Today I had the privilege of meeting with other missionaries and national pastors to proof read the gospel of John and epistle to the Romans in Turkish. Although we were proof reading, looking for typing errors and such, somehow reading the Bible out loud seemed to be a greater blessing than reading devotionally. Soon we will begin printing these for distribution. Next week we will continue proof reading the rest of the New Testament. Each of our national pastors has a complete Bible, but very few people over here have any kind of Bible, save the gospels of John that we distributed years ago. I recently had a special blessing: after I preached one night I overheard one of the ladies in the church that said, "I have got to get a Bible and start reading it." How encouraging it is to know that my preaching brought a love and a desire for the word of God.
This past month has given us some absolutely beautiful weather. Usually, that means that many of our people are now working and not able to attend church, but we are still encouraged to see the Lord working. In our village church we have new people come about every week. I think that at least half of the families in the village have been to the church. This week we had a new one come and promise to continue coming.
There was a bit of excitement in the village this week. A young couple from a nearby village ran away together to marry. Her father and family apparently are in some type of mafia and are feared in this region. Somehow, the father came to our village with several helpers and they thought that the girl was hiding in the home of one of our church members. They broke the windows of the house and started beating this brother with a metal chair. They grabbed his wife and threatened to break her arm. As soon as she got away, she fell to her knees and cried out loud, "Jesus, save us!" Upon hearing this, the men realized that the missing girl was not there and they left. Our brother here may have suffered a concussion (we're not sure, the hospital wouldn't admit him because his insurance hadn't been paid), but he came to the meeting last night and gave a wonderful testimony that he could have died, but he knew the Lord protected him.
From Bulgaria,
Zachary LeFevre
