Hooray for Jessie!

I want to take a moment to highlight a member of our Malta team.  She is a feisty little Indonesian named Jessie.  She has a sunny nature and a servant’s heart.  Jessie volunteered to do the cooking for the Evangelistic Team, who aren’t staying in the same place as us.

But today they entered the Prayer Center at noon, and Jessie was carrying a big plastic container.  She had made us lunch.  There are snacks here, and all the makings for sandwiches, but this was a very nice treat.  She had made a kind of quesadilla, spiced with paprika.  It was delicious!

Then as we ate, Jessie sat at the keyboards and began to play my favorite worship music.  When she finished playing, I thanked Jessie for feeding our bodies and then our spirits.  Her face lit up with a shy smile.

Thank You, Lord, for Jessie!  She’s more proof of how God is good!

Road Trip!

Traditional Bulgarian appetizer plate

After church this morning we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant owned by a man from the church.  The food was really good, some of the best I’ve ever had.  I joked with Bill and Vasha about it being traditional Bulgarian Chinese food.

Then after lunch we divided the team up into 3 cars and headed for Macedonia.  On the road we told each other true stories of our lives: funny stories and stories of God’s amazing faithfulness and provision.  One story led to another, with each of us encouraging the others by our personal accounts of God’s help.  In this way, the miles flew by and friendships grew stronger.

We arrived in Skopje in a rainstorm.  The hostel had misbooked the rooms, and I noticed that the people who had ridden in the other cars were irritable and unhappy about it.  With some arranging and rearranging, the rooms were eventually worked out.  One person said that the irritability could be a spiritual thing about Skopje.  Maybe, but if so, then the conversation in our car was the vaccination against irritability.

Leann is a girl who likes to eat real food—as opposed to sandwiches or crackers for dinner.  I agree.  So the two of us went out in search of a real meal, although I wasn’t so hungry.  We had gone out like this before, in Warsaw and again in Prague, and had developed a special bond because of it.  We found a restaurant at the end of the block, but they said that their credit card machine wasn’t working.  The cash machine around the corner solved our lack-of-Dinar problem, and we returned to the restaurant.  Leann had gnocchi in cream sauce and I had a lovely chicken soup.

During these trips we spend so much time with the whole group that it’s nice to get off in a pair like this and have a real conversation.  When we got back to the hostel we met the local coordinator, Keith.  I know more or less what to expect, having been on several trips with OCE, but since each capital city is unique, there is always something different.  We’ll see what Skopje is all about in the next couple of days.  God is good!

Buckaroo

Greetings from Bulgaria!

As my plane was landing, I could see that Sofia is a beautiful city, and seeing it on the ground confirmed what I had seen from the air.  I am staying with Buck and Nadia, pastors who God had led to leave their church and town to move three hours away to Sofia, but not to start another church.  What they had always done is church planting, but here God is calling out of their comfort zone.  While they are wondering what to do, Nadia has been working prostitutes and other trafficked people.

I met Nadia at a conference in Estonia in October, and we had hit it off.  So when Operation Capitals of Europe set Sofia as their next capital, I contacted Nadia.  She invited me to come for a few days before the start of OCE.  I think this was divine timing.

Last night Buck and Nadia had some friends over and invited me to a Christian musical that had been locally written and produced.  The friends are a couple: Anya is Bulgarian and Sasha (which is a male name) is Russian, and they are both dancers.  The conversation was mostly in Bulgarian.  My ears grasped at a few familiar sounding words, but mostly it sounded very much like Russian.  Buck ordered pizza from Domino’s, and I saw pretty much everyone put ketchup or mustard on their pizza—even my fellow Texan!  I tried mustard on mine, and it was really good!  I would never put mustard on an Italian pizza, but it’s good on American pizza.

Seeing that my plate was empty, Buck asked me if I wanted another slice, to which I responded, “No, I’m good.”  He laughed about how funny it is to say “I’m good” when refusing seconds.  I told him about trying to explain the Texanism “fixin to” to non-Texans, and how I had had to train myself to use the more universally understood “I’m getting ready to.”  He laughed.  He could relate.  Now I keep hearing myself saying “I’m good,” when I had always said it unconsciously.  But as I thought about it, it’s kind of a nice affirmation to say about myself several times a day.  I am good!

The musical was called “John, Son of Thunder.”  Of course, it was all in Bulgarian, and set in modern times, but it wasn’t hard to follow along, since I have read the Gospels.  The music and dancing were really great, and the set design was imaginative.  The audience was most of the spectrum of Sofia’s Christian community, and they pretty much all know each other.  I commented on how nice it was to see Christians of all denominations coming together like this—it’s only really happened in Milan with the March for Jesus.

This morning I woke up to snow falling, but it hasn’t stuck.  For me, snowfall is always a miracle from Heaven.  Who know what God has in store for us today?  But I know this:  He’s good, and whatever He has for us will be good, too.  I’ll say it again: God is good!