Update - October 3rd, 2012

Technology is awesome! I had another phone chat with Vania today. I called to see how Hristo is doing, and I was glad to hear that he is doing well. Apparently (if I understood correctly), they are not going to do surgery on his other eye until next month. I was glad to hear also that the communion cups I had sent a couple of weeks ago arrived there yesterday; apparently the Vazrazhdane Church of Christ had run out of cups, and the only store in Bulgaria that carries them ran out and had no idea when any more would come in. The things we take for granted in the States...

We've got a busy month ahead of us. This weekend we'll be heading to Stuttgart, AR to hook up with Lisa's family. Next weekend, I'll be in the second of three class meetings of a course I'm auditing at Lipscomb on "Counseling for Church Leaders" (and yes, that can be taken pretty much any way you look at it). The weekend after that we're really looking forward to being in Fort Smith to visit with our West Ark family; I'll be co-teaching class with Chris Benjamin, and officiating at Table. The final weekend in October will be a Cub and Family campout and Elise's birthday, and the following weekend the third of the Counseling class... I'm pretty busy for an unemployed guy.

Some of the job searching has been put on hold as Lisa looks for a new job. We're trying to find her something that is here in Nashville, or at least would allow her to work from here and travel to sites occasionally. There's a particular job she's looking at now that we think would be absolutely fantastic (and would indeed allow us to stay in Nashville). We ask, as always, for your prayers that God will continue to lay the path in front of us that He desires. We still want very much to be in Sofia next year, but only God can make that happen. In the meantime, we continue to prepare as best we can with language lessons (had one tonight; I think I have conjugations in the present tense down... I think).

We are so thankful for your prayers and thoughts. It has been a rough year in a lot of ways, but also a year full of surprises and blessings. God is so good to us!