Volunteers from Ruston, LA

This past Monday we said good-bye to another team from First Baptist Church in Ruston, Louisiana. This is the fourth team from this church in three years and we are so excited about all they were able to do while they were here.

The team of nine came during our town's summer festival, which lasted from Thursday through Sunday night. Our town of 75,000 was overrun as people from all over Macedonia and even beyond came to join the fun. Sunday night at the main-event concert, they estimate we had almost 200,000 people packing the streets!





FBC, Ruston, printed coozies with our club logo, filled them with water bottles and passed them out in the early evenings during the festival.















I don't think anyone here had ever seen or even heard of coozies, so we had to explain what they were. The name of our club is "Izgrev" which means "sunrise." Everyone seemed to really like the coozies because our logo has the Macedonian flag behind a silhouette of the distinctive mountain peaks that border our town of Prilep.

In June the Texas volunteers did some repairs and renovations and a sign with our logo was posted on site. These coozies were another great way to get our logo out there so that people will begin to learn who we are.

Along with the free water, several from the team performed short dramas in the town square and passed out fliers inviting people to come to a seminar that night at our club, which is very close to town square. Even Joshua and Daniel were able to get parts in the skits!!! (Rebekah was out of town.)


On Thursday and Friday nights Kay Bradford sang for us and Pastor Chris Craig shared his testimony and taught on having a personal relationship with Jesus.























On Saturday night we hosted a Ladies' Night. Melodye Patterson shared and at the end three of the ladies sang "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" in Macedonian!!! (Check out the video on my facebook.) None of them speak Macedonian but we wrote it out phonetically for them and they did a great job! It was so sweet watching the ladies' faces as they realized they could understand the song even without translation!
After each night's events, we all went out to the square with Macedonian friends and ate together and "enjoyed" the live music (it was a bit LOUD!).
Thank you so much to FBC, Ruston, for faithfully supporting missions in Macedonia! You each can name certain people who touched your hearts. You came to Prilep and made new friends. Hanging out is so important here and the time you spent with us was not in vain -- you were able to open doors and soften many hearts. May God continue to bless and nurture the seeds you have planted!

Here are a few more pics of you and your new friends:

LOSE a few hours; GAIN a few pounds!

As you know, our time in Bulgaria was really wonderful. The time flew by and we were sorry to have to leave to soon. But there was definitely a perk to leaving: we had to drive by the capital city of Sofia where there are several American fast food restaurants! We chose to lose a few hours in the enormous city (enormous compared to our tiny Prilep!) and gain a few pounds on the way!
We actually got lost but in God's mercy we found ourselves in front of a Duncan Donuts that we weren't looking for! What FUN! We ate some there; we got a few to go! We even stocked up on their vanilla coffee! Mmmmm!Then, even though less than an hour had passed since we had eaten our donuts, we found the mall we were originally looking for and ordered even MORE food! It was hilarious how we all split up at the food court. No time to chat, just order more food! Kyle, Daniel and I headed for KFC, Josh (along with our teammate Charlie) headed to Burger King and Rebekah and several other teammates lined up at Subway. (My mouth is watering even now at the memory! Yum!!!)
We leisurely dined and then lined up at different places to get more for the road! It's been more than two years since we had had an opportunity to sink our teeth into these delicacies and we made the most of it!

Anyone up for another road trip to Sofia? (Or rather another road trip BACK from Sofia?!)

Trip to Bulgaria

We just returned from great trip to Bulgaria! There were almost 150 of us Americans and it was a great time to reconnect with a few old friends and to meet quite a few new ones! It was so special to be with others living in the Balkans whose hearts are committed to Christ.

There was a team from Northside Baptist Church in New York who led our music for the week. The music was top-notch and they also shared testimonies of how God is working in their lives. A hairstylist and a photographer came as part of the team so many of us got new haircuts and family photos! What a blessing!!!

Immanuel Baptist Church in Highland, California, sent their pastor as our speaker and also a team to take care of our children. The kids had a great time swimming and playing -- they had a VBS program in English and they really enjoyed that!

Rebekah is now 13 so she's in the youth group! (Woo Hoo!) Mr. Larry led them in their own program with the help of Mrs. Linda. The group was small but they really bonded and found creative ways to pass the time in between sessions!

Lottie Moon Auction

One afternoon we had an auction to raise money for Lottie Moon. The volunteers donated lots of goodies from America and those of us living here paid outrageous prices for those scrumptious treats! An ice cream maker went for $450, a six-pack of IBC Rootbeer for $400 (those are now chilling in OUR fridge!!!), a 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper for $600 and a quilt for $1400! The NY music team spontaneously donated their drums and a bass guitar, and that brought in another $1850.

The most outrageous "item" was when we joined together to raise $5000 to shave Randy Covington's head! (Randy was the organizer for the meeting.) We all mentally recalculated what all we had already spent and squeezed out a bit more and in the end gathered $5330 and poor Randy had to have his head shaved right in front of us!

It must sound insane, but it is a lot of fun – and the money goes to a great cause. Besides, on Thanksgiving Day who's thinking about the hundreds of dollars given for those pecans in July?!

By the time the night was over, we all had a few extra treats and $25,000 was raised for Lottie Moon!!!

Thank you so much to the volunteers from NY and CA. And also to the two families from Mississippi who came to offer medical care during the week. And thank you Lord, for the blessing of this time of fellowship with other believers.

Texas Team

Wow! A few crazy days and June just flew by! I can't catch up on everything, but here's a bit!

We had a great team from Normandale Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX. They worked so hard to brick a walkway on both sides of a small walking bridge in our neighborhood -- it was just dirt and I can't tell you how slippery one side especially was in winter with snow and ice. Here are some pics (before and after) -- they really did a great job.
They also repainted the lines and the backboards on the neighborhood basketball court. They put the logo of our club "Izgrev" (which means "sunrise") in the center. It really looks fabulous.

The logo is the Macedonian flag "rising" over Marko's towers, which overlook Prilep.

Both of these projects are going a long way to show that our club is here to serve. The projects even made it into the local newspaper. Our hope is that people will see servant hearts at work and want to know what's so different about us! Thank you so much to Normandale for their time . . . and sweat. The sun was merciless at times!

We head to Bulgaria tomorrow for a meeting but will have more to share when we get back! Have a great week!