We had an incredibly busy weekend, meeting (if you count Thursday) with
four different families who are/were here adopting, and one just
visiting from Qatar. We were on an "exhausted high" - and then received
a difficult email message (actually, the second difficult email of the
week). We ask for your prayers, that God will show us His wisdom as we
work for the Kingdom. Please also pray for Bro. Hristo and Sis. Vania
Arnaudov as they work diligently for the congregation; we love them
very much (as do many of you!) and want very much to be able to help
them in whatever way we can to help the congregation to grow and prosper
in the faith. Father, please grant us all the wisdom, faith, patience,
strength, and whatever else we need to be instruments of Yours in this
lost world!
So happy to be back with our Renaissance Church of Christ family this morning!
Please be in prayer for the African immigrants we work with. I handed
out several Bibles this morning to some newcomers who requested them.
They have some other needs which we're in a process of assessing how
best to help. One young man named Musa Ali, from Mali, asked me for a
little money today for the first time, though he's been to church
faithfully for over two months. He has been studying Bulgarian in the
class at church each week, in the hope that it will help him find some
work.
I gave him a little money, but we're running pretty low
on funds ourselves for this month. Christmas is always more expensive
than a typical month, and the months of paying both a mortgage and a
rent have taken their toll. Praise God my sister Jeni and her husband
James have decided to rent, and eventually purchase, our Nashville
house. This will really help things out starting in February, though
not bring us out of the woods entirely.
Please also be in
prayer for us as we think and plan about the future of our mission here.
Our work at the American English Academy is going well, and we feel
that we are making a difference in a number of small ways with our
students and others associated with the school. It's not, however, what
we came to Bulgaria to do, and we feel that there's much more with
which we can get engaged. The African immigrants are one thing; working
with orphans and post-orphans is the desire that brought us here in the
first place. It wasn't a mistake that brought us to AEA; we sincerely
feel that God opened that door, so that we could get on the ground and
start acclimating and learning the language. We also anticipate having a
long-term relationship with the school in some form or another, if
nothing more than having our kids there as students. But having said
all that, we just feel like we're supposed to do more than just teach
school - something we could do just as well back in the US.
So,
we crave your prayers. We even welcome your thoughts on how we might
proceed forward. We plan on teaching full-time at AEA for another full
year, but are open to changes after that point. If you have some
particular bit of wisdom for us, please feel free to message or email.
We want to hear the ideas of our brothers and sisters, as we press
forward in our work for the Kingdom of God.
