We spend several days resting and preparing for this year of work. Our team has grown to include two new families in Sofia and two babies in Plovdiv, and this was a great time for me to get to know them. While this was a beautiful week, it was also very hard for me. I did not find it easy to relax or rest, and some of my expectations didn't fit with reality. As the week ended, I recognized that some of my stress and anxiety was in partly due to spiritual attack. I'm thankful for my family here, as we learn to reach out and love each other and those around us, because even in the face of attack from the Evil One, God is making us a family that apologizes, forgives, and genuinely cares about others.
This is my family in Bulgaria. I have spiritual parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews. Some of them speak English with an Australian accent, some with a southern accent, and some with a Bulgarian accent. Some of them only speak in cute baby squeals and grunts. We are all so different, yet we are a family and I am thankful for them!
We spend several days resting and preparing for this year of work. Our team has grown to include two new families in Sofia and two babies in Plovdiv, and this was a great time for me to get to know them. While this was a beautiful week, it was also very hard for me. I did not find it easy to relax or rest, and some of my expectations didn't fit with reality. As the week ended, I recognized that some of my stress and anxiety was in partly due to spiritual attack. I'm thankful for my family here, as we learn to reach out and love each other and those around us, because even in the face of attack from the Evil One, God is making us a family that apologizes, forgives, and genuinely cares about others.
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July ended in a series of goodbyes, hellos and traveling. I bid farewell to the Well interns and the next day I left for Prague to hang out with my mom and brother. I arrived on a Wednesday after a layover in Istanbul (since flying to Turkey and then the Czech Republic makes sense...) to a slightly rainy overcast day. Being with my family brightened me right up, in spite of the weather! We had a great time walking around and even got to have dinner at my favorite restaurant in Prague! Since my mom's birthday is in July, I brought her present with me and then promptly wore it. :) I only spent one full day in Prague with my mom and brother, but the highlight of the trip was spending time with them in a beautiful place. We went to lunch at a terrace restaurant in an orchard on a hill overlooking Prague. It was beautiful! That evening we went to a concert featuring a string quartet and organ. It was in an ancient church near my favorite shop--a toy store. The music and the church were both beautiful and was such a great way to spend time with my mom and brother. Paul flew back to Sofia with me and we got to spend 2 weeks together. It was fun to introduce Paul to Bulgarian and Turkish food, such as kufche (a seasoned meat patty or sausage) and duners (Turkish street food--duner means twist and it's like a burrito, but with meat, french fries, and a yogurt sauce twisted into a flat bread). I loved showing him around Sofia and Plovdiv while he was here, and adventuring to some places I had not visited before! The last activity I did with The Well this year was a day long hiking trip in the Rila mountains. We caught a bus at 7:30am on our last Saturday and drove for about two hours. Then we took a lift from 5,198 feet up to the tree line (which was at 6,889 feet above sea level) and hiked up to 7 lakes scattered in the mountains above the chair lift. We hiked, took pictures, ate lunch, took naps, tested the water, touched snow, and got horribly sunburned! It was a long day, as we didn't get back to Sofia till around 8pm, but the views and the time together made our day worthwhile! We invited our Bulgarian friends to come practice English by hanging out with a bunch of Americans for a week in the Rhodope Mountains where we would give English lessons, do fun activities and just hang out. While a smaller than normal number of Bulgarians came this year, the people who were with us were exactly the people who needed to be there. Several of our friends heard the Bible taught in a way that exposed them to completely new ideas. Some heard Christians speaking about their struggles and God's faithfulness in such a way that made them realize that being a Christian is about a relationship with Jesus, rather than a religion based on rules. A few heard the testimony of a woman who used to work on the street until she met Jesus and He changed her life. This was a beautiful week, not merely because of the location, but because of the way we all saw God working. English ClassesWe divided the students into three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Leading up to the English camp, my friend and colleague, Lydia, and I wrote a rough outline of topics we would teach each day: Introductions, Planning for a Party, Solving a Mystery, Awkward Social Interactions (and how to be polite), Retelling the Events of a Story, and a Visa Interview. The lessons were fun, and it seemed like many of the students were growing in their English language abilities, even in the advanced class, where many of the students know English quite well! This is probably the area where I was challenged the most. Many of my students wanted to come to camp because of their relationships with the Americans who live in Bulgaria. They've come for years and are at the point in their English knowledge that they are not really interested in the class. This was challenging for me because I have gotten used to my students being interested in learning English. Instead of lighting up and enjoying the fact that it was camp and we could probably have just had conversations instead of formal lessons (something that would still help their English language skills) I clung harder to my lesson plan and as I found out later, wore my stern teacher face the whole week. So, while I enjoy teaching, I learned that the relationship with the students is a far more important aspect to teaching than the actual lesson. A good lesson, but a hard one to learn! ElectivesIn the afternoons, we offered several electives, from learning about veganism (one of the American interns is a vegan) to an intense CrossFit workout! My favorite elective was the art elective, where we were given tips on how to achieve different looks with sponges, salt, and layering of paint. It was fun to see how creative everyone is! The CrossFit elective was a hard workout, but was very popular! Many people were pretty sore, and we had fun teaching them how to talk about their "muscle fever" as it's called in Bulgarian. The electives were a fun time to do an activity together and just hang out. Free TimeOne of the aspects of this English camp is that it is part vacation for many people involved. We had a lot of free time built into the schedule for naps, hanging out, and relaxing, or playing volleyball. The court was pretty dry, so most people ended up with a film of dirt over their whole bodies by the end of a game, but it was fun to play and to take pictures! Near the end of the week, most people were too tired to play volleyball, so a lot of free time was spent on a patio under umbrellas, talking or playing cards. I realized near the end of the week that I was really struggling with being with people instead of doing things. Most of English camp, I was so concerned with doing the activities, that in the free time I wasn't able to relax and enjoy just being with my friends. I'm thankful that God gave me the grace to recognize this and spend the last few days of camp being more intentional with the time I had with my friends. Evening ActivitiesOur evenings were divided between talks and group discussions relating to the reading comprehension Bible passage from earlier in the day and activities like karaoke, a dance party, and a bonfire. The talks focused on sharing the gospel. We talked about how we all had things in our lives that were hard or bad -- things that we needed to be rescued from. In the small group discussions we talked about those things and what the Bible said about Jesus being the one who can and does rescue us. Some great conversations about friendship and dealing with suffering and hardship came from these times and we were able to tell people about how Jesus had rescued us. The evening activities ranged from zombie tag to board games. It seemed like the favorite activity this year was the bonfire on the last night. One of our teammates found and brought marshmallows and we had S'mores and enjoyed being together. A group of people even went stargazing after the bonfire. Many of the deep and significant conversations that happen at camp happen in the evening, either during or after the planned activities. Needless to say, we were all exhausted after late nights and early mornings! Camp was a great experience and I'm looking forward to next year! |
Elisabeth CarySharing the love of Christ to make known the hope of Christ in Bulgaria. Archives
November 2018
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