Mission Trip to Bulgaria

Mission trip to Bulgaria. What, a mission trip to Bulgaria? Africa, South America, even Russia remain common destinations to go on a mission, but who thinks of Bulgaria? Yet, the country cries out for people with loving hearts to make their mission trip to this place that is shrouded in the pain of brokenness and abandonment. In our last article, we spoke of donating used items to charity to help children in Bulgaria, but perhaps God inspires you to do more. On a mission trip to Bulgaria, you would find children wasting away, literally, for attention and the loving touch of Jesus.

In 2007, BBC released a documentary entitled Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children, which gives us an example of the need for mission trips to make Bulgaria their next destination. Keep in mind, as you read on, that Bulgaria is not a third world country, it is a part of the European union! In the BBC documentary, the host made her own “mission” trip to Bulgaria to cover a social care home, housing seventy-five children, in the village of Moniligo. Of all the European countries, Bulgaria has the highest number of physically and mentally disabled individuals warehoused in institutes; one in fifty children are institutionalized in such social care homes. Most of the children enter the homes at the abandonment of their parents because of minor afflictions, such as being blind, deaf, or, perhaps mildly autistic. The conditions of the facility in the film are horrendous, but the conditions of the children are worse. The documentary gives heart-wrenching accounts of neglect and abuse, for it seems the mission of the institute simply remains to house the children until they’re old enough to make the trip to a different home, or they die. Not only are the limbs of the children gnarled like sticks from malnourishment, but most of them are never taught to talk and receive no therapy or special care for their disabilities. There are no organized activities or field trips outside, there is no one to hold the children in a loving embrace, and most the staff refuses to even make eye contact with the children. Without stimulation or education, children with the potential to live a relatively normal life, despite their disease or disability, are left to rock the day away, muttering unintelligible noises and waiting for the next spoonful of gooey porridge to shove into their mouths. Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children shows us why making a mission trip to Bulgaria is needed, for Jesus inspires His followers to love and care for little children because it is His heart.



We must not forget that, when everyone else pushed the children away in the Bible, Jesus reached out and took the children in His arms and blessed them. Today, we are Jesus’ arms, and our mission is to embrace the children others push away – to embrace children like those orphaned and abandoned in Bulgaria. James 1:27 claims this is what makes our religion real, or pure and faultless: “to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” If looking after children in need makes our faith faultless, it can never be “wrong” to make a mission trip to Bulgaria. The next step is to seek information on such a trip, and perhaps make the ministry to Bulgaria’s abandoned Children our next mission.