20 Years Of Breakthroughs

Tonight I decided to do something to make my mom happy. She’s been on my case to go through bunch of stuff piled up in one of the cabinets at the apartment. So I did. 

Going through bunch of old books, audio tapes and papers we had accumulated through the years while living in Bulgaria is quite annoying to me. But then I got to this folder with documents, journals and all sorts of notes from way back from the 90’s. 

Among the important discoveries: 

• A fax sent to me by Ulf Ekman (and personally signed by him) in October of 1996 - I’m thinking of putting it on eBay :) … just kidding! … 
• A fax from Senator Jesse Helms. 
• The transcript of a prophecy given to Wanda and I back in October of 1995. 

It was the prophecy that had me most excited! 

But in order to appreciate it, I’ll give some background. 

In 1995 our family literally had to flee Bulgaria. Ulf Ekman had been banned from coming into Bulgaria. So, being the loyal bunch that we were, in May of 1995 we actually organized couple hundred people from our church in Bulgaria to travel to the city of Nish, Serbia where we could meet with Ulf. He had done some meetings in Belgrade and decided to come down to Nish and do some meetings for the Bulgarians from Word of Life Church, since he couldn’t enter the country. 

We drove back to Belgrade with him and Wanda and I talked with him in the car about the fact that I had been receiving death threats and the situation in Bulgaria was very intense. I told him that I had decided that I will not allow circumstances to move me in any direction, regardless of how scary they may seem or sound. Jenny was only 2 years old, Emilie - 1, our church was already being persecuted for almost 2 years, economically Bulgaria was a going from bad to worse and everything looked rather dark around us. 

So as we discussed with all this with Ulf (our spiritual covering at the time), he advised us to get out of the country for a season in order to avoid greater confrontation with the system, which was evidently determined to destroy us. 

We came back to Bulgaria and began to organize to leave the country and go to the United States for a season. How long was this “season”? We had no clue. We figured it can’t be for more than 3 months, so this is what we told the church. 

I knew this will be a life-changing experience, but didn’t know in what way. 

The way I felt about our church was that God had His hand on these mostly twenty-somethings and I cared about the people as if indeed the Lord himself will one day ask me to give an account. We had grown very fast and in fact it seemed that everything was happening really fast. 

Frank Munsey, who had founded an American English language school in Bulgaria offered to help us get to the States. We didn’t have hardly any money at all. Our only source of income for years had been my salary as a pastor and whatever else the Lord provided in terms of small financial contributions people would give us once in a while. I don’t even know how we gathered enough money to purchase our airfare. 

We flew to Chicago and Frank Munsey put us up kindly in Motel 6 or something like it. I still remember the greasy carpets and how hot and humid it was at this time of the year. 

I had just gotten a driver’s license in February and was a very green driver. 

Our plane tickets were only to Chicago and now we had to find a way to get to Minnesota. 

Frank offered to help us get a car. He took me to the car dealership of this guy whom he knew and started telling me how he was going to find a great deal. This was going to be my first car and I didn’t even realize it. 

Don’t even ask me how, but we ended up walking out of this dealership with a green Ford Escort station wagon, year 1993 and owing something like $9,000 on it…(I think)!

I remember Frank saying something like: “You should have this paid off by the end of the year….” Unbelievable! 

Having grown up in America, Wanda had owned cars before and had a lot more experience with all this business of buying cars, making payments, etc. I remember coming back to the motel and telling her we now have this car and the car loan. She was like: “…how in the world did you end up buying a CAR! And how are we going to be making payments when we are here just for few months and you don’t have any income?” 

I was like: “Uh, I don’t know, I guess I thought Frank said something about helping take care of that.” 

I began to realize what had just happened and the fact that I was now stuck with a $340 a month payment on a car I don’t even remember choosing. THIS IS HOW out of it I was at that time! Until a week ago my world had been this post-communist nation, filled with chaos, violence, inflation and also the move of God and persecution. 

All of a sudden we were in Chicago, having signed on a car I didn’t even realize I was buying and taking on my first payment plan! Just great! 

Next we were on our way out of Indiana. I remember driving for the first time in America. In our newly acquired car, with my wife and two babies in the back seat, driving out of Chicago…I was flashing my lights at people who were driving slow (according to my Bulgarian way of driving), cutting in in front of people and doing all sorts of stuff drivers in Bulgaria consider a way to drive. Wanda was horrified. I’m not even sure how she was able to put up with my adaptation to America and particularly in the driving skills arena. 

Somehow we made it to Minnesota and we settled with Wanda’s parents. It was great to see them and to have them see the kids of course. At the same time I felt very much out of place and anxious to hear from God what’s next. 

It was going to be a while before I could hear anything. 

HOW DO YOU PAY OFF A CAR IN 5 MONTHS

I would like to call this part: the world according to Frank Munsey. So what was Frank’s idea of paying off a car in 5 months? Given that we didn’t even know how long we’re going to stay in the States, we weren’t sure at all how we’re supposed to handle this. We needed a car, because in America you can’t get anything done without a car. But of course we could have chosen a much cheaper car if I had at least some understanding and experience how all this works. I didn’t. And we ended up keeping the car all the way through our one year stay. Finally, when we came back to Bulgaria in August of 1996, we left the car with this couple we knew in Minnesota and they sold it for us while we were gone. 

Well, what Frank did was refer me to this church in Saint Paul, Minnesota. 

And what a church this was! This was another matter I was totally clueless about. 

Frank Munsey is a Oneness guy. Oneness folks believe in the so-called “Jesus-only” doctrine, i.e. God is not one in three persons, he is One in three “manifestations”. 

Go figure! 

At that time I was only 26 years old and had been preaching and pastoring a church for 5 years, half of which while dealing with crazy government, propaganda campaigns in the national media, TV and so on. I had no time to go into all these petty doctrinal matters. 

My focus was on preaching the Gospel, creating an opportunity for people to get saved and planted in the church. I really made an effort to stay away from all the theological bickering going on in the Church and stick to the basic - Jesus saves, delivers and heals! 

I was very “green” when it come to how deep the Oneness vs. Trinitarianism schism was and still is. 

But this was my introduction to it. 

So Frank calls me and gives me the number for this Oneness church in the St. Paul area. He tells me: “This is a great church! Last week some Russians went in and they raise over $10,000. You should do even better.” 

$10,000? I was shocked. You see, I had only preached once in America, at the church of the pastor who married us. He gave me a $160 offering with a note that this was a “token” of their appreciation. And token it was! 

So for me to hear that this church had given $10,000 to these Russians was like a sci-fi movie. 

Please also understand that our church in Bulgaria had always been a self-supported church. I had never been sponsored by a Western organization, church or anything like this and had always lived on whatever salary the church could afford to pay me and on supernatural provision. People would just come to me and bless me financially and this is how things worked. My salary from the church has never been enough to support all we had done through the years in terms of going back and forth between the States and Bulgaria. 

So $10,000 to me sounded outrageous. 

I had no idea what was expected of me to do in this church. So I did what I know how to do. I prayed for a word for the church from God. I was fired up and I was going to preach. 

Right before I go up to preach, as I walk into the main hall, this older man walks up to me and asks me: “So, do you baptize in the Name of Jesus?” He was looking me straight into the eyes and it was not with love! He was interrogating me! 

I said: “Well, of course, what do you think, in the name of Mohammad?” 

He backed off immediately and walked away. However, I knew something wasn’t right with these people and their “Jesus-only” doctrine. I felt like I wanted to just get out of there, but it was too late. I had to go and preach. 

I somehow got through the sermon and issued an altar call for the young people in the church. Bunch of young people came forward but the whole thing was so religious, I knew these people were TOTALLY CLUELESS of the whole thing of impartation and so on. 

I think the offering was something like $300! Wow! 

SURVIVAL 101

Don’t ask me how we made it because I can’t even figure it out myself. I was preaching once every month or every two months and if it wasn’t for the fact we were living at Wanda’s parents we were just not going to be able to make it through that period of time. it was Survival 101 and we knew it!

In November of 1995 I heard apostle John Eckhardt preach for the first time and this was the beginning of a new chapter in our spiritual development and formation. He had come to preach at Twin Cities Harvest Church, at that time founded and pastored by our friend Mary-Alice Isleib and her brother, my now best friend for many years, prophet John Isleib. We knew them from Word of Life Bible Center in Sweden, where Wanda had been to Bible School and me, too. They had moved to the States to plant the church and were crucial in making the connection with apostle Eckchardt. 

Through apostle John’s teaching, books and tapes, we understood the apostolic dimension of the spiritual warfare we were going through. 

When you’re going through persecution, the really hard thing is to realize you had not done anything so bad as to warrant the kind of backlash you get from demonic principalities and powers. We all make mistakes. All preachers and churches make mistakes. But when they accuse you of being a CRIMINAL and treat you like one, you had better realize that Satan is working on destroying you regardless of how nice, loving and kind you try to be with people. It’s not people, it’s the demonic powers that manifest through people that try to destroy the work of God! But they need people to be able to speak out their lies and do their works. 

We realized that Satan saw in us a threat. Satan tried to destroy Jesus while Jesus was still a baby! He sees in us more than we can see in ourselves. The sooner he takes you out, the better. The more you realize who God has made you and called you to be, the less relevant and potent Satan is in relation to you! 

Once I figured this one out, the rest was easy! I didn’t think I brought anything so special to the table so as to warrant such a strong reaction from the devil, but it was a fact. 

I knew we had received an impartation of the apostolic in Sweden and we were now going to establish the spirit of freedom in our land. 

It’s not up to Swedes, Americans and any other nation to set Bulgarians free! Bulgarians must be willing and able to come into a covenant relationship with God in such a way so that our nation becomes free due to God’s move in our midst, not because of a conference, seminar or a bible school. 

A DEFINING PROPHECY 

On October 20, 1995 Wanda and I went to a meeting with prophetess Bobby-Jean Merck. She was a very kind lady in her 60s and also one of the pioneers of the prophetic, especially amongst the churches from the faith movement. 

Bobby-Jean called up Wanda and I to prophecy over us. It was a very powerful prophecy. We had the tape from it and then lost it for years. I never found this until today when I was going through all papers. 

It really blessed me and I will share it here with our friends: 

(To be continued…)