Thank you for visiting our website. We are independent Baptist church planters serving the Lord in Bulgaria. We have created this site to provide updates and news about our ministry and family here in Bulgaria. We covet your prayers and financial support in spreading the gospel to the people of Bulgaria. Jonathan and Shannon Owens
I BELIEVE . . . the BIBLE to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God, and that He has preserved it for the English-speaking world in the Authorized King James Version. that GOD is a person, eternally existing as a Trinity in unity---Father, Son, and Holy Spirit---three persons and yet but one God. in the deity of our Lord JESUS Christ, in His Virgin Birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death, in His shed Blood, in His bodily resurrection, and in His ascension to the Father’s right hand. in the deity and present ministry of the HOLY SPIRIT, that He convicts the sinner, regenerates the one who believes, indwells, seals, instructs, reproves, and guides the believer; that He fills and controls every life that is holy yielded to Him. that man is totally depraved because of SIN, both by nature and practice, therefore separated from God, totally lost and in need of the convicting and regenerating ministry of the Holy Spirit; therefore needs to be born again. in the personality of SATAN; in his power and kingdom, in his wiles and in his judgment at the cross and his eternal destruction in hell. that SALVATION is the free gift of God offered to man by His Grace and received by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, plus nothing. in the LOCAL CHURCH, which is a body of baptized believers who come together in obedience to Christ to carry out the dictates of the Bible. and practice both ecclesiastical and personal SEPARATION on the basis of the Word of God. in the SECOND COMING of the Lord Jesus Christ again in the air at any moment to catch up His church and reward their service. The unbelievers left behind will go through a period called the Tribulation, after which Christ shall return visibly to the earth to set up His Kingdom of one thousand years of righteous rule. After this, the unbelievers of all ages will stand at the Great White Throne to be judged and cast into the Lake of Fire, separated from God forever, while the believers spend eternity in the fullness of joy in Heaven with the Lord.
I was raised in a large, strong Christian family as the second oldest of twelve children (eight sisters and three brothers). At the age of five I realized my need for the Saviour and accepted Christ. I was baptized soon after that by my uncle. In January of 1990, at the age of twelve, I surrendered my life to go to the mission field at a missions conference at the Salisbury Baptist Temple in Salisbury, Maryland. At that time my father was serving as associate pastor. During my teenage years we went to a youth conference in Indiana every year. It was there that I decided to go to Bible College. I enrolled in the fall of 1995 and graduated in January of 2000. On June 14, 1997 I married my high school sweetheart, Shannon. We now have seven boys and six girls. While in classes at college God began to burden my heart for the people of Bulgaria. In August of 2000, my wife and I visited Bulgaria for the first time. After our visit we were confident that Bulgaria was the place where God wanted us to serve. We began to prepare immediately and started deputation in April of 2001. On April 11, 2003 we arrived in Bulgaria and began our ministry here. My father is the pastor of the Westside Baptist Church in Pacifica, California. My oldest brother, David, is currently serving on the mission field in Guyana, South America. My brother, Nathan is a missionary to South Africa and my youngest brother, Samuel, is serving as a missionary in the Republic of Georgia.
I grew up in Salisbury, Maryland. When I was six years old our neighbor invited me and my brother to go to church with him. My brother and I began attending regularly the Sunday school of the Bible Baptist Church in Salisbury, but my parents did not. One Sunday I didn’t want to go to church, but my father said, “You’re going anyway!” I replied that it wasn’t right, because he never went to church. My brother and I went to Sunday school that morning and the Lord started to convict my parents for not going to church. They showed up that morning for the main service. That morning they found Salvation through Jesus Christ and accepted Him as their Saviour. They were baptized that same day (Acts 8:37). They began to attend church faithfully and got involved in the church’s bus ministry. They are now faithful members of the Salisbury Baptist Temple. My father is a bus captain. Later when I was ten years old I accepted Jesus as my Saviour and was baptized. In January of 1990, I surrendered my life to do whatever God wanted at the same missions conference were my husband surrendered to go to the mission field. At that time we did not know that God would bring us together one day. After graduating from high school I enrolled in the Bible College where Jonathan was attending and the next year on June 14th 1997, we were married. Since, than God has blessed us with thirteen children. In August of 2000, we went to Bulgaria for the first time. My heart broke for the people and I knew that God was calling my husband and I to Bulgaria.
We arrived in Bulgaria on April 11th 2003. Immediately, we began to take language classes and try to use our skills to win Bulgarians to Christ. We saw several saved and God opened the doors for us to start the Bible Baptist Church of Sofia on April 4th 2004. This was the first independent Baptist church in Bulgaria since the fall of communism.Our main goals in Bulgaria are to see souls saved through personal soul winning and preaching and to start Independent Baptist Churches. We are seeking to train young men to become pastors and leaders in the churches we start. We are currently working to grow the three church plants we have started and eventually turn them over to a national pastor.
