In July, Cameron and I will celebrate 15 years of marriage. Something our pastor told us in premarital counseling is that like the waves coming in and out, our marriage will also experience emotions that ebb and flow. We have been fortunate that most of these 15 years have been more flow than ebb but I wish someone would have reminded me of these words prior to coming back to Bulgaria. Just like the beach is consistent and welcomes the waves which come and go, my obedience to follow the Lord attempts to always be consistent, but the emotions that accompany obedience ebb and flow.
“Change” brings me to places of panic in my heart. Change really should feel normal by now, in our almost 15 years of marriage we’ve moved 14 times and are preparing for our 15th move in a week. Regardless of our seeming expertise on the subject, internally I fight it every time even when it’s for the best. When we arrived back to Bulgaria from our time in the States and we returned to the work in the village, I made a comment to Cameron, “One day it would be great to be closer to this work so that we’re not driving so far and we can really do life more with the people God has us working with.” Shortly after, like literally a month there was a fiasco with our rent and a soon increase in rent would force a decision to be made on moving to another apartment in Sofia or to move closer to ministry. I think at that moment the wind was knocked out of me because “one day” turned into the next 6 months. In the meantime God was leading us to the decision of adoption and my last “speed bump” to following in obedience was financial. I told a friend that there was no way we could do it and literally in December a grandma in our family gave us an unexpected gift that would erase any excuse we could come up with. In addition we learned that we are able to adopt a child in Bulgaria without the large financial burden families adopting from the States would face. The wind was knocked out of me again. When we told friends that we were moving out of Sofia to be closer to work, one woman said “Oh! To Botevgrad?! We’ve been praying someone would move to Botevgrad.” I literally said “No, no, no, not there. We’re going to be around there but we wouldn’t be in Botevgrad. Working with roma there…no not Botevgrad.” You may can tell by the way all this is going that we’re moving to Botevgrad :) Literally we searched and searched and I told Cameron Botevgrad would be the last place he was allowed to search and secretly prayed nothing would be available there. When he told me that two realtors confirmed only one place was available but it was outside of our price and size limit, I smiled and exhaled a sigh of relief. Unfortunately there was only one option left for rent in Pravets and it turned out to not be an option at all. We were left with the decision to move within Sofia again and start over in ministry, as our gas budget and family’s well being would not allow us to drive the distances every weekend we drove to get to ministry or pray that something else opens up. I told Cameron that my heart was aching to not be able to continue doing ministry where we knew God was at work and I prayed something, anything would open up. A colleague came to Bulgaria and met with a realtor she had a connection with and we soon were told that a home in Botevgrad was available for rent. This time the wind was not knocked out of me, instead the familiar feeling of fear mixed with trust that accompanies obedience to God and the relinquishing of control, opinion and sight came upon me and I knew Jennifer wasn’t directing the path and the place she said “never, nope, never” to was soon to be the place she called her temporary home.
We know nothing of Botevgrad and what is waiting for us there. All of the other villages and towns surrounding our ministry areas we’ve driven around and investigated in case God ever called us to live there but Botevgrad was always a place I said no to when Cam asked if I wanted to go visit it. We don’t know Botevgrad but I know a few roma who live there and honestly I’m scared of those groups from which they come from. The places we work in now aren’t easy, so how can we even think of working in some of the places in Botevgrad. In one village close to Botevgrad, a lady grabbed me by my face and vehemently yelled that I was a liar from satan himself and that’s one of the easy places we work! What I know to be true of God’s character is that when I say something is uglier than grace can fix, God shows me His great love even more. When I think that I would never want to work in a place like that, God makes that place my home. When I think I am incapable to do anything with the roma in Botevgrad, He says I’m right and then proves Himself to be capable to do all things through me when He gives me the strength to do it. I don’t know if God has work for us specifically in Botevgrad but we do know that He’s absolutely opened the door for us to live there and we are walking through that door and taking the keys on June 15th.
Botevgrad, Bulgaria is about an hour outside of Sofia and is less than 10 minutes away from the first village we work in. In addition, now that we will be so close to other villages there is one christian woman in a village with little to no other believers and she’s asked that we start a Bible study in her home. Previously we had to tell her no because we could not make another trip to another village on our currently full schedule but now we can tell her yes! It’s exciting to be closer to the people God has connected us to and to have the ability to be consistent in their lives. We will be living in a duplex and the boys will have an area to safely ride their bikes whenever they want. One of the joys will be no longer living in limbo. Micah really wanted to take up fencing but we did not want to begin classes in Sofia and make friendships that he would have to uproot months later and begin again in a new place. So we are excited to have a feeling of being able to settle and create life and schedule again.
