Miki singing her song from VBS in Bulgaria

Here is Miki practicing for VBS.  It is priceless.

Reflections on Camp

This past week I worked at CEF camp.  Originally I was supposed to team teach with a friend, but he had to pull out at the last minute so it left me as the only guy teaching the Word to a group of Serbian kids, many who did not speak English.   I have to be honest, when I first arrived I was pretty unsure about this whole thing.  The conditions were less then ideal (read hot, no A/C, lots of bugs) for a city slicker like me.  As camp started many of the kids came with hard hearts and had little interest in hearing truth and I was becoming a little frustrated - you know like God what do you have me doing here?  I spent a lot of time and prayer and just asked God to improve my attitude and use me for his purpose, what ever that may be.  Well  first the tempature changed by like 20 degrees - huge boost to my attitude!  Then as I began visiting with kids, hearing their stories, I realized my teaching was really encouraging the young believers and they were excited to be spending a week studying the life of Peter.  God really began to reveal himself to me and allow me to see where he was working.  It was energizing and renewing and by the end of camp God had blessed my socks off and I hope to go back next year.
Other then teaching, what did I do you ask?  Well I played a ton of kickball, quite a bit of badmitten and a little dodgeball.   Killed many many mosquitos! Tried to take opportunities to share my testimony and witness to individual kids.  Found some great quiet places to read the word and relax.  I did not sleep, the kids were up till all hours so I usually got about 3 hours a night in. 
All in all it was a great week.  Many kids moved closer to knowing the truth and a few excepted it.  Kids that were believers were greatly encouraged and learned to be bold in their faith.  I was given my first opportunity to teach the word since we got here and it was great.  I hope the camp continues to grow, and reach the kids of southern Serbia.  God willing this time next year I will get to give you another camp update.  Here are a couple of pics, me teaching and showing off my vicious kickball wind up.  For more pics, see my FB page.

Bulgarian Vacation Part 3 - the Beach

This will be the last post on vacation - promise!  After our meeting we loaded the van and headed out with another family across Bulgaria to the Black Sea.  We were a bit concerned when we arrived because it was cold and rainy, beaches are a lot less fun when it is cold and rainy.  We had a great trip and even stumbled on a Burger King in the middle of nowhere, there was not a town for 30 miles and we were not on the main road.  It was like a desert oasis for Americans.  The weather did not keep the kids from the beach, they stayed out of the water but worked very hard building sandcastles and such.  The sun finally did come out and the kids has a blast.  The beach got crowded but we were able to carve out our little area so we could swim and continue construction of the sand castles (this was very important, the kids met and drew plans) and searching for sea shells.  The water was super clear you could see the hermit crabs on the bottom, although from a distance the water did look black.  It was a little strange.  The Black Sea is a big vacation spot for western europeans (English, Irish, Dutch, and Russians) so it was an interesting mix.  Since the dutch were in the World Cup final, they were out in full force - mostly covered in orange.  Our days were pretty simple.  Wake up, go to beach, come home, swim in pool, take nap, go downtown for dinner: Repeat. The downtown area was really nice.  It was a main street leading to the peer.  Lined with resteraunts and all kind of vendors, selling everything.  At the peer was on of those human slingshot things, Miki loved watching people get shot into the air.   It was super restful and refreshing.  One of the highlights, the American food: Burger King and Subway.  It was great and really Bulgarian food, not that hot, so we were not missing out by eating American.  We were able to make it home in about 11 hours.  We drove all the way across Bulgaria and then almost all the way up Serbia.  All five kids were great coming home and Jennifer is the worlds best co-pilot/navigator.  We feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to sea this part of the world.  
 

Bulgarian Vacation Part2

After our travel the first part of our vacation was spent in Hisarya Bulgaria.  It's a little town in the Carpathian Mountains that was setteled by the Romans.  We stayed in a nice place with great pools that the kids loved.  We were there with our company on a business meeting.  It was great to see old friends and meet new ones.  We had wonderful teaching all week and great time of fellowship.  A team of American volunteers came to play music, teach and take care of the kids.  Both girls had a great time as they had a VBS the whole week.  The last night they did a performance and it was great.  It was very relaxing.  One of the volunteers was a photographer and took pics of all the family's that were there.  It was so nice and giving of her time.  We really appreciate all that was done for us.  I'll have more details in the July news letter. 

Bulgarian Vacation Day 1 and 2

We have the great privaledge of taking a  10 day vacation in Bulgaria.  We will be spending 5 days in the mountains and 5 days on the seaside.  I am going to try to update every couple of days.
TRAVEL

As many of you know we do not have a car but we were able to drive for this trip.  I must say for my first European driving expereince to be on a long road trip, it was a little daunting.  All in all it was nice.  The roads were pretty smooth for the most part.  We did detour off the main highway to see a montesary, and had the adventure of crossing a birdge, not wide enough for two cars.  The girls were great and just enjoyed being in the car and having AC.  Radio was only Serbian so after a while we just shut it off.  We were super thankful to have the car.

THE SIGHTS

We decided to turn our one day trip into two so we could see some of the southern part of our country as well as reduce an all day drive.  We were able to stop at a montasary in the south.  It was built at the end of the 1300's by Despot Stefan ( he was the ruler of Serbia and given this title by the Occupying Turks).  It was built like a fortress with a church in the middle.  The fresco's were done in Byzantium Blue (1 kg of paint worth 1kg of Gold) and the yellow paint had gold in it.  Our guide said when you walked in the whole church was "blue and gold like heaven".  It was beautiful 600 years later, I can't imagine at the time how it must have looked.  After this it was just a three hour drive through the country.  It was amazing, mountains, tunnels through mountains, sheep and goats on the side of the road - with shepherds of course. Tiny little villages.  We had never seen anything like this.  Jennifer and the girls really loved the scenery, I was trying to drive and just listened to descriptions.


SOFIA
This is the capital of Bulgaria.  We wanted to stay the night here so I took a chance on an internet hotel deal which turned out to be great.  Cheap, clean, right on the city center, and most importantly very close to DUNKIN DONUTS.  We had a great time walking the center and in one block we were able to see an Orthodox Cathedral, Mosque, Catholic Church, and Synagouge.  Very diverse.  We finished our morning at Dunkin Donuts and it was glorious!!!!

We got there a little early and Mac was not happy because we had to wait.

Visit to the Serbian Palace

We were very blessed today because of dear friends, the Harvey's, to get the chance to tour the Royal Palace of Serbia.  With two little girls, going to a real palace where a real princess lives - BIG DEAL.
SOME HISTORY
The Serbian Monarchy began around 1804 with the first Serbian Uprising against the Turks. Eventually Serb monarchs ruled the Yougoslovian nation before WWII.  With the Nazi invasion of Serbia in 1941 the monarchy was exiled to London and would stay in exile until 2001.
RETURN FROM EXILE
In 2001 the new government of Serbia invited the Prince back from Exile.  The King (Peter) had died in 1970 (and is buried outside of Chicago, the only monarch buried in the USA).  Alexander, the prince was raised in England and returned to Serbia with his greek wife in 2001.  They hold no power but act as heads of State and a symbol of Serbia's past.
THE PALACE
The palace was began in 1922 and completed in 1924 by the present princess Grandfather.  The compound was designed by two Russian architects.  It is done in a Serbian Byzantine style but the basement is much more Russian.  The basement has the movie theater, built when films were silent and the whispering room.  King Alexander had this designed with a fountain so he could have important meetings and not be overheard.   It consists of the Roayal Palace, and small Orthodox Church, and the White Palace.  The Royal palace is where the family lives today.  Tito and Milosevic never lived there but used it to Entertain guests.  The White Palace is used more for entertaining.  It also served as Milosevic's office.  It was in the White Palace where he refused NATO's urging to leave Kosovo, resulting in the 72 day bombing of 1999.
The church was desecrated by the Communist.  They carved on the Icons and shot holes in Jesus's head in the top of the dome.  They also stole several peices of Art.  Tito used the church to store cleaning supplies.  Prince Alexander has refurbed the church and today it is used to Celebrate holidays and the royal family's Slava.
OUR TRIP 
We had a terrific time and a great tour.  We were able to see both Palaces as well as the Church.  It was quite and Honor and the girls were super excited.  We are very thankful for the opportunity.  Here are a few pics you can see more on Facebook:

Here we are in front of the Palace with the pool and Gazebo Behind us and at the Kings Desk

Swim Poolin

Our AC was on the fritz today (our terrific landlords do have someone coming to look at it) so we decided we needed to cool off.  We had been told of a pool up the hill so after lunch we headed that way.  We were way impressed.  First it was super cheap, less then $5 for all of us.  We took some snacks, found a shady tree to put down our blanket and headed to the water.  It was a super place, kind of like a big YMCA.  They had a gym, tennis courts, and three pools.  One huge olympic pools and then two smaller pools.  The water was great, a little chilly (which was what we wanted).  Now we are in Europe so modesty with kids is a little different.  There were several kids around Miki's age with nothing on, and lots of girls up to K's age don't wear tops.  Now for us this was a little strange, but its the norm here.  Miki did not even notice, but you know K did.  Over all a great day and we will definitely go back. 

Here my girls are under the shade tree!!

Here we are in the kiddie pool - very refreshed