About

Producing Missional Christians and Expository Preachers

Hope for the Balkans (Надежда за Балканите) is a mission network led by Simeon Krastev (International Director), devoted to raising up missional Christians and faithful, expository preachers across the Balkans.

Our Mission & Vision

We exist to bring people into a personal relationship with God, to affirm them in the faith, and to equip them for active ministry through deep, personal discipleship. Our vision is to build local, self-sustaining and multiplying networks of leaders who pass the faith on to the next generations – eliminating long-term dependence on foreign missionaries, after the pattern of 2 Timothy 2:2 and the Book of Acts.

Where We Serve

  • Across Europe (Simply Mobilizing Europe). Simeon Krastev helps coordinate and develop mission training and mobilization in 18 European countries as part of the six-member Global Regional Team – Europe.
  • In Bulgaria. Active in more than 15 key cities – including Burgas, Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Shumen, Kazanlak, Stara Zagora and Topolovgrad.
  • Across the Balkans. Strategic cross-border mission in Greece (Thessaloniki, Veria, Xanthi, Komotini) and Turkey (Izmir, Çanakkale, Biga), encouraging local believers and communities.

What We Do

Mission Mobilization (Simply Mobilizing)

  • The Kairos Course – intensive training that transforms believers’ worldview and mobilizes them for cross-cultural mission (launched in Bulgaria in September 2013).
  • The Interface Seminar – a program for building missional churches. The first Bulgarian seminar was held in February 2024 in Burgas for 22 pastors, and a youth Interface launched in Stara Zagora in January 2026.
  • The Story / TUSfY (The Unfinished Story for Youth) – a youth mission tool officially launched in July 2024 at the New Wave camp before more than 1,000 participants (facilitated and translated by Matey Krastev).

Leadership Training & Resources

  • TFT – Training For Trainers – a four-year cycle of intensive mentoring in small cohorts (about 20 pastors), built on studying whole books of the Bible and developing skill in expository preaching (inspired by Leadership Resources International). The first cohort graduated in March 2022 and the second in March 2026.
  • ProPoVedi.Org (since 2002) – a digital archive unique to the Bulgarian-speaking world, offering free full-text sermon manuscripts that serve thousands of ministers in Bulgaria and the Slavic world who have no access to formal theological education.

Social & Humanitarian Ministry

  • Missional Community Center (Dolno Ezerovo) – a key base for regional conferences, children’s and youth ministry, and the equipping of many Roma churches in the Burgas region.
  • Children’s camps & Operation Christmas Child – regular summer youth camps and partnership with Samaritan’s Purse, reaching hundreds of children every year.
  • Care for ministry families – dedicated retreats for the restoration, encouragement and strengthening of pastors’ families.
  • Humanitarian missions – water-purification training and projects in cooperation with New Life International.

Impact by the Numbers

  • 300 baptisms in 2025 across the churches of the TFT pastoral network (matching the 300 recorded in 2020).
  • 55,000 unique visitors used the resources of ProPoVedi.Org in 2025 (up from 52,000 in 2020).
  • 700+ Kairos graduates, 65 certified facilitators and 15 head facilitators across 15+ Bulgarian cities as of 2025/2026. One Kairos graduate (Plovdiv, 2017) went on to initiate Bulgaria’s National Prayer March, which gathers thousands of believers every year.

Living Testimonies of Transformation

Second-generation multiplication (Topolovgrad, March 2025). Three pastors trained in the first TFT cohort – Angel Angelov, Ivan Lyutskanov and Ivan Ivanov – organized a fully independent regional TFT training. It drew 70 participants from 17 different towns and a variety of Roma communities.

There is good soil for TFT in our region. This is the direction we will go.

Pastor Angel Angelov

Pastor Nikolay Hristov (March 2026 cohort) entered TFT deeply skeptical, convinced that training was unnecessary for anyone who has the Holy Spirit. By his graduation in March 2026, his view had completely changed:

At first the fog was thick. Now the sun has risen over me. I see a huge change in my heart – a new worldview, a new system of values.

Pastor Nikolay Hristov

You can also read Simeon’s own testimony of how he came to faith in Christ.

Our DNA – Core Values

Four core values are the non-negotiable DNA that shapes everything we do:

  1. It is not about us. The ministry is focused entirely on God, His Word and His Holy Spirit; we are simply “jars of clay,” and that frees us for authenticity and honesty.
  2. We bring the Father’s heart. We long for pastors to preach God’s Word while carrying and reflecting His loving, fatherly nature.
  3. We treasure one another. Our relationships are governed by grace and forgiveness; field partners are treated as equal fellow-workers with much to teach us.
  4. We live and lead as servants. Servant leadership that empowers others – the missionary gladly becomes “invisible” so that national leaders come to the fore.

These values are worked out through the five pillars of the Great Commission: Evangelism, Affirming, Equipping, Fellowship (Koinonia) and Multiplication. Read more on our Core Values page.

What We Believe

  • The Word of God. The Bible is inspired by God, without error in its original text, and the supreme authority for faith and life.
  • The Triune God. One God, eternally existing in three Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
  • Salvation by grace. Salvation is a free gift, by grace through faith in the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:14) – not by human works.
  • The Holy Spirit. He regenerates and fills the believer, transforms character, and gives spiritual gifts to build up the Church.

Read our full Statement of Faith.

Partner With Us

Every mission needs both a going team and a sending team. We are ready to go – will you help send us? Join our sending team and help mobilize the Church across Bulgaria and the Balkans.