Hello from Lezhe (pronounced “Lezsha”), Albania!
First of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your support! I have felt your prayers and I am only $4,839 from being fully funded! Our final deadline for all our funds is due July 1. If you are able, please prayerfully consider a financial donation to keep me on the Race!
I am happy and healthy. This month has been really good for me; I’m getting to spend more time with my squadmates and doing some self-reflection.
Right now, we are living on a campground for children Albania called Lightforce International. The children don’t arrive for camp until after we leave on the 31st, so we are spending all our time here preparing the camp… limewashing, painting, plastering, and general cleaning. I’m learning a lot and having a lot of fun. J
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For now, I need to backtrack to last month in Bulgaria. Bulgaria was wonderful.
“Zdravei!” is “hello” in Bulgarian, by the way.
We lived in Stambolovo, Bulgaria, near Pavlikeni, for the entire month of April and lived with two missionaries, John and Jane Goodwin.
John and Jane have a ministry called Worship with Us. They travel throughout Canada, the UK, and Bulgaria to “create opportunities for worship.” In other words, they are basically a traveling worship team. Right now they are focusing on turning their home in Bulgaria into a worship center for other missionaries to come pray and learn together.
Domestic Duties. So we spent the month helping them fix up their old house. My dad will be happy to know I have officially learned to weed whack, caulk, and replace windows. I had so much fun getting to serve in a new way.
We also got to serve John and Jane by cooking for them. I’ve never been much of a cook, but I like to try new things. Thanks to my teammates, I learned some new recipes for lentil soup and chicken casserole.
At one point, I half-jokingly told John I should make them a chocolate pudding recipe I sometimes make for Thanksgiving. After John brought it up again, I realized he really wanted to try it. What started out as a simple recipe turned in to a big fiasco. I had a lot of trouble trying to find the ingredients I needed in the local market and I had to figure out how to make pudding from scratch. After spending several hours trying to make the pudding, one of my teammates and I finally succeeded. John and Jane said they loved it. I was glad to get to serve them in that way.
Sharing in churches. One of my favorite things my team got to do was share some testimonies in two local churches. The first church we went to was a big blessing to me. For some reason, I felt like I was at home. Everything was in Bulgarian, except the worship team performed “Open the Eyes of My Heart” in Bulgarian and then English. I’m sure they kindly did that just because we were there. At one point, we took communion together and I certainly was surprised to find they used wine for communion – a first for me!
My team and I then performed a skit for the church about reaching out to others with the Gospel. I then got to share for about 20 minutes, with an interpreter, in front of the church about how God changed my heart when I was in middle school and eventually lead me to go on the World Race. I explained how good and faithful He has been to me. I hope my testimony was encouraging for the church. They certainly encouraged me!
Afterwards, several of the church members came up and asked to take pictures with us. Everyone was very nice and welcoming. At one point, a 94-year-old woman in the church came up to me with a big smile on her face, stood inches away from my nose, and said something so sweetly in Bulgarian. I wish I knew what she said, but I think her manner in approaching me was all I needed.
Frisbee. Local children were constantly coming to ask us if we could play frisbee with them. They were absolutely adorable! We couldn’t communicate well with them because of the language barrier, but we had fun.
Passing Out Bibles. One day they took us to local market to pass out copies of the New Testament in Bulgarian. Most people seemed indifferent or curious that a bunch of Americans were passing out Bibles in the market. When we gave each person a Bible, we said, “Za tep,” (which means, “for you,” in Bulgarian.) At one point, a man came up to John saying something to him about the Bible, but he didn’t understand. At that very moment a Bulgarian lady from one of our churches came up and explained to the other man what it was for. I love when things like that happen.
Another great moment was getting to give a Bible to a Jehovah’s Witness who had his own stand in the market passing out Watchtower magazines. I love to minister to Jehovah’s Witnesses in the States and I’m thankful I got that opportunity in Bulgaria.
Prayer Walking. I love that John and Jane very much believe in the power of prayer. Each day we would spend time in prayer together and often leave the house to do some prayer walking. Sometimes, we would walk throughout the village praying and never lay eyes on another person… but one day, we had a nice surprise. Right before we got back to the house, we ran into a gypsy woman. A large percentage of Bulgarians are gypsies and they’re not held in high esteem by the rest of society. They’re marginalized and considered “riff-raff.” When we approached the woman, other people on the road laughed at us. We tried to use broken Bulgarian and body language to ask if we could pray for her, but she didn’t understand. So, we just sat with her on the side of the road and shared some laughs and smiles. She had a sweet smile.
I have a feeling when Jesus wasn’t casting out demons, healing the sick, or putting the religious leaders in their place, He was just sitting and loving on people. I have been learning a lot about operating in love, rather than fear. Danny Silk says fear and love have opposite agendas. I’ve started to think of all the opportunities I’ve missed to love others simply because I’m afraid of how they could react. I’m starting to realize I simply can’t control their responses, I can only control myself.
Challenge for you: Love on someone who is an outsider today, despite how your think they may react. Then watch how God works.
What I’m reading: “Keep Your Love On” by Danny Silk
