Pavel Vlachkov stood on the sunny mountain slopes of Bulgaria with his wife. They watched their six-year-old son ski down a powder-coated hill, and Pavel’s heart burst with pride. The tiny family moment was a miracle.
“This was how my life changed after I had Jesus,” Pavel says.
For more than a decade, Pavel had lived a life dependent on destructive habits. For a time, he managed to balance his relationships with his substance abuse and gambling addiction, but eventually his addictions overtook everything. His choices caused terrible pain in the lives of those closest to him, and everything fell apart.
“My life suddenly crashed,” Pavel remembers. “From 100 to zero in no time.”
He entered a rehabilitation program, where he found himself with plenty of time to reflect. He remembered meeting Nazarene missionaries Josh and Katherine Haun through their children’s mutual school, and the family’s life led by love for Jesus.
Pavel had been vehemently opposed to the idea of God and religion for most of his life, and he found Josh to be kind but crazy, assuming he was part of a cult.
“I was totally against anything that had anything to do with church,” Pavel remembers. “I was against everything that wasn’t putting me in the center of the world.”
But stripped of outside distractions, Pavel began to wonder if there was something to Josh’s strange beliefs. His body slowly started to heal from the years of abuse, and he dug into scripture. “I started exploring, reading the bible, praying,” he says. “And I felt even better.”
Pavel completed eight months in rehabilitation, re-entering the “outside” with high hopes for his homecoming. They were immediately struck down.
“I had expectations that the whole world would be so happy to see me,” he remembers. “But it turns out that there are no red carpets waiting.” Pavel discovered he had destroyed many relationships, and the ones that remained were hanging on by a thread. He was devastated and didn’t know how to move forward.
“I was clean and sober,” he says, “but I was super depressed about life.”
He decided to reach out to someone he believed might have answers—Josh the missionary. The two began to meet.
Sometimes, they would sit in a cafe over coffee. Often, they would take long walks, discussing prayer and faith, and studying the Bible.
“After every talk with him, I felt better,” Pavel says. “He taught me how to pray; I started going to church.”
He was so thankful for the church, and talked about how it was the place where he received life, love, support, and help,” Josh remembers. “To watch him discover and learn from scripture and prayer and the life of the church was amazing.”
Pavel agrees. “Even when I was clean and sober, every single day was feeling worse than the day before. And now suddenly every single day was feeling better than before. It was a huge improvement,” he remembers, “I was like, ‘Oh man, I’m onto something!’”
Soon after, Pavel said yes to following Jesus and chose to be baptized, his life transformed by God.
“He is not the same man,” Josh says. “He is a new creation.” Josh watched Pavel begin helping with the church community’s worship services, transportation needs, and housing issues.
“On Sunday, there were six people at church who are a direct result of his investment in the lives of others and his passion to share his faith,” Josh says. “Before, he was so self-centered, and now he is so self-less.”
Pavel worked to reunite with his wife and began to take his role as a father seriously. Soon after his baptism, he decided to take his small son skiing for the first time. They planned to go for the day, but wound up staying two. Pavel watched his son quickly catch onto the skill of sliding down the slopes on his own. For the first time in his life, Pavel felt pride for someone other than himself, and he was overwhelmed with gratitude at the emotion.
“Previously, I never would have paid attention to something like that,” Pavel says. “I would never have spent the time with him.” And, he adds, “I never paid any attention, because I was so self-centered.”
“The actual change in my mindset of perceptions toward the world, people, everything—came when I had Jesus in my life,” Pavel says.
Josh remembers a conversation the two had just as Pavel committed his life to Christ, acknowledging that Jesus had drawn him in.
“I know it was Jesus,” Josh remembers Pavel saying. “Because no other God would have come to me, where I was, and saved me. It was not a religion, the Bible, or any other information that helped me. It was Jesus. I know it was Jesus.”
