Wow we are about to close the book on month one and I am torn between it feeling like way more than a month and wondering how a month has gone by already. it is truly amazing how quick a place can come to feel like home!
Roger and Gail are missionaries from Australia who have been living in Bulgaria full time for the past 4 years but have been serving here since 2002. They are truly amazing people and I will forever cherish their warm and kindness they have showered over me and my team this month.
This month I have spent time investing in and getting to know my teammates while helping out around the small city of Silistra in northeastern Bulgaria. We have been attending a local church where myself and another teammate get to lead worship in English which is a blessing for the few native English speakers who attend.
We have been leading a youth gathering at the church every week as well as attending prayer meetings. We took over cleaning duties and cleaned the church every week this month. We also were able to bless the church with installing a new ceiling covering. The church, actually a former synagogue, is a very old building with little to no insulation. The space where the sanctuary sits has a beautiful two story vaulted ceiling which unfortunately was a heating nightmare. The solution was made to install cable across the normal height of a ceiling and lay large pieces of cardboard across to keep the heat in. Being that it is an old building water got in and damaged the cardboard leaving it warped and wreaked in many places. Last year they received money from a church in Tennessee that allowed them to purchase new chairs for the church and fabric to cover the ceiling with. The fabric was finally acquired this month and we were able to install it. I wont get into the details because we did not do it for recognition but rather bless the church we have called home for the last month but just know this was far bigger a task than anyone could have imagined! But in the end it looks great and it was worth the blood and sweat that were poured into it (no tears were shed).
We have been welcomed into English classes at the local schools to answer questions about ourselves and our culture back home while the kids get to practice their English.
We have spent a lot of time at two different orphanages, including one for children with physical and mental disabilities, painting, doing yard work, hosting a BBQ, and playing with the kids.
We have gone on prayer walks around our small village and have been able to bless people in the village with our youthful ability for perform manual labor in their yards and around their houses as they cut and store wood for their heaters, finish harvesting their gardens, and getting the soil ready for next year all in preparation for winter.
Lastly we got to meet Milen a local tattoo artist. We have spent a lot of time with him building relationships. It was an honor to get to be the sole guests to his 29th birthday party where we got to meet and spend time with his mom, his uncle, and his girlfriend. While Milen is not a Christian I got to share my faith with him and enjoy great conversation. God is planting seeds in his life and at the very least he will never forget the 5 Americans and 1 Canadian he befriended in 2015 just as we will never forget him….some of us even with more permanent reminders lol.
We also were blessed to be treated to the opportunity to visit the Black Sea this month with on an incredible day of adventure in Balchik.
It has been a great first month and I look forward to what is in store for the next 10 months!
