A Day in Downtown Sofia

On Wednesday, our supervisor came from Germany to give us our orientation and to get better acquainted with us.  We have enjoyed getting to know her better and learning more about our organization.  Today Boris gave us a tour of downtown Sofia.  It was wonderful to finally see the city we now call home.  Our neighborhood is nearly an hour bus-ride/metro-ride away from downtown, so this was our first time to venture out to see the big sights.

Here is a short video of our day which shows the highlights.  We also included some pictures below that aren’t in the video.

Here is everybody looking at a cool window display of “traditional” Bulgarian art.

This is a Romanian Orthodox Church.

Here are mineral springs downtown.  Sofia was originally built because of these springs.  Today people come there to get drinking water.

This is one of the old bath houses.

Andrea and Samuel

The Mosque downtown–we had just heard their call to prayer before this picture was taken.

Here is Boris in front of the most expensive shopping mall in Sofia.  It was originally built by the Communists.

The Party House, which used to be Communist Headquarters

The former residence of the kings and queens when Bulgaria was a monarchy

These are the remains of an old Roman church.

Bulgarian National Theatre

A nice park across from the National Theatre.  Apparently chess players come here everyday, rain or shine, to play.

The Russian Church

This is a Methodist Church in Sofia, which has a neat history.  The Communists wanted to destroy the church, but this would harm their diplomatic relations with the West since the Methodist Church was respected there.  So instead of destroying the church, they just surrounded it with buildings and put it to other uses.  Below the sign is the short passage to the church.

Here is the Methodist Church itself.  I couldn’t get a picture of the entire church because of it being surrounded by other buildings.

Interesting costumes, huh?

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the major Bulgarian Orthodox Cathedral in Sofia.

Taxi Adventures

On Tuesday morning we met the Dolans for breakfast at a great restaurant here called Egg Lake City (they serve pretty much any breakfast food involving eggs as well as things like pasta and Panini sandwiches) in time for Andrea and me to make it to a 10:00 Bible study that was nearby (or so we thought).  The day before, an American friend here showed me where the Bible study was.  It is pretty much a stone’s throw from our apartment, but it involves taking a taxi up the mountain a little ways and then getting out and walking some dirt roads (ironic in a city of nearly 1.5 million people), which are not labeled very well at all.  I was told by this woman NOT to ask the taxi driver to take us on these dirt roads, as he would be really ticked since taxi drivers are responsible for all their car repairs, and let me tell you that these were not nice roads.  They were muddy and full of pot holes and very narrow.  So, our adventure began at Egg Lake City when I called for a taxi to come pick us up at the nearby movie theatre.  First of all, I got transferred 3 or 4 times because no one could understand English and I didn’t want to try my broken Bulgarian and thus risk not getting a taxi at the right place and time.  Finally, after getting someone who could communicate with me, we were told that a taxi would come pick us up in two minutes…the walk from the restaurant to the theatre is more like a five minute walk.  The taxi company calls right as we spot the taxi.  We tell them we see it and after getting in, the only thing I can tell the driver is to take us toward “Malina Dolina” (which means Raspberry Valley).  “Malina Dolina” is the little neighborhood we were going to and it is nestled at the bottom of Mt. Vitosha.  Our taxi driver was already annoyed that we made him wait and now that we didn’t appear to know where we were going he was even more annoyed.  He wanted more specific directions, but I didn’t know any names to give him other than this.  I guided him to the correct street and then failed to recognize the gas station where he was supposed to drop us off.  We went maybe a mile to two past it when I realized we had gone a bit too far.  He was getting more annoyed by the second.  Andrea and I were repeatedly saying “sorry, sorry”, to which he would sometimes crack a slightly amused smile.  We finally got to a turn- around point and motioned for him to turn around.  I knew that I would recognize the gas station this time, but he was getting very impatient, asking lots of questions that neither of us understood.  I kept saying “soon, soon”, because I knew we were almost there but I didn’t know how to tell him exactly what we were looking for.  Finally I see the gas station in the distance.  The only Bulgarian words we could manage to get out in order to let him know this was our stop were “yellow” (because the gas station was bright yellow), “gas” and “petrol”.  He dropped us off, we paid him, and I could tell he was glad to get rid of us.

The story is just beginning here.  We took the dirt road across from the gas station (after waiting what seemed like an eternity to cross the busy street) and I accidentally turned too early onto another road.  We walked for maybe 15 minutes before coming to a place where we could get onto another road, and all the while Samuel (the Dolans’ six month old baby) was probably starving and cold, but he was a real trooper.  We tried the next road over, only to find that it was the wrong number, so we went back the other direction and found what we thought was another wrong road.  Surely, though, this had to lead us to the right place (eventually).  We were desperate at this point and decided to humble ourselves and try to spit out some Bulgarian to some construction workers.  We asked them where street 185 was and they pointed to a sign behind us.  Wouldn’t you know we were ON street 185!  They must have thought we couldn’t read numbers, but they were kind and helpful and that’s what we needed.  A couple minutes later we were at the right house and people were still arriving so we did not have to make an awkward late entrance.

Well, Bible study ended and we decided to meet back up with James and Jon, who were sitting in “Happy Bar and Grill”.  The only problem now was that we had no clue how to describe where we were to a taxi driver.  We walked back out to the main road (this time the trek on the dirt road was a mere 5 minutes or less) and as we were pondering how we were going to describe our location, a taxi of all things drives up and rolls his window down.  How could we get so lucky?  We didn’t even have to call one!  We tell him we want to go to “Happy Bar and Grill”, he says something that we didn’t understand and drives off.  Oh well.  That would have been too lucky to get a taxi without having to call and describe the “mystery” location.  At this point we notice that the yellow gas station has a name (“Tempo”), so I call and ask for a taxi in “malina dolina at the tempo gas station”.  They seem to understand after several repetitions and in less than 5 minutes our taxi arrives and we are off to lunch with no problems this time (thank goodness we had a different taxi driver!).

Never on Time

Hello!  We are back in the blogging world, hopefully for real now.  It’s hard to know where to begin.  Life has been quite overwhelming to say the least over the past four days.  We knew we’d have to learn how to do the basics over here: shop, buy groceries, use the public transportation system, etc., but we didn’t anticipate how difficult this would actually be in reality.  It is really quite humbling to struggle with the bare necessities of life and not be able to communicate even on a basic level.

One of the most humbling things, and one that we’re learning to laugh at (sometimes), is that we can NEVER seem to make it on time ANYWHERE.   You can almost guarantee that something will come up to make us late.  Several examples of this.

On Thursday Boris (the guy from Welcome to Bulgaria who has helped us with the visas and the apartment search) was supposed to meet us at Jon and Andrea’s apartment at 12:30 to take us to sign our apartment lease.  We were supposed to have 1800 leva on hand to pay our deposit, first month’s rent and the real estate agent’s fee, so we left in ample time to make it to the ATM and grab lunch.  We found out then that you can only take out 400 leva in one transaction, which shouldn’t have been a problem, except for the fact that our debit card only allows us to withdraw $600/day (the equivalent of about 800 leva).  We got our 800 leva and proceeded to use our credit card, but this was to no avail, because we have yet to set up a PIN-number on the credit card.  At this point our only option was to find a bank, which meant sputtering a few words to a stranger on the street who graciously pointed us in the right direction.  We go into the bank only to find two Bulgarian women who spoke hardly a lick of English.  About 20 phone calls and 45 minutes later, they tell us they have it all figured out.  We are relieved because Boris is supposed to meet us in 5 minutes.  They swipe our card, ask for our PIN, which we tell them we don’t have, and then they tell us they for sure can’t help us if we don’t have a PIN.  Wouldn’t that have been nice to know in the first place?  At this point it is already 12:30 and we still haven’t eaten OR gotten the money we need.  The Dolans were thinking ahead, though, and Jon walked in the bank right about this time carrying a bag with two hamburgers in it.  Now that problem was solved, but what about the 1,000 leva that we still needed?  The only option at this point was to walk back to their apartment and set up a PIN-number.  Right as we get to their apartment we see Boris walking up and so we explain our dilemma to him.  He was more than happy to wait, and he called the landlords and real estate agent to let them know we were behind schedule.  We ate in a hurry and set up the PIN-number with no problem. Then Boris took us back to the ATM.  This time James successfully withdrew 800 more leva, but now it wouldn’t let him make three transactions in a row.  Goodness…we were lacking only 200 leva…what were going to do?  We decided to try another ATM closer to where our meeting was taking place, and thankfully this attempt was successful.  We now had our 1800 leva in hand (mostly in increments of 10 leva so you can imagine how much cash was floating around in my purse) and made it to the meeting.  I have no idea how late we were, but all was well in the end.

On Saturday morning we got up around 8 and were out the door by 9.  We were on a mission to get breakfast because we had absolutely no food in our apartment (we lived with Jon & Andrea until Friday afternoon and hadn’t had a spare moment to get groceries after moving into our apartment).  We were told that there was a Dunkin’ Donuts across the street from our apartment, but couldn’t find it soon enough so we had to revert to Plan 2.  Now we would just go to the Billa (our neighborhood grocery store), get some food and shampoo (because my hair badly needed washing) and then go back home and eat.  That worked out alright.  Just one minor mishap as we forgot that you have to use a coin to get a shopping cart and we had no coins.  We figured out what we needed to say to get change from the cashier, and then we went about our shopping.  Then we got home and ate quickly and headed down the street to a big supermarket.  We absolutely had to have cups because we had no way to drink any water and we were pretty thirsty by now.  And I badly needed a hair dryer so that I wouldn’t freeze after washing my hair.  This trip took longer than expected and we were supposed to go to the Dolans between 12 and 1 to make plans for getting to church the next day (we still had no phone, so communication was not so easy).  We ended up getting there about 15 minutes late, which was not such a big deal, but we sure were running around like crazy people.

On Sunday we went to church.  We rode the bus to Bob and Becky’s (Bob is the head of Welcome to Bulgaria) apartment and then they drove us the rest of the way.  Unknown to us, we would be going out to eat with them after church ended (this was great with us, except that we kind of had a schedule).  Church ended at noon but we all stayed around talking until nearly 1, so by the time we were seated at the restaurant it was nearly 1:30 and I could see that there was probably no way we would be making our 3:00 appointment with our landlords, given that the bus ride back can be nearly an hour long.  Oh well.  At this point there was very little we could do.  It was after 3:00 by the time we left the restaurant and thankfully we were given a ride back to our apartment, so we made it back by 3:30.  Our landlords were outside the building getting a box of firewood ready for us and didn’t seem to be upset, but we felt terrible, especially since we didn’t have the vocabulary to explain why we were late.  All we could offer was “we’re sorry”.

These stories are just a glimpse into our first few days here.  We are glad that we can now look back and laugh, and that we seem to be getting better about being on time.

The best thing about Texas…

…is Big Bend. That really wasn’t a tough decision, as neither of us are fans of the high temperatures, lack of the fall season, and the (mostly) unchanging landscape. No, we really do like living down here, but we definitely miss living in Fayetteville at this time of year when the leaves are actually changing colors and the temperatures get significantly cooler. Anyway, it was fun to make the nine-hour drive down to Big Bend National Park and see some really awesome scenery. We basically had a five-day weekend, so we spent two days driving there and back, and three full days exploring the park. Big Bend is basically in the middle of nowhere. Once we got off interstate, we still had a good three hours of driving and we only passed through three very small towns.

Here’s some pics of the last town we drove through (still an hour or so from the park entrance). The name of the town was Marathon, and in the background you can see the banner for the “Marathon Marathon”. We wanted to eat dinner in this town, but unfortunately not a single place was open. It was a pretty desolate town, though, so I guess you can’t expect much.

Our first day we hiked two trails, about ten miles in all. The first one took us to the summit of a mountain and we saw some gorgeous views.

The second trail we went on was mainly through the desert (much hotter temperatures than the first one) and it took us to a place called the “window”, a narrow cut of rock that overlooked the valley and mountains below.

We had to cross a lot of water on this trail:

On Sunday, we took a scenic drive down to the Rio Grande. We got to look across the river into Mexico, and we even saw one man crossing back into Mexico on his canoe. It appeared that he had just dropped off a bunch of goods for sale (decorated walking sticks, bracelets, etc.) on the US side. He had written notes on pieces of cardboard, asking for donations for himself and his local school.

On our last day, we did some “off-roading” (it obviously wasn’t too adventurous if our small car is still running) to get to a hiking trail with some neat rock formations at the end of it.

Here are some shots of our campsite. It was the only campground open in the park because of recent flooding. Had we been given a choice, I think I still would have chosen this one because we were surrounded by mountains…and one of my new favorite animals, the javelina. Groups of these would come through our campground every afternoon to eat the grass.

A Summer Update

It seems as if life has finally settled down after the hectic past few months. We had an excellent time down in Orlando. Not only did we learn a lot, we also met a lot of new people. Several of the friends we made in Florida are now here in Dallas studying with us. After finishing up in Orlando, we drove up to the northeast corner of Tennessee to visit James’ aunt, uncle and cousins. While there we got the opportunity to speak at their church, attend a bluegrass concert in Virginia, and I even learned to water-ski for the first time! We had a blast and really enjoyed getting to visit with them.

First day in Orlando!

These are the apartments we stayed in. This is also what a typical afternoon looked like…dark and stormy.

A day at Cocoa Beach

It started raining after an hour or two

Calling the Hogs at Joe’s Crab Shack

A Beautiful Orlando Sunset

My first skiing lesson in TN

Up for the first time! But probably not for long!

Jumping off a dock on the lake

James learned to wakeboard

Once we got back home to Fayetteville it was time to pack up and make the move down to Dallas. My parents followed us down with their mini-van loaded up with all our stuff. Our first day at our new home was actually quite eventful. We were leaving the apartment to go out to dinner, and my dad noticed that a police car was parked across the street next to his minivan, and a police officer was between the two vehicles. His first thought was that he had gotten a parking ticket. My first thought was that someone had tried to break into the van and they had been caught by the police. Neither of us was correct. It turns out that there was a bank robbery right across the street (hence the officers with giant assault weapons surrounding the entrances of the bank), and the police officer was actually using my parents’ van as a shield. About that time, a woman and her son rode by on a motorcycle and told us that this bank has been robbed quite a few times lately. Although our first impression of the neighborhood was not too wonderful, we haven’t had any other negative experiences.

Our new home!

This is James’ new favorite chair. My first instinct was to put it away in our extra bedroom, but he won.

We love the full-sized dishwasher!

Virginia came for a visit our first weekend in Dallas. This is at the Museum of Cultures, which is right next to GIAL.

Our first anniversary! We went to the Dallas aquarium and enjoyed our wedding cake (especially James, since he never got any at the wedding).

We were very thankful that the Covingtons (Mom, Dad & Lisa) came to visit us the following weekend. We had gotten quite bored with no jobs, no school, no more boxes to unpack, and nothing left to organize. Not to mention that we were pretty much confined to our apartment due to the intense heat. They brought down another load of boxes for us, and they also showed us their first apartment and first home. We had a fun time with them, doing a little sightseeing and shopping around the Dallas area. The next weekend we went home for Allison and Tim’s wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and much fun was had!

On the 23^rd we began our first session of classes here. Right now we are both taking “phonetics”, “grammar”, and “language and society”. It has been an adjustment being in class all day long, but so far we have had much more free time than we did this past year. We hope it will stay that way, but from the way people talk, it probably will not!

Well, that’s a brief update on what’s been going on in our lives. I hope it won’t be quite so long before the next one!

Road Trip!!!

On Saturday we arrived at Training Camp (more on that in a later post) after being on the road for almost four days. Currently being jobless we decided to take several days to get down to Orlando by doing some camping and sightseeing on the drive down. Wednesday was our longest driving day–we left Fayetteville at 6 a.m. and arrived at Cheaha (pronounced Chee-haw) State Park, one hour east of Birmingham, Alabama, right at 5 p.m. After getting our tent set up and cooking a quick dinner, we checked out a few trails and watched the sunset over the foothills of the Appalachians. Thursday morning we got up early to hike the “Pulpit Rock Trail”, which led us to a beautiful overlook of the valley. Then we set out for the “Very Steep Lake Trail”, which was a huge understatement. We were exhausted by the time we got to the top, not to mention overwhelmed by the humidity. That afternoon we made the two hour drive to F.D. Roosevelt State Park in western Georgia, and finally on Friday we drove an hour or so down to Providence Canyon State Park to see Georgia’s “little Grand Canyon”. The canyon formations were quite impressive and definitely not something I would have ever associated with Georgia. Friday night we stayed at a hotel in Valdosta, Georgia (we figured that our grungy camping appearance might not make too great of a first impression at Training Camp) and Saturday we finished the drive down to Orlando. Here are some pictures of the road trip:

The highest point in Alabama! Yea!

Pulpit Rock Trail

Campsite in Georgia on Lake Delano

Posing for picture with FDR

This is where FDR often had picnics and where he sat to contemplate WWII

FDR’s retreat home in Warm Springs, GA

Hiking down in the canyons. It was super hot!

Guatemala

James and I were excited to get the opportunity to travel down to Guatemala with a group from UBC last week.  We’ve been wanting to go on a short-term mission trip together for a while, but it has never worked out until now.  We really enjoyed playing with the children at “Casa Para Ninos Aleluya”, a children’s home right outside of Guatemala City, caring for nearly 500 abused and abandoned kids.  We spent the mornings doing physical labor, and once the kids were out of school at 2:00, we spent our time playing with them.  On Thursday we took the afternoon off and visited nearby Antigua, where we did some shopping and visited some old Spanish ruins.  I went a little crazy with the pictures, and it was really difficult to narrow it down to just these. 

Me, Telma, Graciela and Ana

The children’s worship service on Sunday morning

Anna and Ana

James and Betty

Betty, teaching me a game

On the first day the girls (we were in charge of preparing all our meals) went to the supermarket with Rene, a nearly 80 year-old woman who definitely didn’t look, or act, her age. 

I’ve never seen ground beef like this before…

On the way back from the supermarket, we got a little lost in the city, so I thought I’d take advantage of the time to take pictures.

Our first project was to dig this big hole, which would later be filled with cement and used as the foundation for a water tower.  The guys did most of the digging, and we carried off the dirt in wheelbarrows.

James had quite a few eager helpers.

We also helped clear scraps of wood and concrete blocks from rooms that were going to be used for classrooms. 

The last two days some plumbers came from Springdale and we helped them dig a ditch and install some pipes.

The completed hole

One of the “gringo dorms”…this is where the girls stayed

All 8 of us outside the gringo dorm

At the town square in Antigua

Ruins of a Spanish convent that had been destroyed multiple times by earthquakes

This picture overlooks the gardens at the restaurant where we had dinner.

   

Spring Break 2008

Well, I realize that spring break was nearly two months ago, but I am just now getting around to posting some pictures of our spring break trip to Panama City Beach, Florida. With writing my thesis and everything else going on, I just never got around to it until now. We had a wonderful time camping at St. Andrew’s State Park with the Covington’s, Schaefer’s, and the Huneycutt’s and also enjoyed getting to see the Seaman family one of those days. Camping on the beach was a first for me, and other than sand being everywhere, I have no complaints.

Our first day, camping in Mississippi

James and Hannah

Campground in FL

Lisa and Pirate Hannah at Grogg’s, celebrating Mom’s (Ann’s) Birthday

Still at Grogg’s, sporting our St. Patrick’s Day attire

If you look really close, you can see an alligator

Gator Lake

I think these three could have won the best sand castle contest

Most of the crew at the beach

Boy was it windy!

At the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola

Only the Beginning

This week was very encouraging to both me and Allison. On Monday morning we found out that we had been accepted as members, which was two days earlier than we had anticipated. Although we had no real doubts about being accepted, it was a huge relief from potential fears and a confirmation of where we feel called to go in our life. Three years ago I first felt led to translation work, and now, three years later, that call has been realized. Hearing this good news amidst our busy schedule, however, was rather anticlimactic. In many ways, we feel caught between two different worlds. While we are still trying to finish strong at the U of A, particularly Allison with her thesis, we are looking forward to what the next few months have in store for us. At the same time, though, we realize that there is a lot that must be done before our goal of starting in July can be accomplished.

The fears of raising support and developing our partnership base, which were once something that we only thought of in the distant future, have very quickly become a reality now. Although we will receive some useful training in June, when we are registered to go to Training Camp in Orlando, we have to begin cultivating our partnership now, before we are trained, and while we are still going to class and getting in our weekly hours at work with Lightbearers. The most encouraging thing in all of this is definitely the support that we already feel from our friends and family, who we know are faithfully behind us. There is no way that we would have made it this far without the support of our family, and the closer we get to our translation project, the more we are going to need the this support.

Allison and I have already begun working on our first Partnership Development letter, which we hope to send out fairly soon. Again, we are so thankful for all of you who have played such an integral part in our lives and in getting us to this point. From grandparents to siblings, aunts and uncles to parents, and from friends to cousins, you have been immeasurably significant in our lives to plant a love for him in our hearts. It is impossible to express the encouragement that we receive from you in knowing that you are just as excited as we are about the work that is ahead of us.

Joyfully,

James and Allison

The Countdown

On Friday afternoon, James and I both had our 90-minute phone interviews. We felt like they went really well, and they definitely went by much more quickly than we expected. It was also really exciting to find out that we will not have to wait as long as we expected to find out if we have been accepted as members. We are expecting a call on Wednesday, February 20, so please be keeping us in mind.