On Wednesday and Thursday, Susan and I benefited from the work of some local therapists in cooperation with a missionary from another organization. They arranged to have Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson come over to deliver a two day continuing education conference. In addition to benefiting from the high quality of instruction, Susan and I were also able to save on travel expenses. We saw some familiar faces and made new contacts in the community, including two instructors from the University of Sofia. I will be meeting with them on Friday to discuss ways that we may be able to assist them in their work. One of the things they mentioned was that they are interested in working in orphanages. This is something that Susan and I were hoping to explore before we came here. Pray that this meeting bears fruit.
On the day following the Rosenfeld-Johnson conference, we spoke at a professional conference (International Conference on Early Childhood Development) where the speakers wrote papers and shared their research. My understanding is that many of them were doing this as a requirement for their advanced degrees. While we opted against full participation in this conference, primarily because of the language barrier, the titles of many of the presentations indicated to us that this was a serious conference and that the presenters did a lot of homework to prepare. We also did a lot of homework to prepare, but it seems that no matter how much preparing I do, I always wish I had a little more time. We agreed several weeks ago on a one hour presentation, but realized in the days leading up to the conference that we were likely to run out of time - which we did. Another hour could have been really useful. I left the conference feeling pretty good about the presentation. The time was a limitation, which I had already accepted, but I was pleased that we were able to lay out a framework for diagnosing sensory processing disorders and give some examples (though I would have preferred to do more - if time permitted). The audience appeared to be entertained and engaged.I felt good about this, too, that is until I heard from a friend that often Bulgarians will discount the value of a presentation if it is too entertaining. Apparently, in some circles "fun" is the opposite of "educational." To quote Nacho Libre, "Whatever." As we were walking to the bus after the conference, Susan and I started talking about how much progress it appeared that Bulgarian therapists had made from the time that we first came here in 2006. At some point, we don't know when that will be, our skills and knowledge base will not be unique here. Susan asked, "What will we do then?" This was a challenging question, but one I had been thinking about. This is what God has been showing me: Our skills, whatever they may be, can be tools for serving others and working our way into this culture for the purpose of establishing relationships, but they are not what makes us most valuable to the people around us. Our greatest value is that the Holy Spirit is at work in us, teaching and motivating us to serve others and to share the love of Christ with them.Nina, the organizer of this conference told me that she would be making a video of our presentation available to us in a few weeks. Some of that material may surface here when it is available. In our biographical information advertising the conference, we mentioned that we are in Bulgaria on invitation of the Evangelical Union. Though we do not shy away from our Christ-centered view of the world, there was no intent to present anything other than a therapist's approach to diagnosing sensory processing disorders, but it was out there that we are "church workers." I never know how people will react in this culture when they hear that I am a missionary. I hear that people tend to disengage, but so far, my experience is that most are simply indifferent or apathetic. So about 30 minutes before we spoke, a lady came at sat down next to me in the breakroom. Susan and I had spoken to her on previous days, so she was at least a familiar face. Her first question was, "Are you missionaries?" Now I pray for such questions, but when it was asked, for a split second my anxiety level shot up. I told her that we were and her response was that she, too is an evangelical and she lives in Vergas (on the other side of the country). She expressed a desire to meet with us if we are ever there. Sorry, I have no pictures of the event, but hopefully the video will be coming soon.
