around the world.
The congregation “knew about Alabaster but had to be reminded and encouraged to do it,” said Rajiv Yangad, the district superintendent who is pastoring the church.
The pastor, church board and NMI president, Mrs. Orpha Battase (pictured above), organized a service to celebrate the Alabaster offering. About 140 people attended, not only from the Matru church but other congregations in Buldana and a town called Chikhli, where the district office is located.
“The objective was to help the congregation realize that we should give because:
1. We love God (He loved and found us and saved us);
2. We love what God loves (He is on the mission to save the world);
3. And because we love God and what God loves, we don’t hold back, but express our love by giving (we are partnering in His mission),” wrote Yangad.
The attendees responded positively and generously, giving 20,000 rupees ($325 USD) for Alabaster to build churches, homes, schools and medical clinics around the world. Churches across the entire district gave a total, including from Matru, of 50,000 rupees ($814 USD), according to Yangad.
Nearly 75 new Alabaster boxes were taken by the congregation with assurance of raising even more next year.
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 "Done, 100 year NMI project” was the title of the email from the India East District. Early this year their district stepped out on faith to adopt two projects as part of the Nazarene Missions International (NMI) 100th Anniversary; they had never done anything like this before and did not know how their churches would respond to the challenge in giving to a specific ministry in another country. The projects were to provide evangelism soccer balls and EvangeCubes for 17 JESUS Film teams in Africa.
The response surprised the leaders. “Our youth and Sunday school kids are raising funds for these projects. They are collecting money from their families, friends and neighbors. I found a small boy from my church, 6 years, collected about 390 rupees ($6.36 USD) from his neighborhood and deposited to the church. Like that there are many,” wrote District Superintendent Amitava Chatterjee. “Until now, we had never involved the children in giving to missions. But they are the best fund-raisers in our churches!”
The response was so good that the district adopted two more projects. This time they chose SD micro audio and video cards for three JESUS Film teams for the Asia-Pacific Region. These cards contain the JESUS film, The Story of Jesus Through the Eyes of Children, and Magdalena (the JESUS film for marginalized women). They also contain an audio Bible in one of 500 languages, worship songs, and discipleship material. The JESUS Film teams in India East raised the money for these projects. Knowing the potential and impact these tools can have, the team members took full initiative to provide the same tools for teams in another country.
“The pastors and local NMI presidents are calling me saying, ‘When will we receive the information about our district’s NMI 100th Anniversary project? We are excited to be a part of what God is doing in another part of the world,’” said India Karnataka District NMI President Joyce Jothi.
While their district has been giving to the World Evangelism Fund and Alabaster Offerings, this is the first time that their district is participating in direct and specific financial support for Nazarene ministry in another country. Their district adopted two projects which will provide tents to allow Nazarene congregations in the Philippines to gather and meet out of the rain.
The anniversary is an opportunity to celebrate how God has been using the Church of the Nazarene in taking His salvation message to the ends of the earth for 100 years. At the heart of the celebrations, the districts are doing that very thing once again. Many districts have accepted the challenge. For more information, visit nmi.nazarene.org/nmi100. As with these examples, for some, it is taking a new step of faith and joining God in His mission in a new way. Just by having the opportunity to give, children, youth and adults are responding to the call to take God’s love to the nations.
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