The Assen Fortress and other thoughts on Bulgaria

For district meeting we travelled 20-30 minutes south of Plovdiv to a Fortress built in the 12Th century a.d. It sits high on a peak overlooking and protecting the valley from all aggression. We climbed all over this fortress, looked at Acenograd far below us, and then found a quiet spot on a hill opposite the fortress for our district meeting. Our lesson was on walls, the types built, why people build walls, and the walls people build around themselves. The point of this was to help us understand how we, as missionaries, can get through their walls to present our message of love, hope, peace, and the gospel, a lesson we will not long forget.

The church in Bulgaria has so few youth and young single adults. We all know that the future of the church lies with the young people. So this week-end there were three 8 year old children who were baptized in 2 different branches. So you can imagine that all of us are thrilled to see the potential this gives to the mission and the church. We attended the baptism of a sweet girl in Sliven. Sorry we didn't get her name, but her mother Daniela used to teach our seminary/institute class, and her grandmother is also active. There is hope. Note the portable baptism font.

It is always exciting to visit a Seminary/Institute class when the teacher is prepared, the students are excited to be there. We were in Sliven on Saturday to visit this class. Miglena Alexieva has been teaching for 4 months and is very enthusiastic about her calling. The class is small but oh so needed. We have about 6 really good teachers who are Bulgarian, and several teachers who are missionaries who are transferred around every 4 months which doesn't allow for consistency. Thank you Miglena.

The Road Back to Yesterday

Yes, that is frost on the ground. There are so many pictures we could use to describe our Sr. Couple Retreat. There are places in Bulgaria that seem to be untouched by time and technology. What was to be a spelunking adventure turned out to be an awesome wandering through the Rhodopi mountains in the southern part of Bulgaria. Winding road filled with potholes up and over a mountain range brought us into spectacular vistas and people who seemed so happy with their agrarian way of life. But first we have to express John's first impression. The pastoral scene of a fisherman brought out something in him that could not be suppressed. Here he is showing us what was really on his mind. The road narrowed through this Trigrad Gorge on our way to the Devil's Throat Cave and the quaint village of Trigrad. The water was crystal clear and with a rocky bottom there just had to be fish.

Farming was done by horse, shovel, and hoe. The men plowed the fields, the women placed the potatoes and covered them up. This is a very large field for the methods being used. The sheep came home following the shepherd just as we were returning from dinner. As some sheep reached their path to home, they took off on the run anxious for the ground meal waiting for them in their pens. Baby lambs also waited for their moms so they could nurse. In the morning we watched one sheep being shorn by hand clippers, leg jerking every time the blades nipped a bit of skin.

We drove through beautiful country sides just 5 kilometers from the Greek border. This nice looking home has no roof; memories of yesteryears among the rock walls.

In the morning we did go through Devil's Throat Cave. It had a 45 meter waterfall we could only get glimpses of. Down we went into this huge cavern and then had 301 steps to climb through the Devil's Throat to the outside. Not a problem because of the handrails that helped us up, but being only a couple of degrees above freezing, our hands got very cold. At the top, we had wonderful views of this spectacular river as it coursed its way down through narrow passage ways.

Taking a different way home we climbed to a ski resort and found this interesting sight. The road was narrow, the houses so close to the road they had to carve out part of the foundations from these 2 houses to allow cars to go through.