Wow, it's just around the corner!

Can you believe it's almost been three years? Three years since we've seen our families? Three years since we've lived in a culture that we actually understand and excel in. Three years since we've eaten some of our favorite foods or visited our sweet friends. Three years ago my family included a four year old and my baby boy who had just turned three.

There would be things I would have done differently. Lessons learned that were hard. Many tears that were shed, but with those tears there were also many times God had a chance to show His faithfulness to restore what had been broken. Just last night one of my children shared new information about his first year in the country that re-broke my heart but then as he saw my tears falling he placed his hand on me and said "Mom it's okay. God sent me .... to be my friend and when things were not good, .... made me smile and things were better. God didn't forget me." You can not fathom how those words were like balm on my heart. I would say that it is the resounding theme of our three years "God didn't forget me" He saw it all, He walked each step of the journey with each of us and His hand alone has kept our feet planted in obedience to run the path set before us. Today during homeschool we enjoyed a good giggle when we were talking about God's faithfulness and protection over us. I reminded the boys of the time we were riding the bus and a man was trying to rob me. I had been in the hospital with the swine flu the week before and with no trash container to be found, I placed all my snotty tissues into my purse and moved my wallet and passport to a small pocket. On the bus that day, trying to slap his hand away as he forcefully dug through my purse and then escaped, I cringed to think of everything he managed to steal. When I searched my purse I realized his hand was only in the massive amounts of booger tissues and he only stole the swine flu while my wallet and passport were safely tucked into the pocket of my purse I never use.

We have every intention of returning to the place we are and continuing the work God has placed before us. If our time in the military taught us anything, it is that you have no choice in life but to follow and be obedient to the man who hands out your orders, and we have by the grace of God the commitment to follow and be completely obedient to the one and only commander and chief, Our Lord. We thank you for praying for our first three years in bulgaria and we ask you to continue those prayers. This month you can pray for the rose ministry outreach into the villages and that God would again allow times of sharing and loving on the elderly in these villages. The roses again will have an evangelistic messaged attached to them and a handwritten message of love. In addition we will spend a week in the city we work in and do english lessons as an outreach. This was very successful last time and we are praying that this outreach will again generate deeper conversations and new faces entering to the church.

Pray for a volunteer named "A" would will join our work the last two weeks we are in the country. Pray for safe travel and a sweet time of ministry as she joins our team. Here is a link to a video of our last three years in Bulgaria and the people we've had the privilege to love on and be loved by. Again thank you for your prayers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0bUb3eHR8o

Goodbye Snappy

This picture was taken during our vacation in Turkey. The boys had mentioned on our last day of vacation that they hoped Snappy was not missing them and while we were walking on the beach we spotted a little cat print. We all laughed and talked about how snappy escaped the apartment and followed us to Turkey and had been lounging on the beach the whole time. We made a heart and wrote his name and pretended Snappy was with us and laughed. It's appropriate now to look at and remember the little paw print he made especially on the heart of my once hurting son, Micah.

"I don't know how to do this" I cried out to the Lord in broken sobs as I learned that our cat would not survive his fall from our 5th story apartment balcony and we would be left to explain to two little boys the next morning that their beloved cat, Snappy had died. If there is one thing that has been consistent in our lives here in Bulgaria, it would be God's faithfulness and my desperate pleas of "I don't know how to do this." With every single declaration of that statement, God has shown up in our lives in amazing ways. I am not trying to be overly dramatic, I know people lose their pets all of the time and parents have to watch their children's hearts break when a beloved cat, dog, mouse, rabbit ect dies, I mean I lost my first cat at 7 years old too. So in no way am I trying to elevate our loss, I'm just grieving. I'm grieving over the fact that Snappy didn't need to know bulgarian to be Micah's first friend. Snappy loved Micah and let Micah love him without needing to understand cultural differences. Micah saved Snappy by pulling him from the cold winter snow, and Snappy pulled Micah out of a very sad and difficult time that he unfortunately was having to deal with. The fact that Snappy was even allowed in our car was a miracle in itself. Cameron being very allergic to cats has repeatedly said no! But when Micah approached with a orange skinny cat, who he was holding upside down like a possum Cameron surprisingly said yes. More surprising was that Cameron was not allergic to Snappy and we felt he was a God given gift to help Micah smile and feel like he had a consistent buddy. Ben hated Snappy as first because he would wait for Ben to make his nightly potty break and then stalk and pounce on him, his half asleep 3 year old victim. I am pretty convinced that this is why we still have to wake Ben up to go potty at night now. I think Snappy scared him from leaving his bed in the middle of the night. Over time Ben and Snappy found a sweet love for one another and you could find Snappy every night curled up at Ben's feet.

We woke this morning, very tired (Cameron came home from the animal hospital at 3:30am and we finally laid down around 4:40) to two very happy friday morning boys. How do you know when to ruin somebody's day? Micah had looked around the house and finally asked "Hey guys have you seen Snappy?" We pulled the boys onto our beds and broke the news and watched them cry. Each boy took a moment to say their goodbyes to a blanket covered peacefully sleeping Snappy.

God will be faithful to heal their hearts and replace Micah's smiles not with a cat but with His own peace and love. It has been good to see Micah pray to God and talk to Him about how he is feeling and to know that Micah is on his own journey with God. Snappy gave us many gifts of joy in a time of very hard transition and we will be grateful for how he helped my sweet Micah find a consistent joy in his new country of Bulgaria. Thank you for praying for us last night and even though some may not have understood the need to pray for a cat, I thank you for praying anyways.

Rose Evangelism

Every weekend we travel to another city to partner with a local church and help and join in whatever the Lord is doing. It's a pretty basic drive to this city and every weekend we drive through the same small cities and villages. Often we see the elderly sitting on a bench watching the cars drive by and we have come to recognize some of the same faces at the same benches sitting and watching the cars pass. It has been a desire in our hearts to meet the people of these places but we haven't known how to begin. Two weekends ago as we drove by, the Lord impressed on our hearts to purchase roses for the elderly and tie a tract on the stem with a hand written note letting them know we have prayed for them that day. The next weekend we prayed, purchased 40 roses and attached the messages on the stems. We didn't know what to expect but God did amazing things and opened doors that we couldn't have accomplished on our own.

We explained that every weekend we pass by their town on our way to the city of our work and we wanted them to know that God loves them and that we prayed for them. My colleague Cassandra and I would hand out these roses to the grandmas and Micah and Ben would go with their daddy, Cameron to give roses to the grandpas. It was humbling to experience what a simple act of love could do and to experience the flowing tears on the faces of the elderly as they expressed their appreciation. One woman received the rose and began crying. She said "Oh I believe in Jesus and He knows how hard my days have been and I know this is from my Jesus! Oh my Savior!" She kept shaking her head in disbelief at how sweet God's love is for us and continued to say Thank You to God as we walked away.

Another woman who received a rose wouldn't stop hugging us and gave us a huge bag of cookies and candies. She explained how lonely she was and said that she would forever keep the rose and the note to remind her of that day. She told us about her son who lives in the capitol city of Sofia and asked us to meet him. She has already arranged a meeting between our family and his and this person of peace is opening doors in our city that we might otherwise not have ever walked through. We have committed to visit her every weekend on our way to the city we work in. Both my colleague and I were effected by her tears and deep appreciation for a simple act of love from God. On a humorous note, one elderly woman in a wheel chair had been sitting under a tree. Her tire was stuck in a large hole in the ground. She gladly took the rose from me but then asked me to get her out of the hole. I pushed her to the point of freeing the wheels and she then commanded "PUSH ME!! FASTER! FASTER!" Confused by the command I began to push her a little further and she continued pointing her finger in the direction she desired to go and saying "PUSH!! PUSH!! FASTER!" We didn't get far before a little old man step out of a house and said "Where are you taking my wife?" I then realized that maybe this act of kindness was actually turning into the escape of the captive granny and I was indeed her get away vehicle. The grandpa and I talked a little bit and then I waved at my grandma fugitive and she reminded me to come back soon (maybe for round two of the fast and the furious escape plan) lol I'm not sure where she planned to go but she was looking to roll away with my help. lol

The boys on our team also had great experiences and spiritual conversations with the elderly men. It was exciting to see my boys experience how acts of love can lighten the face of those they encountered and how love in action is the best way to open a door that invites the message and hope of Christ to enter in. If my kids could choose any job on the planet at this moment, I think they would be convinced that this ministry is in the top 10 as the grandmas and grandpas loaded us down with candies and cookies to show us love in return. My boys enjoyed the trip and were very full by the time we arrived to the city we work in. This is a ministry that we do plan to continue as we saw that it was effective in broad seed sewing and has now given us persons of peace into small villages and cities where we had no contacts. God is amazing and obedience to Him gives us such an amazing adventure to enjoy.

June Update

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We have hearts filled with joy that the place God is allowing us to serve brings such joy to each of us in our family. It makes my heart so happy to see my children ask to stay longer in the city God is letting us work in. They enjoy their new friends and the simplicity and assurance that a game of tag is always a possibility with the group of children waiting to play. Ministry looks different here, feels different here and is actually more simple in some ways. Quite honestly the fact that all of the children speak bulgarian and understand bulgarian has been refreshing. In Sofia, the younger children of the group of roma we worked with needed their parents to translate some of the simplest questions I would ask, like: "Do you want water?" into the Romani language. Working with a third language when you are barely speaking the second one is very difficult to do weekly and I found myself learning both languages at the same time in order to do the lessons and simply pass out a glass of water. It was exhausting and mind boggling for me to say the least. Another blessing in this city is literacy. The lack of literacy amongst the children and adults in the group we worked with in the past meant that training someone to take my place was very difficult to accomplish. The few women who were interested and willing to be trained, struggled with reading and writing and needed oral training on retelling Bible stories. Oral retelling of Bible stories is acceptable and practiced all over the world but most of the time the retelling of a story is done so in a heart language and we were training these oral stories outside of their heart language (since we are not romani speakers) and once again proved difficult. Though we continue to work in the field where we initially began working, we recognize the time needed to accomplish the goals of church planting and discipleship are much more quickly accomplished in an environment where reading and language knowledge are not initial barriers. We continue to seek the Lord weekly on what our commitment should look like with the group in Sofia. You can definitely join us in praying for guidance as the spring has arrived and our presence would normally increase in the field at this time of year. At this time we have been to the field only a handful of times mainly due to the heavy mud and lack of access. Starting in June we will need to know (as we are always asked when are we coming) what our commitment will look like so that they can know what to expect. Also please pray for the partnership in the city we are currently working in and for the Lord to bless the work in the city and the surrounding villages. Praise God that He is the voice behind us saying 'This is the way, walk in it' Thank you for your prayers!!

May update

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The Creepy Centipede

Growing up in Texas, I admit, we've seen our fair share of crazy wildlife, insects and big hair. This week we spent time in a city 3 hours from our "home" of Sofia. It was during this wonderful week of ministry that I met one of God's little parts of creation that like the mosquito, I would be happy if He removed from the earth. This is a picture of the centipede I am familiar with in Texas: Equally scary and poisonous and an unfavorable houseguest but maybe because I'm fond of snakes, he's never made my skin crawl with fear. I've always looked at him like a snake with a lot of legs and fangs. But this week I met the "House Centipede" or in Bulgarian the "Стоножка" which literally means 100 legs but is translated in a dictionary as centipede. I would never refer to the Стоножка as a common centipede but rather a silver fish who cross mated with a daddy long leg spider and then fell into a bowl of radiation and morphed into this: Their legs are creepishly long and thin and made me look at the ceiling and shiver with fear as it moved around the room. I've researched this new little discovery and supposedly the house centipede, like his cousins, is poisonous but supposedly does not have the fang power like his cousin to deeply penetrate the skin and will thereby leave a small blister similar to a bee sting. The centipedes we saw varied in size and width (legs can be quite long) and they RUN SUPER FAST! One research site stated that a researcher noted that the house centipede usually runs towards women at high speeds because they are wearing a dress and the centipede looks to hide under it. YIKES!! This is why the grandma generation that I grew up with more frequently began breaking the traditional dress code of only long skirts and dresses and started wearing slacks to church! I'm also positive that the argument of christians dancing was started when these dress wearing woman started hopping around like mad rock stars when those centipedes shot under their dresses. There is always a simple explanation for some of the most heated legalistic debates ;) I'm just happy that I wear pants to church in this city and will not experience the frightening experience of one of this creatures taking cover under my flowing cotton dress. LIVE ON LEVIS! And for all the american friends of mine who will quickly say "Whew! I'm so glad we don't have those here!" Well you will shiver and quiver to know THEY'RE THERE!!!! Sweet dreams to all of you who will now have a new face in bad dreams...Стоножка!!

His Red Light for My Green Light

My friend and I had a facebook banter back and forth over some of our cultural stuggles as of recent and little did I know I was about to have another reason to complain until God turned it to a lesson of praise and thankfulness... I had ten minutes to make it to Bible study and the traffic was the usual bumper to bumper. I was listening to a beautiful song and following the flow or trickle of traffic without paying much attention to the lane I was in. As I got to the red light ahead I realized I had been following the flow of traffic only at the last minute they scooted into the 'going straight' lane and I was left stuck in a turn only lane. I tried my best to push my bus of a car over into the same lane all of my "friends" squished into but noone was making it easy. Unfortunately this driving mistake (which I would be very frusterated with myself) ended up causing a man in a truck to be stuck behind me. So as my driving mistake has me trapped at a red light I realized I need to lock my doors when the angry man begins to scream at me through my window. Who knew there was SO much vocabulary I didn't know!! LOL I'm pretty sure that tonight I learned all the bad words that ever existed in the Bulgarian language and the sign language that goes with then. To make sure he had made his point he then got to the windshield and spit on my car. I was shaking and scared and mad and wanting to murder him in my heart a little bit but then focused on being really mad that he would spit on the car. As the light turned green and I fled the situation I began to mull over how unjust it was to be treated that way and then I heard the voice of the Lord. He reminded me is the sweet way that He does "Wasn't I thankful that I had a windshield and windows to protect me from his spit?" "Then they began to spit in Jesus' face and beat him with their fists. And some slapped him," Matt. 26:67 Jesus took it for me in the face. Not just one angry man, but many "They SPIT IN HIS FACE" Yes I was thankful for the windshield and ONE angry man. Then I thought of how frightening that experience was and how my hands were still shaking. The the voice in my mind asked "Wasn't it a blessing that I was able to lock my car doors?" Jesus was completely vulnerable. They beat Him and if you've ever been slapped in the face you will know that it boils your blood. There is something about being slapped in the face that drives an insult into the pit of your stomache. He was beat, spit on and slapped and there were no locks to keep the enemy from assulting Him. One man, just one man was screaming very mean things at me and I felt so offended that he would dare treat me that way, yet Jesus without sin, was treated worse and called worse. I was able to turn up a radio to drown it out. But God heard every word they hurled at His beloved Son and my Savior was called words that He did not deserve. So I left the red light humbled and grateful that what I experienced for 3 minutes and that I was able to escape that situation unharmed. But Jesus stayed at His red light for me. He didn't escape, though He could have. The Bible clearly states that He had the authority to call down a league of angles to vindicate the situation, but He stayed at the red light and was beat, spit on and slowly killed for me. Why? Why would He choose to sit at the red light? Because love compelled Him to sit at the red light in my place so that I could drive forward and He took my place in an angry crowd. Because of Jesus, I now have a green light into eternity. "Jesus said to him: "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him" John 14:6 "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that who ever believes in Him, will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 I hope you're not still sitting at the red light....Jesus took your place a long time ago. All you have to do is hand Him the keys to your life and that light will change green for all of eternity.