Sunday in Sofia

What a day!  I'm blogging this on Monday morning, as Sunday had already expired when I finally got to a point where I could.  The day started out with breakfast in the hotel lobby.  For some reason, they were playing some type of techno-trance music, and I commented that it seemed a little early to me for that sort of thing, which caused a German guy at another table to snicker.  That led to us talking to him, a little in English and a little in German (thank you, Frau Vischer!), and finding out he was also in Bulgaria with a church - the Evangelical Free Church of Germany, and that he was in Sofia specifically to work with disabled kids in orphanages.  Another great connection for our future work!

Then it was upstairs for worship.  I knew it would be a full house, but I was overjoyed to see every seat taken, and people even sitting on the floor.  Every seat but one, that is; my brother Yanko had saved me a seat with the praise team.  I'm starting to get the hang of singing in Bulgarian, though occasionally there are still some oddities - such as singing a hymn to the tune "Auld Lang Syne."  The singing here is robust!  If American churches sang with the same gusto, they'd hear us the next county over.

After church, we headed back to the park.  Borisova Gradina used to be called "Freedom Park" back in communist days, but it really is quite a nice park.  We had several young Bulgarians join us for a rousing game of Killball (patent pending, I'm sure...), and they promised to come back this week.  There was also a 9-year-old boy named Georgi who played some badminton with the kids, and while he was doing that I talked for about 15 minutes with his mother Desislava.  I don't know if they will be back or not, but we plant seeds and see what God will do with them.

Then it was time to catch a bus to Rakovski Stadium, an old communist-era soccer field where we essentially broke in without permission - a pretty bold thing to do in a stadium owned by the police!  Why?  To play Ultimate with the local Ultimate (frisbee) club!  I coached the team at Nashville Christian School for two years, and so I was really excited about this opportunity.  I was also glad to meet an American who has been working with the team named Philip.  He's a little more qualified to give pointers on Ultimate to them than I am, as he played for the University of Wisconsin on their 2003 championship team.  The match was a ton of fun, though our side lost.  We did score 5, which is pretty impressive considering our competition!

It was after 11PM by the time we got dinner and settled back in for the night.  I don't think tonight will be quite as late, but then again the Lord sometimes throws us blessings we can't foresee.  He's doing some exciting things here in Sofia, and across Bulgaria!

Back in Bulgaria!

It has been far too long since my last post -  so long, in fact, that I never posted anything about my trip to Sofia in May!  It was amazing, and I have no doubts whatsoever now that this is where God wants us to be.

But enough about my trip to Bulgaria - I want to tell you about my trip to Bulgaria! I flew in last Wednesday, a day before the rest of a team from the West-Ark Church of Christ in Fort Smith, AR led by Rick Odell.  This is a great group of young people (and a couple of "crustier" ones...) who are making connections with young people in Sofia.  

They have an interesting method - they go to a local park, a very large one called Borisovata Gradina (the Borisova Gardens).  They go into a grassy area and throw frisbees, play badminton in the round, hit volleyballs, kick soccer balls, and generally be really loud, friendly, and obviously American.  Whenever young people pass by, they team invites them to join them in play or strike up conversations, which is quite easy to do - most young people in Bulgaria study English from a very young age.  

The fruit of this has been amazing.  Without hammering people over the head, this team has made connections with several young people, many of whom are coming back, even on this third trip (the first team trip was in 2010).  It has gotten to the point where some of those young Bulgarians who have made connections are bringing their friends to meet the Americans as well.

I am very excited about one of these in particular.  Blagovest is a young man they met last year who became a close friend to one of the team members.  He was so eager to see them again, he actually showed up at the airport to greet them!  Along with some other young Bulgarians, they have started an informal Ultimate (frisbee) league in Sofia with two teams - and they were very excited when they learned that I coached the Nashville Christian School team for two years.  Tomorrow evening, we will be traveling to a local stadium, where we've been invited to play in a friendly match with the locals.  I don't know if this corpulent carcass is ready for competitive play...  strike that, it's not.  But I'm going to play anyway.  Even if I make a complete idiot of myself, I can make a lot of connections that may bear fruit for God later.

Today, we held a seminar for the members of the Church in Bulgaria.  Almost everyone from the church was there, and additionally there were about a dozen people from outside Sofia who were converted by Hristo in Athens, where he led the Bulgarian congregation for several years.  Though the schedule got a little crazy and messed up, we were able by God's grace to speak to the people on the theme of being a healthy Christian community.  I led two sessions, the first on being part of a covenant community of peace, and the second on the practice of communal lament in the church (many thanks to Drs. Hicks and Fortner for letting me sit in on their Job class this summer - it helped a lot!).  

One problem the congregation is having is a disconnect between generations.  The older people sometimes see the younger generation as wild hooligans, while the younger people think those older are judgmental and uncaring.  There's perhaps a little bit of truth in both, a good bit of unfair generalization in both, and tons of room for humility in Christ to work.  I have never been as excited to have a class completely abandon me while I'm standing in front of them - because they were intensely discussing what I was saying!  Even if they totally disagreed with me, the fact that they were engaging with each other discussing the meaning of God's word is truly inspiring.

Spain just beat France.  That means it's late, and we have worship in the morning.  I love the challenge of singing with the praise team in Bulgarian!  I'm even beginning to understand a lot of it.