April
4, 2008
Dear Preacher Potter and Brookside,
Greetings from Bulgaria/Romania in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
Lord is really blessing us as we have campmeeting this week.
I believe this is the best campmeeting we have ever had.
We love and appreciate you and are truly thankful for your prayers and
support for us all.
I just wanted to write and share a couple
testimonies with you all. Last week
I went with Mitko to one of his meetings. This
village is called Kamenar where we started our very first Turkish church years
ago. We also feed the children in
this village. This village is about
the poorest village we go to. This
little church is literally surrounded by a garbage dump.
Before the meeting started the believer's were sitting around talking
about how they knew different people who had found some food in the garbage
dump. They were hungry and needed
something to eat. One woman found
some cake in the dump and was going to feed it to her children, but the
believer's told her not to. The
people who get food out of the dump end up getting very sick.
Thank the Lord we are able to feed the children here.
Remember, this church is literally
surrounded by a large garbage dump. In
the meeting last week a young lady who is a faithful believer stood up and
testified. This woman lives in a
small run down shack on the edge of the dump.
She is about as poor as you could possibly be. During the hymns I noticed she had tears running down her
cheeks. When she testified she
stood up and said I just want to thank God for being so good to me.
She said the Lord will never leave us, He loves us and has forgiven us of
all our sins. This really touched
my heart. The Lord said in 1 Samuel
2:8- He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the
dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of
glory. What a blessing that the
Lord put a church right in the middle of a garbage dump and feeds the little
children from the church.
Also, here in Romania we have a believer
named Ati. Her daughter is also a
believer and had a baby boy 7 years ago and named him Frank.
Well, here recently she had another baby girl and named her Barbara.
As soon as the baby was born they told her the baby was dead. They actually threw the baby away. They put her into a small container to throw her away.
Then they heard her start to cry and pulled her out of the container.
The Lord hears the cry of his little children.
The Lord sure is good!
I just wanted to write a couple of
testimonies and tell all of you at Brookside how much we appreciate your love
and prayers. Make no mistake about
it, the Lord does hear and answer your prayers.
I want you all to know that we all over here are praying for you.
We pray that the Lord would abundantly bless you all, especially during
campmeeting.
May the Lord bless you all.
In Christ, Frank Cornelius
Update
from Bulgaria
April 2, 2008
Distribution of flour
in Bulgaria
Dear
Brother Fred and Brookside
Greetings in the wonderful name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
He is still doing wonderful things.
We give Him all the glory.
First of all I want to thank you and everyone who helped to send the
money for the flour. It has been such a blessing to everyone who received it.
We were able to buy and distribute one hundred and fifty four thousand
(154,000) pounds of the best flour that Bulgaria has.
The timing of the Lord was perfect.
All the people had been snowed in for a month.
During this time they had not been able to go to work as all the roads
were closed. As soon as the roads opened up in February, we were able to
deliver the flour. The people were
really hungry. We reached them
right on time. This past month,
everywhere we have been, the people can't stop thanking us for the flour.
“You helped us get through the
winter”, they said, “without this flour we would not have had anything to eat.
Besides that this flour was the best we have ever seen.
Thanks!” Many others
testified of how this flour came at the time when their cupboards were bare. We did not give it out sparingly; every family received a one
hundred and ten (110) pound bag. This
flour filled up the churches with people thanking and praising God.
Hundreds of new people are now coming to church to hear the gospel
because of this kindness which was shown them.
Distribution of CD's
and DVD's
For many years, as you know, we have given out cassettes of hymns,
testimonies, and preaching in Turkish. These
have all born fruit. A few months
ago we started putting the singing and preaching on CD's, and recently we made a
couple of DVD's of our church services. These
are going like wildfire, we have given them out by the hundreds. They are begging for them everywhere we go.
We watch the church service everyday, they said, we go to bed in the
evening watching this DVD. We get our strength from this church service.
It is like we are there. As
many as we can give them, they give out to their neighbors, their relatives in
other villages, and also in Turkey and many countries in Europe.
We can't get to every village, but these DVD’s are going out to
hundreds of towns and villages. One
testimony in particular shows how these are helping to spread the Gospel, not
just in Bulgaria and Romania, but much farther.
A young lady who has been a believer in our church for several years,
works at her brother's stand at the market near the bus station selling music
CD's. She also testifies about
Jesus every chance she gets and gives away Gospel cassette tapes and CD's that
we have given to her. A few weeks
ago, she was talking to a lady customer at her stand.
The lady was getting ready to board the bus for Istanbul, Turkey.
This girl offered to give her a Gospel CD to listen to on the bus.
The woman said, "No, I don't believe in that stuff".
But the girl insisted and the lady took it. After a couple of weeks, the lady returned from Istanbul and
found the girl and told her the following.
The woman decided to listen to the CD on the long bus ride to Istanbul.
She said she really enjoyed the hymns.
When she arrived in Istanbul, she realized she did not have the telephone
number or address of her sister who she was going to stay with.
She also didn't have any money. She
was so upset because she didn't have anywhere to stay and no way to get in touch
with her sister. Then she
remembered one of the hymns she had listened to that said if we pray, Jesus will
hear us and He will help us. She
prayed right then and asked Jesus to help her out of her desperate situation.
She said she left the bus station and entered into a nearby market.
While walking through the market, someone shouted her name.
It was her sister. Istanbul
has well over 10 million people, so this was quite a miracle.
She told her sister about the CD and how she had prayed for Jesus to help
her and He had. The sister was so
impressed that she took the CD to work the next day.
She asked her boss to play the CD over the loudspeaker in the clothing
factory where she worked. There were about 200 Turkish women working in the factory who
listened to these Gospel hymns all day.
Sometimes we think we are limited in what we can do to share the Gospel.
We serve a God who is not limited and desires that everyone should hear
the Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ, and believe.
In His Service, Brother Ralph
(For all the missionaries, national
pastors and believers)
Ralph Cheatwood Update
June 2006
As many of you may have heard, Brother Ralph
Cheatwood recently had a heart attack. He is doing much better, and gives God
all the glory for bringing him through this trouble. Friday, May 12th,
about noon, he felt a
pain in his chest.
They called the local doctor who took his blood pressure and
found it to be high. They decided he should be taken to a clinic in the next
village where they did an EKG, confirmed he had a heart attack, and referred him
to
Varna.
He was hospitalized in Varna Bulgaria for well over a week. Upon being
discharged, he was taken to stay in Constant Romania. Again on Wednesday the 24th
he had another attack and was taken to the emergency room at the hospital in
Constanta.
Upon hearing of Brother Ralph’s heart attack, Pastor Bill Schneider of
Maranantha Baptist Church in Dothan, AL, and friends of the Cheatwoods, Gregg
and Marcie Turnbull, made arrangements to have Brother Ralph flown to the states
and treated at Southeast Alabama Medical Center, all free of charge. After a
heart catherization the doctor reported that Brother Ralph had lost use of 15%
of his heart, but that the remaining 85% was in very good condition. There was
no surgery needed, no stints or angioplasty.
Further the doctor said all Ralph needs to do is take his
medication, alter his diet and exercise daily. Brother Ralph has been
discharged from the hospital and is resting and recouperating in Dothan. We
praise the Lord for his intervention and for his watch care over the Cheatwoods.
I visited with Brother Cheatwood in
Dothan,
Memorial day, the day before he was discharged. He was in excellent spirits. I
walked in on him testifying to Brother Schneider of the work. After Brother
Schneider left I talked with Brother Ralph of all that had transpired, and was
amazed at how the Lord worked everything out. It wasn’t long before our
conversation turned to the work. This last year the devil has fought the work
tooth and nail, yet the Lord continues to bless exceeding abundantly. It seems
that for everything our adversary does contrary, the Lord blesses twice as much:
the campmeetings in Romania and Bulgaria abound in love and power; new villages
are being reached; the tapes and cd’s filled with preaching and singing are
being distributed; and the poor are having the gospel preached to them. Brother
Ralph was thrilled to report all the Lord was doing; but was anxious to see more
done. He told of the great opportunities yet ahead for the work in
Bulgaria.
He said when he was having the chest pains, he asked the Lord to leave him
around a while longer, that he had a few things left he’d like to see done. He
felt the peace of God, and never worried about dying. However, his heart attack
weighed upon him the need to ‘redeem the time’. Brother Ralph said he needs
three vans to get the Turkish teams out to the villages evangelizing. He said
he could find good used vans for $7,000 apiece, and would get them on the road
as soon as possible. When I visited Brother Ralph, the only personal effects I
saw in his room were his King James Bible, and his Turkish Bible. For Brother
Ralph this really is his life, a labor of love, and the desire of his heart, to
see the Turks saved and established in the faith. Pray with us about those
vans, and pray the money comes quickly. They are $7,000 apiece, but the more
money we receive the better quality we can get. What we do, we must do quickly,
or the harvest will pass, the summer will end, and they’ll not be saved! Help
us to ‘redeem the time’.
Brother William LeFevre
Brother Fred Potter
“Therefore said he unto them,
The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few:
pray ye therefore the Lord of the
harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.” Luke 10:2
UPDATE ON THE WORK
IN ROMANIA AND BULGARIA 1991-2005
October 2005
Dear Brother Fred,
We are still
excited about Bulgaria opening up and allowing us to register churches. It is
more than we could ever have hoped for, God is so good. Now 4 of us have
registered churches in Bulgaria, Brother Matt, Brother Zach, Brother Frank and
Brother Ralph. According to the lawyer Brohter Joe's church should be
registered by the end of this year. Brother Larry is still waiting on his papers
from the States. We are expecting even greater things from the Lord this coming
year in Bulgaria. Soon with 6 families living there, and with the national
pastors and dedicated believers, we should be able to reach many new towns and
villages.
Here is a summary
of the work.
We started in May of 1991 in Bulgaria with 1 missionary family, after having
talked with you from Istanbul earlier the same year. We now have: 8
missionary families: 2 families will be working in Romania, and 6 families
in Bulgaria; 18 national pastors: 12 in Bulgaria, and 6 in Romania. We
also have several young men starting to preach, but are not as yet pastoring
churches.
90 churches:
72 in Bulgaria, and 18 in Romania. Most of these are Turkish
house-churches, but we also have some Romanian and Bulgarian. Several of the
churches now have their own self-standing buildings. 33 feeding-centers:
We feed between 1,300-1,500 children daily in homes. 22 in Bulgaria, and
11 in Romania. These feeding centers are done through the local churches we
have established. The ones who do the cooking are all volunteers. We give them
a small love offering each month. We also invite the older widows and others,
who are destitute, to eat with the children each day. Through these
feeding-centers and morning prayer meetings bread is also distributed to the
poor. Over 14,000 loaves of bread are given out each month in Romania.
Most of these children are very young, but some of them can pray like adults.
They sing hymns, testify and pray before they eat. They all thank the Lord for
the food and pray for the Lord to bless you folks who provide it. We have heard
many testimonies from the neighbors of what a blessing the children's singing
is to them. Many of them have told us that their husbands won't let them come
to church, but that they worship the Lord as the children sing. Since we have
been doing this work now for several years, many of these children have grown up
and gotten saved and are now in one of our churches. Many of them have now
gotten married and have moved to other villages. Recently we have started
meetings in some of these villages.
1 children's home
in Romania with 9 children.
We are currently in the process of taking in a 2 year old boy. We also have 3
churches meeting in the children's home complex, English, Turkish, and
Romanian. In August we had our first camp meeting. We all were blessed. We
know one thing for sure: The Lord is with us!
2 Bible
Translations:
Turkish and Bulgarian. The preparation for the Turkish translation was
begun in 1980. We have been using the newly translated Turkish New Testament
among ourselves (missionaries and national pastors and churches) since 1998.
We duplicate them on a copy machine and bind them by hand, about 20 copies at a
time. We are now ready to start producing them in larger quantities and
giving them out to everyone who wants one. The Turkish Old Testament is also
now ready, and was put into use among ourselves in early 2005. The translation
of the Bulgarian Bible was begun in 1994 and is nearing completion. We will
begin using it among ourselves within the next few months. We hope to have both
translations of the entire Bible, Turkish and Bulgarian, perfected and ready to
be published in 2007.
Everywhere we go
they ask us for tapes of singing and preaching, and also for hymnbooks and
bibles. May the Lord help us to reach everyone who has a desire to know Him.
All For His Glory,
Brother Ralph
Cheatwood
Recent
updates from our missionaries
Received February 16, 2006
Dear Preacher and church,
It’s good to be able to write again and rehearse what God has done
with us and how he has opened the door of faith to the Turkish gypsies here in
Bulgaria. We rejoiced to hear that your meetings at Brookside have been going
so well. I believe you all had a meeting, and we got revived.
The Turks in Dobravino started meeting on Sunday mornings, this
makes three meetings a week for them. They also meet every morning for prayer.
Sometimes they have two prayer meetings a morning. Each meeting there is filled
with joy and with testimonies of the Lord’s blessings. Some of the believers
there told that they had such joy they felt like they had got saved all over
again. The pastor there, Ahmet, has a hard time testifying for smiling so
much. From this meeting, there are three preachers that travel to surrounding
villages throughout the week, and they are taking this joy and grace with them.
Brother Ralph has been getting out again and preaching in the villages. One
week he preached in nine different meetings (I think he’s sixty-seven).
Then there was the camp meeting. It was hard to get a good count,
but there were at least four hundred people there. That’s more than double what
we were expecting. Now, the believers remember that in days past they had
prayed that God would fill the whole church, and the upper floor of the church,
too – and now He has done it. Many, many others wanted to come to the meeting,
but were not able to. I believe that God is still working among these people.
From that meeting we see what a hunger there is here for God.
The singing in that meeting was glorious, with all those voices, and
all the joy, but the main meeting started at about two in the morning. At that
time some people had left, and things calmed down some. Brother Nathan had
brought down a van full of the believers from Romania, and it was they who
started out the testimonies. After them, each testimony got stronger. Heaven
must have an awful big bottle, if it is to hold all of the tears shed that
night. We cried and rejoiced until daybreak. There were Turks that night
praising God who never had praised God before. Needless to say, everyone is
asking when the next meeting is. The good thing is, we can put on a meeting
like this for about five hundred dollars!
There are too many testimonies to remember. Most of them are just
about how good God is. Last night in a meeting here in Varna, a woman testified
that they had been praying for nine years for a grandchild. Then this
week they found out that both daughters in law are expecting.
Last week we bought a car for Nasuf. His old Lada was about gone.
He about drove the wheels off it, going to the villages preaching the gospel;
and that’s what we want him to do with this one.
Brother Mitko has started going to a new village up near Dobrich.
The people of the village have received him with great joy and eagerness. Pray
that God will move on these people, and they too will come to the knowledge of
eternal life.
There are still other villages who want churches. Pray ye the Lord
of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.
Zachary LeFevre
Received:
March 30, 2006
Dear Preacher and church,
Hope you all are having a good camp meeting. Over here in Bulgaria we've been
in the camp meeting spirit for several weeks. It seems like every meeting that
we go to has a new blessing for us. Each believer has a new testimony of how
God has worked in their lives recently. New villages are opening up for us, and
with the Lord's help we're going to them. Last week in Dobravino Brother Ralph
preached from Isaiah 6 that we need a coal from off of God's altar, or our
preaching and testifying will be empty. The believers in that village
definitely have the ring of God in their voice and are anxious to get out to new
villages this summer. (Including the American missionaries that live there)
there are five preachers in that village, but I believe the whole church is
ready to go and preach. Some of them that never have testified before are
testifying now - and praising God.
Sunday we had a meeting in Varna, at Yashar's church. We brought in the
believers from their six villages, and invited the other pastors to come. Over
a hundred people came. The meeting started at three in the afternoon and went
til four in the morning. The best way to describe the joy in that meeting is -
"unspeakable". Since then, in every meeting that we go to, the believers can't
stop talking about how good the meeting was, and what joy they have.
The testimonies are amazing. One lady testified that her lost family members
hated each other and fought with axes every day. In church she poured her heart
out to God, and the next day the feuding family apologized and forgave each
other and now love one another. Several women testified of how God took away
the drinking habit from their husbands as a result of their prayers. One
testified that her grandchild was sick with an infection in her gums.
Without a dime in her pocket they caught a taxi into Varna, which is
about thirty miles away. When the taxi driver saw how much pain the child was
in, he didn't charge them anything. They went to the doctor (dentist?) who
offered to clean the child's teeth for seventy leva (around $45). She told him
she didn't have any money, and then he did it for free. He then gave her a
prescription for medicine. She said that she couldn't afford the prescription,
then the doctor paid for it himself! Many, many people testified of how a
family member was sick, and they just cried out to God, who heard their prayers
and healed the sick.
The Bulgarian winter was long, but spring is finally here, and many of the
preachers and believers are dying to get out to some new villages. Mitko's been
going to some new villages up in the northern part towards Romania. Frank's
been taking Ismail to some new villages in the central northern region. We've
been making cds and cassette tapes, but can't get them made fast enough - they
go fast. Pray, as the Lord sends his labourers into the harvest.
Tonight in Suvorovo I realized how important it is to have God on you in the
meetings. One lady told of how she makes her living by rummaging through the
dump. She was so glad to see me, and said she was looking forward to hearing me
preach. I prayed, Lord you'd better give me something, these people need
something from you. They're coming from the dump to the church, only God can
give them reason to rejoice. But he is faithful. Please pray that God would
continue to work here. You all pray, and we reap the blessings of it.
Zachary
Received: March 27, 2006
Dear Preacher and Brookside,
Greetings from Bulgaria! I just wanted to write and tell you all
some of the things the Lord has been doing over here in
Bulgaria. Also, I would like to
thank you all for praying!! In the last two months I have noticed and felt a big
difference in the work here in Bulgaria. I really believe because you all are
praying the Lord is moving strong over here.
This past Thursday I took one of our believers to a town two hours
drive north from Varna. Her grandson is mentally handicapped and his father put
him in a state run home and now lives in Spain. Anyway, along with one of our
national pastors and his wife we went to see the 10 year old boy. When we got
there he recognized his grandmother and they both began crying. She gave him
some food and he ate so fast I thought he would choke. You could tell that they
had not been feeding him much. Anyway, it was a blessing to be able to take the
grandmother to see him. We have a weekly meeting in her house and she is a
widow. She is getting old and may never get the chance to see this boy again.
On the way up to see this boy we stopped in a town called Deve
Mogili. We saw a big Moslem mosque and knew there were Turks there. We found
the Turk gypsy section and began to give out cassette tapes of Turkish hymns and
Brother Ralph preaching along with hymn books with the gospel of John in
Turkish. Within minutes we gave out well over 200 tapes. The people wanted
them faster than we could give them out. As we were getting ready to leave we
met some believers. They invited us to their house and told us they would like
to have meetings, but they have no one to come to them. Please pray! This town
is at least a two hour drive one way from the area we are working in. There are
other Turkish villages along the way to this town. There are so many places to
get to where people are hungry to here the gospel.
We are all excited over here about the door the Lord has opened for
us. We all want to really hit it hard this spring and summer and get to as many
villages as possible with the gospel. We all have regular weekly meetings we
must be at, but on the other days we want to go to villages that have not heard
the gospel yet. Last week we started meetings in two more villages. This makes
six regular weekly meetings in six different villages that I am going to right
now. All of the missionaries and national pastors are going to meetings
everyday.
Brother Mitko and I are going to some villages tomorrow and give out
cassette tapes. Please pray for us!!
It seems like within the past two months that the Lord has really
been moving even stronger at our meetings. It seems like almost every meeting I
have been to recently people are crying and testifying about how good the Lord
is to them. They say that they may be poor in this world but they are rich in
the Lord!!
Well, the Lord is doing so much over here it is hard to write about
it all. I just wanted to tell you a few things that are going on here. Please
don't stop praying. I really believe the Lord is blessing like this because
Brookside is praying! We love you all and pray you will have a good campmeeting.
In Christ,
Frank Cornelius
Received March 16, 2006
To Preacher Potter and Brookside:
Dear Brethren,
I would first like to thank you all for your faithful prayers for us
over here in Bulgaria and Romania. I would like to encourage you all to keep
praying. In the past month I have noticed how much more the Lord seems to be
blessing in the meetings over here. Your prayers for us are making a noticeable
difference. Please keep praying!!
This past Saturday I went to three different meetings in two
villages. We go to these villages every week. We had good meetings in the
first village and then we went to our third meeting in a village called
Kaspichan. We began singing the hymns and then the Lord just showed up.
Everyone in the meeting started crying and worshipping God. The Lord just moved
in and touched everyone’s heart.
Then on Sunday I went to two more different villages we go to every
week. In the second meeting the Lord showed up again in power. Everyone began
to cry and it was like heaven came down. I am just so thankful the Lord Jesus
is touching these Turkish gypsies. It is such a blessing to see them getting
touched by the real spirit of God.
I was in a meeting a couple of weeks ago and a young man about 18
years old came in. Both of this man's feet were cut in half. I don't know if
he was born like this or if they took his feet of by surgery. Anyway, the other
believers told me that this boy does not really have a home, but he just wanders
around. They said sometimes he just sleeps at bus stops along the roads. As we
began singing hymns about Jesus I noticed tears running down this boy's face.
The Lord was really touching his heart. He came to church again last week and
cried during the service. We sing hymns, pray, preach and let the Lord do the
saving.
A couple of weeks ago we went to two villages up north and had
services. Then we stopped at a third village just to pray for a relative of one
of the believers. We stopped there to pray for her 14 year old grand daughter
who has cancer. The girl was not there, but soon the whole room was full of
Turks wanting to hear the gospel. So we had a meeting. The Lord moved in and
everyone started crying. These people are very poor. I really felt impressed
to preach from John 14:1-3, Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God,
believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions.
The only program we need over here is the gospel and your prayers!!
Well, I just wanted to write and tell you all a little bit of what
the Lord is doing over here. I hope it will be a blessing to you!
We love and appreciate each and every one of you at Brookside and
once again we really appreciate your prayers for us and the ministry here in
Bulgaria\Romania.
May the Lord bless you!
In Christ,
Frank Cornelius