As some of you may have already heard, our time in Bulgaria is coming to an end. We have been incredibly blessed to be of service to the Kingdom of God through our work with the Renaissance Church of Christ and at American English Academy. We have made friends here whom we will cherish forever. We have been part of God's movement in a place that needs people of faith to be His hands, feet, and mouths.

We will be departing Bulgaria in late June. We will spend a few weeks with family in Nashville, arranging our affairs and reconnecting with our brothers and sisters there. Then we will head to our next home - Tucson, Arizona. It's the home of Lisa's parents, whom we've never lived close to. We've already made connection with the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ, who have eagerly welcomed us to come and begin ministering to the people of southern Arizona with them (not as a paid minister, but as fellow workers with the church members). It's an exciting time for us, but one filled with challenges as well. We ask for your prayers as we go forward in this transition.

Travel Plans

At the end of this month, we'll be back in the United States for a little while! We are flying in late on the evening of May 30th. Lisa and the kids are staying in Nashville until the end of July, but I will return to Bulgaria on June 17th to work with four wonderful interns from Oklahoma Christian University. We plan to worship with our brothers and sisters at the Western Hills Church of Christ on June 1st, but if you are part of a congregation within 500 miles or so of Nashville, and are interested in what we're doing in Sofia, we'd be glad to come visit and talk with you on the 8th or 15th, or any other date we can arrange. God is moving in Bulgaria, and we want you to be a part of it!

By the way (since I haven't updated in a while), we neglected to report that effective Tuesday of this week, we have been granted a one-year residence permit.  Because we have Elise, we only have to get one-year permits for two more years before we are eligible for a ten-year residency.

Update 17Mar14

So, another update on our visa travails. Do you know how ineffective, overofficious, and incomprehensibly bureaucratic our American government is? Let me tell you, we're amateurs compared to the Bulgarians. The positive news: we don't have to travel to Greece. The negative (and it's a lot): we will not be eligible to apply for permanent residency for three more years, even with Elise being a Bulgarian citizen. Furthermore, the entire process - and I mean the ENTIRE process - that we went through to get our initial Visa D has to be done again, including redoing the FBI background checks (which makes no sense, as we've been in Bulgaria pretty much since the last one went through) and providing Avery's birth certificate again (as if, in the last few months we unbirthed him!). And to top it all off, all of that has to be re-notarized, re-certified, and re-apostilled by the State of Tennessee. And did I mention that it'll cost around $450 each for myself, Lisa, and Avery? At least, the next time we have to do this, we'll have all our ducks in a row from experience. Please pray that we have patience to get through the horrors of meaningless paperwork, and if you have the time we'd love to talk with you about why we're so driven to overcome these hurdles for the sake of the Bulgarian people.

Update 21Feb14

Yesterday was another challenging day, but I am very thankful to God that it was quite productive in regard to our mission and role here in Bulgaria. A lot of confusion and misunderstanding was cleared up, and a vision for the Renaissance Church of Christ was more clearly defined. Please continue to pray for our family, the Arnaudovs, the members of the church, and all the other people with whom we have contact. May God bless us all richly as we serve Him!

Looking for Partners

There has been quite a lot happening with us here in Bulgaria; some of it is uplifting and affirming, but some of it is also quite challenging. Lisa and I have been doing a lot of discussion about what we're doing here; that is to say, what is the focus of our mission, and where do we see God leading us in the future? There are various aspects of what we do here that we consider "mission": we work with adoptive families who come through, since we are an adoptive family ourselves and can provide guidance and moral support in this foreign environment; we work at a school where we are free to talk about our faith with young people, influencing them with Christian morals and scripture; we've started a Scout troop, because we believe that there is a serious lack of guidance and development opportunity for young men in today's world; and of course we work with the Renaissance Church of Christ in as many ways as we can, including me singing on the praise team and Lisa teaching a children's class.
We're really thankful for the jobs at the American English Academy that allowed us to move here. We're working every week taking lessons in the Bulgarian language; we're making connections all the time with people. But we feel that it's time to begin working toward even deeper engagement than what we've been able to do thus far.
Because I'm working a 40+ hour per week job, with an added commute of over an hour each day, plus paper grading, I simply don't have the time or energy I need to engage in other aspects of what we want to do here. We want to work in some expanded manner with orphans, and with post-institutional young people. There is a great need right now for people to work with refugees in Bulgaria, both African and Syrian. I feel strongly that the church needs to reach out to young families in Sofia. I can't effectively do any of that while working full-time in teaching.
So we're actively beginning the process to look for supporting congregations. Right now, knowing that churches need time to budget for missions, our thinking is that we will both continue to teach through the 2014-2015 school year. After that, Lisa will continue to teach while I either completely stop teaching, or only teach a class or two. With Lisa still teaching, we will not need the level of support that a family of four typically needs in the field. What we're seeking to raise is the level of a small salary ($15,000 annually); the cost of one kid's tuition ($4,000 annually - right now both kids are going for free because we're both teaching, but that will obviously change if I'm not teaching); and airfare for one return trip to the States each year (about $5,000). That totals $24,000, or $2,000 per month.
If you are a member at a congregation which might be capable of supporting us, even in part, we very much want to talk to you. If you know of other congregations which might be capable of some monthly support, we would love to hear who they are, so that we might make contact with them. For all of you, we deeply need your prayers and words of encouragement. We were told that there would be times, especially in the first year, when the challenges would accumulate to the point where we would doubt our purpose. Those doubts are certainly there, but we are committed to working where God wants us to be.

I can walk!

God is moving in Bulgaria. We see it all the time, in little things that happen all around us, and sometimes involve us. We see it in the seemingly random encounters we have with people - three different ones in the last week alone. We see it in things developing and growing.
Today, I saw it in something else. I was walking back from meeting another adoptive parent who just flew in (tomorrow she's going to pick up her new son, who is blind). She needed to go grocery shopping, so that she would have food in the rental apartment and wouldn't have to go out later without a guide - something I was happy to help with. As I stepped onto the escalator to come out of the metro, it occurred to me - I felt no pain.

You see, for a couple of years, I've been battling plantar fasciitis. It was an inflammation of the muscle tissue in my left heel, making walking painful. The condition was exacerbated by my weight - let's be honest, my obesity. The more my foot pain persisted, the less likely I was to exercise... and the worse my weight got, which made my foot pain worse.

But coming to Bulgaria has been an absolute kick in the hindquarters. We don't have a car, so we spend our days walking, standing at bus stops, and climbing stairs in elevator-less buildings. The food quality in Bulgaria is much better than in the US. The result of all that - I've lost a lot of weight, my pain has subsided, and I'm a much more capable servant of God than I was before I came.

Every day, God puts new things in our path. Some are new opportunities for service. Some are people who need a witness or a minister. Some are lessons that make us smarter. And some are obstacles which seem to hinder us - but serve to make us stronger. Praise Him for His wisdom and love!

Good and not-so-good

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!