It has been a good long stretch since my last blog entry. It has not been that I have been too busy or that I haven't had much to write about. The opposite is true, in fact. There has been much to say, but frankly a lot of it has been negative and rather than air a bunch of raw, confused emotions, I opted not to submit entries during that time. Now that a little time has passed, I will try to recap what happened when I went dark in the blogging world. Over the summer, Susan and I took our kids to Bansko to live in close proximity to some of our Bulgarian friends for one month. The intended purpose of this trip was to give us a boost with our command of the Bulgarian language. While we came away from that experience hearing a little better, it was not the breakthrough experience that we had hoped. We had passed the one year mark for language study and had heard of and seen others who were far more fluent in a much shorter span of time. When expressing discouragement about this observation, some would say, "Yeah, but he is single and that makes difference," or similar such statements. Then there was the unintended punch in the gut. A well meaning Bulgarian friend said, "You're not studying Bulgarian are you? Because you don't seem like you are getting any better." Around the same time, during a contentious moment in an argument over a small sum of money, a Bulgarian lady insulted me by saying, "I'm sorry you can't speak Bulgarian!" A day or two after that, I stood next to Susan in the grocery store when a similar criticism was thrown out at her. She was more gracious than I. I just turned and walked away steaming and hating Bulgaria. We have been going to classes on good days and bad. We have been studying in between caring for our kids and getting them educated. We have been getting involved with our community and going to our Bulgarian speaking church and participating in a family group there. And we, I in particular have been falling apart. I spent a great deal of time pleading with God for help and a great deal of time being angry with Him for not helping. You can see, these are not the happy things that missionaries usually write home about. I have not hidden these things from my team and many of them have been very supportive and understanding. Many people have been praying us through this time and though I felt very alone and questioned God's help, His help and His comfort have come.
Susan and I have had opportunities to serve disabled children in a few different settings. We have invitations and opportunities to do more and we are excited for how we see God shaping our ministry here. No, it hasn't been pretty for the past several months, but it has been necessary. I have been shown my great need for God and spending time in solitude with no one but Him. This has been good for me. It has been good for Susan and it has been good for our kids. Paul and Liz Meiners (MTW Europe Care Coordinators) were here for our team retreat in August. During that time, Paul interviewed me and asked what I felt like I needed to be most successful in ministry. My response was, "I need to feel like my life is not unraveling." Well, I can say that I no longer feel like my life is unraveling, but I have been humbled by how easily and how quickly I could be there again. Without going into too many boring details, I will say that my family and I needed a readjustment. There were practical things about daily life that had to change - that we continue to work on, and there are spiritual disciplines that needed to be picked up and given priority. SO HERE WE STAND - We are not gifted language learners, but we press on because learning the language well will improve our ability to talk with Bulgarians and the deeper we can go in conversations the more opportunities we will have to discuss matters of the heart - and when you get to the heart, there is no better place to go, but to the gospel.
It has been a good long stretch since my last blog entry. It has not been that I have been too busy or that I haven't had much to write about. The opposite is true, in fact. There has been much to say, but frankly a lot of it has been negative and rather than air a bunch of raw, confused emotions, I opted not to submit entries during that time. Now that a little time has passed, I will try to recap what happened when I went dark in the blogging world. Over the summer, Susan and I took our kids to Bansko to live in close proximity to some of our Bulgarian friends for one month. The intended purpose of this trip was to give us a boost with our command of the Bulgarian language. While we came away from that experience hearing a little better, it was not the breakthrough experience that we had hoped. We had passed the one year mark for language study and had heard of and seen others who were far more fluent in a much shorter span of time. When expressing discouragement about this observation, some would say, "Yeah, but he is single and that makes difference," or similar such statements. Then there was the unintended punch in the gut. A well meaning Bulgarian friend said, "You're not studying Bulgarian are you? Because you don't seem like you are getting any better." Around the same time, during a contentious moment in an argument over a small sum of money, a Bulgarian lady insulted me by saying, "I'm sorry you can't speak Bulgarian!" A day or two after that, I stood next to Susan in the grocery store when a similar criticism was thrown out at her. She was more gracious than I. I just turned and walked away steaming and hating Bulgaria. We have been going to classes on good days and bad. We have been studying in between caring for our kids and getting them educated. We have been getting involved with our community and going to our Bulgarian speaking church and participating in a family group there. And we, I in particular have been falling apart. I spent a great deal of time pleading with God for help and a great deal of time being angry with Him for not helping. You can see, these are not the happy things that missionaries usually write home about. I have not hidden these things from my team and many of them have been very supportive and understanding. Many people have been praying us through this time and though I felt very alone and questioned God's help, His help and His comfort have come. 
Susan and I have had opportunities to serve disabled children in a few different settings. We have invitations and opportunities to do more and we are excited for how we see God shaping our ministry here. No, it hasn't been pretty for the past several months, but it has been necessary. I have been shown my great need for God and spending time in solitude with no one but Him. This has been good for me. It has been good for Susan and it has been good for our kids. Paul and Liz Meiners (MTW Europe Care Coordinators) were here for our team retreat in August. During that time, Paul interviewed me and asked what I felt like I needed to be most successful in ministry. My response was, "I need to feel like my life is not unraveling." Well, I can say that I no longer feel like my life is unraveling, but I have been humbled by how easily and how quickly I could be there again. Without going into too many boring details, I will say that my family and I needed a readjustment. There were practical things about daily life that had to change - that we continue to work on, and there are spiritual disciplines that needed to be picked up and given priority. SO HERE WE STAND - We are not gifted language learners, but we press on because learning the language well will improve our ability to talk with Bulgarians and the deeper we can go in conversations the more opportunities we will have to discuss matters of the heart - and when you get to the heart, there is no better place to go, but to the gospel.
