Our first weekend in Shumen

Chase-
We have got down to work during the past few days. Working at Bobby and Rali’s house was not quite what I had expected, but we are getting so much done! It is interesting, on crew I had often thought, “ I wish we actually were able to help spread Christianity more instead of just cleaning, but then someone helped me realize that by cleaning, we were freeing up the counselors to interact with the kids and talk to them. Therefore, indirectly, we were. I realized last night that the same thing is happening here. By helping get this house together we are saving Bobby and Rali an incredible amount of time which they can then use to work more at the church. That really changed my perspective of the past few days’ work.
Amy, Abby and I worked on Thursday to get the doghouse built, which was difficult seeing as it was crumbling down. But with some concrete we mixed, wood and the basic building tools, we were able to do it. On the third level Brian and Bobby got a ton of work done putting up plywood. It was very hot up there but they worked all day and did so much. What beasts!
On Friday I worked with Amy, Allison, Whitney, Abby, and Amber in the backyard to clear out a bunch of weeds, trash, random junk, and tree stumps. Those were hard but through a combined effort, we dominated them. Josh and Howard hauled a whole lot of wood together, and Brian again was up in the attic. In the afternoon Abby, Amy, and I went up to help up there too and again it was hot- we could not turn on the AC because of all the dust in the air. It is done now and it looks great.
On Saturday we went to a church youth group event where we met a bunch of people from Bobby’s church. That was a great time of interaction, and we got to know several people really well. Rali left for America mid afternoon, but it should be a great trip, so we are excited for her. Then that evening we did some work at the house again, and then split up and went out for some guy bonding time and some girl bonding time. We got delicious pizza and talked. It was good to wind down a bit.
Today (Sunday) we attended Bobby’s church! The service was in Bulgarian, but a few people who were sitting with us translated. The worship portion lasted a good 45 minutes to an hour, and although I couldn’t understand the words and only could pick out a few, I really heard to emotion in the singing. Whenever a leader prayed, the whole room filled with murmuring of agreement. At first I was thinking, “ why are they so noisy?” but then I figured out it was they getting into the prayer as some will say “Yes Lord” during a prayer in English. I loved that. They brought us up on stage and we told why we were there and each of us gave a brief testimony about ourselves. Afterward we stayed and talked with church members and leaders, and some of us had a jam session on the stage with them. They really wanted to see what we could play. It was fun.
Tomorrow we are hoping to go work at the property, but that is presuming the van gets repaired. I fear that may not be done by tomorrow, but we shall see.
I think prayer for our team’s spiritual strength and physical endurance would be great. Satan is alive and well, and among us all. That has become clear on this trip. He is out to get us. Thankfully we have Jesus, but if we are not wary Satan can sneak in and wear us down without out us seeing it at first. We do daily quite times and discussions, which are good to keep us focused on our goal and united.
A cool side note, Bobby is a great father. Seeing him interact with his children is fun and inspiring. What a cool guy.