Welcome to Dupnitsa, Bulgaria!
Fall is in full swing here, and we get to see all kinds of beautiful colors on the mountains everyday as we walk by the river on our way to ministry.
This month we are staying on the third of the church that we are working with. There is SO much space. We all have our own bunk bed across two different bedrooms. We have a full bathroom down the hallway, a living room complete with a couch, and a kitchen and dining room with an oven that we have been taking full advantage of. We feel so very very blessed to have all these luxuries for a short time!
Most of our days look like doing construction in the mornings and teaching English in the afternoons. The church bought a new building in the city center 11 years ago, and has slowly been working to fix it up. There is a vast amount of structural construction to do still, but we’ve been spackling and sanding drywall on the downstairs portion of the building. Most days, we walk the 20min back to our house through the whole city looking like this:
It’s great fun. I’m learning so many new life skills and will gladly spackle some drywall for you in the future if you need it!
The rest of the day, usually looks like teaching English at the English school the pastor’s daughter runs. They have several different classes for different ages. Surprisingly, I think my favorite class is the adult class because you get to teach fun vocabulary words and they ask fun questions.
My other favorite class is the Saturday classes for 3-7 year olds. This past week, I collected a ton of leaves from outside, and we made leaf lions. It was adorable how much joy they got out of putting their leaves in just the right places!
Occasionally, ministry is full of miscellaneous activities. One day, we went to another village to help the pastor and his family finish harvesting potatoes and other vegetables from their garden for the year. I felt so refreshed working with plants and getting my hands dirty again. Here’s all the things we picked in just a couple hours:
We’ve also gone to visit families from the church and spend time with them. Let me tell you, it’s tricky communicating without words sometimes and Google Translate doesn’t help when it talks about soup balls in a gang… However, it’s such a blessing to get to laugh with these beautiful souls and get to share a time of mere fellowship and prayer!
On Sundays, we have church in the morning and my team leads worship, shares testimonies, and leads a Women’s service in the evening. It’s been a lovely time of hearing the church share their hearts with us and encouraging each other. Also, my ukulele Stella has been making more and more appearances during worship. Jesus has been using her left and right in ministry, and Stella thoroughly enjoys singing for whoever will listen!
Finally, I’ve been realizing that decorating for special occasions is one of my love languages. My team decided to have an early Thanksgiving this month since we knew we had an oven and would be able to find the ingredients we needed in Europe. While everyone else had the cooking covered, Molly and I went out to gather leaves and sticks to make our dining room a little more festive. Our hosts came to our dinner, and they asked me to decorate the church for Sunday because it was going to be Thanksgiving in Bulgaria as well! My answer was the most joyful yes that made me realize how much I have missed having the time and space to make an empty space into something beautiful for everyone to enjoy. Not to mention, using nature is the easiest and most cost effective way to make anything instantly cozy!
Finally, we walk past a flower shop everyday on our walk to ministry, and I couldn’t resist adopting this lovely lady. Her name is Rolanda, and yes, I am definitely going to attempt to bring to her as many continents as they will allow me to.
That’s all for now folks! May you have a lovely week full of opportunities to create some beautiful in the empty spaces. Much love!
