The tradition in Macedonia is to pull the ears of the birthday person to help him grow! 
Rebekah was happy to show Josh's friends how we "honor" the birthday boy in America!
Then we had our Kirkpatrick traditional birthday breakfast of pancakes followed by a lunch celebration of homemade corndogs with family (including teammates Spencer, Janae and Kate) on Wednesday.
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!
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. 
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. 
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 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.
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.
Rebekah with her bug collection for Biology. Thankfully she didn't have to collect as many as we had to for Mr. Minchew's class! To this day, the smell of fingernail polish remover reminds me of 7th grade science class! Rebekah's smile is for the camera – not for the joy of collecting bugs!
Their class danced to "Let's Twist Again" in the end-of-school performance.
Actually the cherries are sweet, not sour, but I was trying to be clever! I didn't grow up popping fresh cherries in my mouth as a refreshing summer snack – but we are all loving it! In a few more weeks we'll have to add "pick apricots" to the chore list! 
Our teammates Jeff and Amy Williams, and Maggie, will head to the States in two weeks for a six-month Stateside. They will be in Texas and Arkansas, so let us know if you want to hook up with them to speak about Macedonia!
