National Forum
From October 31 - November 3 in Hotel Seasons, Tryavana, BCSU held their annual National Forum. Students gathered from many universities throughout all of Bulgaria. This Forum, however, was special in that BCSU celebrated its 20 year anniversary.
Rick Fillingham, the missionary who started BCSU 20 years ago, was invited for this special occasion to be the main speaker of the conference. The theme of the conference was “Treasure”. Rick was able to help students understand why the Kingdom of God is like a treasure, hidden in the field, that one would sell everything in order to buy the field and gain the treasure (Matthew 13:44-46).
For many students the greatest treasure was the fellowship that we experienced between fellow believers, and the new friendships that were formed. After the sermons, the participants had the opportunity to share their reflections on the themes with other participants in small groups.
A special game had students searching throughout the entire hotel property for treasure. The game was filled with fun, yet extremely difficult tasks. These difficult tasks lead some participants to consider giving up, but the effort was rewarded in the end as each participant received a small gift. The game demonstrated in practice what it means to truly seek the great treasure.
The evening party, on the 2nd of November, was the culmination of the whole event. During the evening students improvised their own “Voice of BCSU” with special participation from the embodiment of BCSU (played by our own Trif Trifonov), with a poem about BCSU, and “Theatrical Group BCSU” who showed us a sketch of BCSU before and after. Most importantly we remembered that the vision and passion of BCSU has remained the same all these years - loving God and loving people.
The evening ended as we lit 20 sky lanterns (one for each year of BCSU’s existence) and watched as they flew into the night’s sky. And of course all the students enjoyed some great cake in the end.
