Nov. 1, 2012

I was blessed to be able to talk with Vania for about 20 minutes this morning. She and Hristo are well, and more importantly their daughter Natalia in New York was relatively unaffected by Hurricane Sandy, though she did experience some high winds.

Hristo continues to heal from his eye surgery, and prepare for surgery this month on the other eye. In addition, Vania told me that she will need the same type of surgery herself soon. As a result, she has decided it is not for the best for her to come to Nashville in January as we had all planned.

Instead, we are going to see about me traveling to Sofia again in January for a couple of weeks. The church in Sofia has been very blessed by the Northside Church of Christ in Spokane, WA, and will be able soon to rent a facility full-time in which to meet, hold classes, teach Sunday School to kids, etc. I'll be helping out in any way I can to set up that facility (paint, organize, etc.). This will necessitate me raising a bit more money, and I hope that some of you will be able to help with that. We had raised $300 for Vania to come, and I hope to apply that amount to my ticket (with the approval of that money's donor).

As always, we need your prayers. Vania expressed again how much we are needed on the ground in Sofia; there is so much Kingdom work to be done! May God bless us richly to His service.

Trip to Fort Smith

We had a great weekend trip to Fort Smith! We headed out Friday afternoon at about 1, with a first stop in Searcy to have dinner with my cousin Jordan. We would have loved to have my cousin Sarah there as well, but she's on Harding's track team, and they were at a meet in Oklahoma. From there we headed south to Stuttgart for the night, staying at Lisa's Aunt Ann's house with her brother Chris (Ann is out of town... are people trying to avoid us?). Saturday morning, which was stunningly beautiful, we got up to head for Fort Smith at a nice leisurely pace. On a whim, we stopped at Toltec Mounds State Park to walk around 1,000-year-old Indian mounds and feed some turtles.

Upon arriving in Fort Smith, we visited the Fort Smith History Museum, which was really well done. Next door to it is the Fort Smith National Historic Site. For those who don't know, Fort Smith was the center of administration for the Indian Territories (now known as Oklahoma) in the days of the Wild West. If you've seen either version of True Grit, that story starts out in Fort Smith.

We were very blessed to be able to have dinner with Shawn Moore from Spokane, WA on Saturday evening. Shawn spend two years in Athens, Greece, where he got to know Hristo and Vania very well. He is the preacher for the Northside Church of Christ, which supports the Arnaudovs and their work. He shared with us his story, and we shared ours with him. It is amazing how God works in the lives of His people!

We stayed Saturday night with Jerry and Meg Canfield, who graciously opened their home to us. Sunday morning, I taught the adult auditorium class at the Westark Church of Christ (with some MC-ing by Chris Benjamin). It was wonderful to see familiar faces again from our summer trip to Sofia! I was blessed to be given the opportunity to preside at the Lord's Table for Westark, as well.

After an amazing lunch at El Rodeo (I've never had molcajete before - fantastic!) with the Benjamin family and Shawn Moore, we headed back on the road. It was a great trip, and we're very thankful the Lord brought us safely through our journey of just over 1,000 miles.

The battleground of our lives

We feel like a bit of a battleground lately, in that Satan has been attacking, and God has been blessing (though sometimes that blessing hurts a little, too). First, some of the blessings: Lisa (for those of you who aren't her Facebook friend) will have a second phone interview on Thursday for a fantastic position in North Carolina. This job would be a substantial raise for Lisa, and would allow us to remain in Nashville; the downside is that she would have to travel a lot, but we can deal with that.

Then an attack - I am covered quite ridiculously in poison ivy, mosquito bites, and chiggers, and I don't think it all came from the campout last week. When I say ridiculously, I mean poison ivy on my leg, the back of my neck, my forehead, my nose, my chin through my beard, and my eyelids. I never went into the woods, so I don't know where I could have picked it up. It's a fairly minor thing in the grand scheme, but quite annoying. Within the last month, Avery's been sick, Elise has been sick, and I've been almost sick. And Lisa is dealing with a horribly dysfunctional workplace that led her to look for other work in the first place - but that, as I've said, may be a hidden blessing.

Probably the most difficult "blessing" is our remaining cat, Kira. Kira has been with us for almost 15 years now, our first baby. Since we have made the decision to go to Bulgaria, we had wondered what we would do with the cats, and her in particular. We had found a person to take Keiko, but we knew that Kira would never adjust; It's too expensive to take her with us to Bulgaria, and even if we did the flight would probably kill her. We're taking our call to mission seriously, and we can't tell God "Sorry, but we can't go do the work you've put before us - we have a cat." The horrible blessing is that we may be putting Kira down this week. She has not been right since we put Keiko to sleep; she hardly eats, and I have not seen her drink water in weeks (which makes me wonder seriously how she's still alive now). She has balance issues, and staggers often. There have been other disturbing behaviors which I won't go into (you might have just eaten...) that tell us it's time.

Strangely, I am more at peace on this. I am sad, to be sure, but perhaps losing Keiko prepared me somewhat to lose Kira as well. This will be a pet-less house, which makes it easier for us to prepare it to sell. I've learned through life that transitions are tough, but God leads us through them to brighter futures.

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!

Long time no post!

Greetings all!

It's been some time since I posted to this blog, but don't think there hasn't been development and progress toward our goal of working in the mission field in Sofia, Bulgaria!  We had a simply amazing trip to Sofia in June/July, capped off by three days in England with some of our dear friends, Brent and Miranda Poff.  We returned to the US reinvigorated for the Work, wishing we could stay and continue on the ground.

But things still have to be done here.  We continue to look for congregations to support us, but this is proving to be nearly impossible in this economic climate.  Indeed, even pleas to those we know for the immediate goal of bringing Vania to Nashville for a month have largely not proved fruitful.  We will continue to work, trusting that the Father will provide in His time.

We were very blessed to find a lady here in Nashville from Shumen, Bulgaria.  She has agreed to give us weekly language lessons, which we began several weeks ago.  We are meeting on Wednesday nights at the West End Church of Christ, which has graciously agreed to lend us a room.  I already feel smarter!

On Wednesday this week, I will be flying to Dallas to participate in a Cross-Cultural Discipleship Conference hosted by Missions Resource Network.  I am thankful for my friend and Chi Sigma Alpha brother Richard Ashlock and his wife Joanna for hosting me, and I'm very excited that a former student Brandon Kaag, who is now a youth minister in the area, will also be attending.  I can't wait to spend time learning about ways to be more effective in sharing the gospel, and encouraging others in their walk with God!

We have plans also to be at the West Ark Church of Christ in Fort Smith, AR on Oct. 21st.  I have been invited to share with that church some of my experiences with the work in Sofia, and how West Ark has been an important facet of the developments in the Vazrazhdane congregation.  I can't wait to reconnect with our brothers and sisters who share our love for Bulgaria and her people!

We need your prayers.  We are thoroughly and faithfully convinced that no amount of effort on our part will bring us to Sofia, or accomplish for the Kingdom what needs to be done.  Only the blessing of God will equip and enable us to be his instruments, and we ask that you spend time before the throne asking for his active work in our lives.  

May our loving Father bless us all richly as we serve Him!

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.