I only need about $1,000 more to meet my next fundraising deadline and then after that only a little over $4,000 to be fully funded! I have no desire to be anywhere but here and I feel like God is not nearly done with me here either.
I am absolutely in love with this country! It is so incredibly beautiful here and God keeps impressing and blessing me in new ways everyday. So far this month we have helped at a huge Christian conference for new believers, This conference was held in the mountains and the topic was ” Worship and the Holy Spirit”. We got to worship and hear messages in English and Bulgarian. Our job was to clean all of the squatty pottys twice a day. We also helped serve and prepare meals with some of the leaders at the conference.This past week and a half I have bonded with my team more then I did all month last month. I have learned more about them as believers and heard their stories and seen them played out in certain ways. Last week was the best week so far of the race. We had bucket showers,squatty pottys, and no internet. We had dirty feet, smelled bad, and had some days that were really hot but in the end it was all worth it.
The birds: The ministry that we are working with this month is an organization called “Mission Possible”. Mission Possible does many things such as working with gypsy children and training Sunday school teachers and pastors. They also published the first bible in Bulgarian that has maps in it, and now publish the only Christian magazine for women in the country.Mission Possibly sells these really cool necklaces. The necklace has a bird cage on it and then on the chain it has some birds that have flown out of the cage. It has some really cool symbolism of Bulgaria coming out of communism, but it also symbolizes people being caged up in different things and decisions in their life and being set free in Christ. I see a lot of birds here and they just remind me how great it is to be free.
The bees: Whenever we had any food on the mountain we would be swarmed by bees. They were everywhere. Especially when you had something sweet such as juice they would follow you no matter how hard you tried to get away from them.Now I could try to make this biblical and say that we should be like these bees. We should be persistent in pursuing Christ.We should long for the sweetness he offers to those who long for it. Or I could make the bees symbolize God and how he is continuously pursuing us no matter how hard we try to run away. But lets face it bees are just annoying.
The butterflies: There were many mountains where we were staying but there was one mountain in particular that I enjoyed the most. I don’t know the actual name of it but I just called it “Butterfly Mountain”.The reason I called it that was because at the very top of it there was a bench created to look like a butterfly. Most people proposed on the top of this mountain. I climbed up Butterfly mountain three times and never got proposed to but each time I did go up the experience was different. The first two times were just to explore and take some amazing pictures. The views were breathtaking and being atop the mountain made it so easy to just stand in awe of Gods creation. The third time was my favorite though. I was able to have a one on one with a member of the other team we are paired with this month. During this time I was really able to understand the symbolism of the butterfly. Much Iike us butterflies start as something not that attractive,something that crawls around the ground. Once we decide to fallow Christ we are able to let Him wrap his arms around us like a cocoon. After a little while of being in His arms and learning about Him we start to grow wings. We are formed into the butterflies we were always meant to be. Along with the butterfly on top of the mountain there were also many real butterflies on the way up. They caused me to reflect on life and how we are all butterflies.And yes I know it is a metaphor that is used a lot but God had never before been so direct in showing me it.So the truth is simply that when we decided to fallow Jesus we were given wings like a butterfly ,and like birds, and like bees.
From my experience when most people are asked “If you could have any super power what would it be” usually people say flying. Well there you go. You have your wings. Now show me..acutually don’t show me show the one who gave them to you what you are going to do with them. “Choose to use your wings.”
