Thursday, May 26, 2011

Bulgarian and Culinary Adventures

Sorry that we haven't blogged in a while! We have had a busy week, moving in and becoming acquainted with our new towns.
We drove to Pravets last Friday and met our leader, Zhana, then drove on to Vidrare, where we attended a program put on by the school children. It was pretty interesting, even though we couldn't understand most of what was going on. Afterwards, Zhana showed us around Pravets, which is about twenty minutes from Vidrare, and let us get settled into our apartments. Davina and I have a huge apartment, with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and bathroom. The guys' apartment is about ten minutes walk down the street, on the top floor, so it has a great view. Everything is in walking distance, which is different, but we've enjoyed it. The entire country has been on a holiday since last Friday, celebrating the Bulgarian culture, so we haven't begun our routine that Zhana has prepared for us. We visited a small Roma town called Manaselska Reka on Sunday. It's high in the mountains, which meant an interesting bus ride for us. Zhana has church services with a small group of people every Sunday. Usually, after church, she plays with the children so their mothers can visit with each other. With us here, Zhana is able to sit with the women and build better relationships with them while we entertain the kids. So we played tag and Frisbee with the kids and taught them a few new games. We have been working on our Bulgarian vocabulary, and being around the kids has helped us learn even more. The kids and families we have come in contact with have be so welcoming and open to us!
Another adventure we have experienced is cooking for ourselves. I was so excited about doing this; we have vegetable markets and a small grocery store down the street from us. I thought it wouldn't take us long to figure out how to make dinner for ourselves, but it has been an interesting experience. Saturday, we had the basic chicken and mixed vegetables. It was tasty, but not very exciting. Sunday, we were able to eat some wonderful soup and bread in Manaselska Reka. Monday, we ate huge bake potatoes the we bought from the market. They were definitely the biggest potatoes I have ever seen. They turned out pretty well. Probably our best night. Then we had spaghetti on Tuesday. It was alright, except that we didn't know the guys don't like Italian food that much, so that wasn't a favorite for us. Wednesday was probably the worst, though. We decided to have rice, corn, and baked chicken. We cooked the rice and corn while the oven heated up, then had to wait for at least thirty minutes for the chicken to cook. So we had some very strange chicken and cold rice and corn. Tonight was better in the fact that we found frozen chicken patties and made french fries; the chicken tasted like fish and the fries were so greasy that they were sliding out of our fingers. So, best night so far: baked potato, worst: take your pick.
We have had a wonderful time here so far. God has definitely blessed us with a beautiful location and amazing leader. We know He will continue to take care of us, even if we aren't so good at taking care of ourselves yet. We have fallen in love many times over with the land and the people. We have only been here a week, and it feels like we are completely enmeshed.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Here We Go

The time has come to embark on this great journey, half way around the world to a place whose stories I’ve heard do not do it justice. Only having truly been out of the country once (about a month ago) to Canada, which is not exactly another country, I am very nervous yet excited to see the drastic change in culture we’ll see stepping foot in Bulgaria. Our flight leaves at 1:00 p.m. Sunday the 15th. We will be traveling from Nashville, to Washington D.C., to Frankfurt, Germany, to Sofia, Bulgaria. All 19 of us will be spending a few days in Sofia, Bulgaria’s Capital, for some training before we head out to our various destinations across eastern Europe. Bethany, Davina, Daniel, and I will be in the small town of Vidrare. Here we will be working in an orphanage for disabled children who have been abandoned by their parents during the mornings of the first few days every week. Then we will head over to a local school to have some fun the some of the kids. One day every week we will be traveling to another near by town to take some wise, old, Bulgarian elders on walks outside their retirement home. Hopefully we’ll be able to pick up on the language and catch some tasty traditional Bulgarian grandma recipes. Another day we will likely be teaching English to high school kids. I look forward to just sitting and trying to teach English, while being taught and attempting to learn Bulgarian at the same time. I am so excited, and fearful of what I am stepping into. I cannot wait to see how God is going display his love during these three months. The relationships we will build doing all of these things is truly what this trip is about. Watching a movie at my house tonight, with a group of my closest friends, I realized how much I am going to miss everybody. But even though these friends will be missed, I look most forward to meeting new lifelong friends to live with, love with, and grow with.

Thank you so much for helping us get here. Thank you for your prayers, and please continue to pray for us. I pray that God uses me however he sees fit.

Grace and Peace
Preston

Monday, May 2, 2011

T-minus 13 days and counting...

Welcome friends and family to the blog of the Vidrare Immerse team. We are extremely blessed to be embarking on this journey in a few weeks, and we want to thank you in advance for your support, whether that has been financial, emotional, or spiritual. We now more than ever ask for you to pray with us for the summer ahead.

It has been a leap of faith from the beginning; three months overseas in a city we know very little about with a team of four including people we had yet to meet. But now that the dust has settled - our team has been formed and we know the city in which we will spend the summer - the anxiety has not diminished. Communication across the world does not come easy, and we are still scrambling to gather all of the necessary information (packing suggestions, trip itinerary, money, etc).  

Everything is a swirl of thoughts and emotions: excitement, anxiety, worry, contemplation, adventure, relfection, preparation, and hope for what is to come. We do not head into Vidrare expecting to bring the Gospel with us and to accomplish a long list of goals, but to meet the people right where they are in the journey of life and join along with them while living within the reign of God. The Kingdom is not confined solely to our home churches, and we expect to enter into a fresh, dynamic, authentic chapter of God's story this summer in Bulgaria.

For me personally, I have been out of the country several times but never for such an extended period of time, and I cannot wait to settle in to Vidrare knowing that I will not be packing my bags in a week or two, but that I have all summer to make friends and share life with them. I know the stories and faces of those I meet will be on my heart for a lifetime, and I hope and pray that I faithfully exemplify Christ's love in all things. If you are wondering how you can pray for me this summer, there ya go.

Lex Orandi Lex Credendi,
Daniel