women's meeting and church yesterday

we just had a women's meeting in the home of our hosts. it was a wonderful meeting and three of us shared our testimonies. i was so excited to be able to share what Jesus has done for me in my life and how He has saved me and blessed me. i have to go eat and then go back to the hotel. more later! the other day went well by the way, i got to share with the church about the need to reach young people with the gospel and how God holds us accountable for every soul, those of both the old and the young.

evangelism...maps...young people... the move of God

we are in a city called jebel. there is only one very small evangelical church in the city. can you imagine that? only one church. the rest are mosques and a greek orthodox temple. we heard the prayer call at 5am this morning. i put my prayer shawl on and just laid under it and prayed. wow. but there are some really awesome believers here, the family we are staying with for instance...so divinely appointed by God for major evangelism to impact the country. of all the people we could have stayed with, we are staying with people with a real heart for real work and real results for the Kingdom. they have a map of Bulgaria in their living room (and you know we totally dig maps) so we all gathered around it and prayed. God really poured out blessings during that prayer time. this morning we are going back to the church where we had a missionary conference yesterday.

there are so many young people here. you can see in their faces that they have nothing to live for. they need life, they need vision, they need purpose. and the hardest thing for me is, you can't even talk to them because of the language barrier and so you just kind of sit there and hurt for them. i've asked if anybody is trying to reach the young people. the answer was no. i'm looking around and seeing a whole generation of young adults and nobody's trying to reach them. i almost lost it in the restaurant.

what are we going to do? we have to do something. somebody has to do something. we have to let them know there is more than cigarrettes and alcohol and sex and emotional highs. you can still feel the oppression from communism... you can still feel it hanging in the air. this kind of bland, flatline feeling...gray, nothing. and when you look into a beautiful young face and see that gray thing hanging in their eyes it is unbearable. it is awful.

but i know God will not let it stay like this. i know He is planning a massive overthrow all over the earth and young people everywhere are going to be saved and set on fire by the Holy Ghost. that is my comfort. it's not far away. it WILL happen. and i'm saying yeah God, do it here. Whew and what a beautiful thing it will be. i don't know how He's going to do it, but i know that He will. so i'm waiting to see it. and today in the church, elaine wants me to share some of this...so by God's grace i will say whatever He allows me to say.

amen.

ok...food! coffee!

well, they have the best coffee here... not like ours. it's always esspresso, and just a little milk if you want. so it's serve in small cups and it's thick. so bitter too, so I add sugar, which is weird for me because i usually drink american coffee black, but here you can't do that unless you are a balkan man with black hair growing all over. so the coffee is yum. and the food. it's interesting. lot's of dairy. they like yogurt. they make this drink i haven't tried it, but it's yogurt with salt and water and they drink it like a smoothie. and they add yogurt to things and it's pretty much like sour cream....hm what else. they eat salad without the lettuce. it's large pieces of vegatable with olive and vinegar and strong salty cheese....one miscellaneous item, two of our team members are african and they never see black people here so we are getting alot of attention...

quick intro

here we are in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. we flew straight through from DFW to Frankfurt, Germany then to Sofia, Bulgaria. It is very interesting here. The economy is starting to grow and there are new business right beside old, old buildings. They just joined the European Union so they have a brand new airport. Cobblestone streets.... more to come when I can get online again.

long time no post!

hello out there.... i am on my way to bulgaria next wednesday... will fly direct from dfw to frankfurt then into sofia, bulgaria. we will spend about a week and a half with our hosts, taki and megi, and will be ministering in business networking meetings, missionary conferences, ywam and some local churches. we are looking forward to an awesome move of God. God named this trip, "Bulgaria Ablaze" so we are expecting Him to set some things on fire....

making rent

rent is due on the first of each month. over the weekend i was looking at my budget and realized that i didn't have the money to make rent (if that tells you anything about how i manage my finances, pray for me!) well, i felt God telling me not to freak out. so i didn't. but i had no idea how i was going to explain to my roomate that i couldn't make my half of the rent... even though somehow i had a feeling that wasn't going to happen.
let me back up just a little to say that while i was in india i was not on vacation. i was on unpaid leave from work... i.e. i wasn't bringing in my normal paycheck. so when i got back i still had bills to pay.
back to a few days ago. so far i had been doing fine since i got back, and then somehow payday and the day rent was due were just a little too far apart. i had two checks from friends who had sent me money (God is good) to help with living expenses when i got back. i hadn't cashed them yet and was kind of saving them. so i thanked God for those and endorsed them.
then, i started randomly cleaning out my planner... and i find another check! a friend of my parents had made it out before my trip and not knowing who to make it out to, left the pay to the order of line blank... cha-ching! i endorsed that one too! by this time my faith was totally strengthened that God would take care of it, even though i still needed a little more. so i went to bed and the next morning (the day i had to pay it) my mom called and said that i had gotten a check in the mail and did i want her to deposit it in my account! um...let me see YES!
wow! so i had all the money i needed within less than 24 hours. isn't God amazing?? He told me not to worry about it... and look what He did! A Father who takes care of me and watches my back even when i don't know it needs watching. He can do that for you too! He is always faithful.

hindi

i can type my blog in hindi! look! ई कैन टाईप मय ब्लोग इन हिंदी! लुक!
isn't that crazy? i should translate this entire blog.... just kidding
just in case you didn't know, hindi is the language of india