Sometimes you just have to laugh...

Monday:  It was one of those days that just doesn't go your way.  Right after the kids got out of school we all loaded into the car and drove the 30 minutes to Stara Zagora to pick up our new ID cards.  Steven had also noticed a warning light on in the car, and planned on getting it looked at while we were there.  Lots to do, and not much time to do it in.  Well, we got to the imigration office and were lucky enough to get a parking spot right in front.  Henry was trying to nap, so I told Steven to just run in and see if he could get the cards without all of us having to go in.  If they needed to see me they could look out the window and I would wave.  Well, this would not suffice, so we gathered all the kids, coats, gloves, hats, etc. and headed into the office.  Once all in there they asked for our passports....say what?!?!?  We had not taken the passports becuase we didn't think we would need them to simply pick up new ID cards.  I mean, we had our old cards that were just issued last month.  All we did was change our address.  So, a little dissapointed and more than a little frustrated, we got all the kids back into the car and drove to find the car place.  Finally we found it and Steven went in to see if they could simply fix the problem.  Of course it couldn't be that easy.  They were very nice, but said they didn't have time and  we would have to come back Friday morning. (meaning the kids would have to miss school) By this time, the kids were going crazy from having to sit in the car, Henry was hungry and crying to be fed, and I was starving because I hadn't had lunch.  Okay, we admitted defeat for the day, took the kids to the play place at the mall and did a little shopping.  Surely the next day would be better. 

Tuesday:  To cheer us up, Steven decided to try to get our Christmas tree.  He found a place (the only place) in Kazanlak to get one and went to check them out.  While it isn't quite a "Cahrlie Brown" christmas tree, it is pretty close.  You see, Christmas trees are new here and not many people get them, so there really isn't a market like in the states where they have groves of them.  Here, basically the foresrty service goes into the woods and chops down a few okay looking fur trees and sells them for cheap.   As you can imagine, without a real market for trees, it is impossible to find a tree stand.  So, after proudly bringing the find home, Steven had to figure out how to get it to stand up.  He then went to scour the town in search of supplies to make a tree stand out of a few 2x4's.  He quickly found out that there aren't many places in town that sell wood.  So, we have improvised with a bucket, empty crisco can, and lots of wire.  Even after all of this rigging, it still has a tendency to fall if you just look at it wrong.  This took all day and at every turn of not accomplishing what he wanted, Steven got more and more frustrated.  My poor husband.  I just reached that point when all you can do is laugh and have fun with it.  So, basically our entire Tuesday was all about the Christmas tree.

Wednesday:  Then we get to today.  I went to the first language class becuase Steven said Eli's teacher had said I needed to be at the school anytime after 10am to help Eli make some craft.  Okay, that sounds like my kind of fun!  So I finished up class at 10:30am and headed to Eli's school.  However, once I got there, I realized there had been a break down in communication.  Apparently, she had said to be there AT 10am.  which I wasn't :(  The lesson was over and there was nothing for me to do.  So, I just picked Eli up early and let him stomp through snow piles on the way to pick up Jonathan.  After I had both the boys in tow, we headed home.  On the way I had an elderly couple get onto me for Jonathan not having his coat zipped, and another man comment on how I was leaving my youngest child to far behind and he could get hurt.  I smiled politely, as if to appretiate the unwanted advice, and addressed the problems.
I am now just laughing at any and all other stresses that come my way.  This is already a stressful time of year, living in a foreign country away from family.  However, I know God sees me and knows my heart, because amongst all of this craziness it snowed all day today.  Not giant flakes, but little off and on flurries that lifted my spirits.  You see I LOVE snow, and my Savior knows that, so I know those flurries were just for me. :) 

My mother-in-law told me to....

I thought no one even read this, but my loving mother-in-law just emailed me and told me I needed to update my blog.  I now feel very loved and wanted on the internet.  So, if there is anyone else out there, besides my in-laws, that read this, enjoy.
I am going to briefly fill you in on what has been happening with us by month:

April: I celebrated another birthday. (Can't believe I am already 25!)  We continued in language, the kids continued to do well in school. I recieved the shocking news that my grandmother, Mimi, was terminally ill.  God was Sufficient!

May: Henry Silas Cooke surprised us all 5 weeks early.  Late at night May 15th, we became a family of 6.  Although he was so early, there were no complications at birth and we brought home a healthy little guy just a week later.  Kids got out of school, we adjusted to life with a baby.  Audrey, Jonathan and Eli showered their new baby brother with love and kisses.   My Mimi got to meet Henry via skype and speak with all the kids mulitple times. God was Gracious!

June: My Mimi passed away, and I felt the first sting of being so far away from family.  God wrapped me in His arms and provided me with many ways to grieve so far away from home.  My parents came to meet Henry and we had fun showing them around Bulgaria for a few weeks.  Then my dad headed back to the states while my mom stayed behind to help us out for a month.  God was Comforter!

July: We all traveled to Greece for a meeting with all of the missionaries who serve in Europe.  With my mother along to help and have fun, we drove first to Thessaloniki for a few nights, then on to the conference.  After the conference we spent a few days in Athens.  On our drive back home we detoured through Philipi and along the northern coast of Greece.  It was beautiful!  We started to get back into the routine of language and began to look at the next step in our journey here.  God was Love!

August:  My mother went home, and I was left to cook and clean for myself again.  It was hard to say goodbye, not knowing the next time I will get to see family.  We reapplied for visas.  All of us, except Henry, recieved said visas.  His is still in the works.  We began to make preperations to move.  Steven and I traveled to Kazanlak to look for an apartment and God made it very clear as to where he wanted us.  We crammed in some final language lessons and said goodbye to a wonderful teacher whom we will miss dearly.  We continue to pray for Elka, and the many truths we were able to share with her while in her class.  God was our Guide!

September: We said "see you later" to some very good friends, packed our few belongings(well, movers packed....and it was a little more than "few" belongings.) and moved to Kazanlak.  We got here just in time to get Audrey and Jonathan into school, and they arrived on their first day excited about what the year had in store.  We spent many days unpacking boxes, putting furniture together and getting to know our new little town.  There are only about 50,000 people that live here, compared to the 2 million in Sofia.  We love the slower pace to life and the small town feel.  We also enjoyed getting to know our new church.  While we loved our church in Sofia, the church here is bigger.  We look forward to getting involved.  We already met a few people and started developing relationships.  We also had a team come from Tenessee and work at the church.  They had a physical therapist who helped out in the medical clinic at the church, while a group of men led a bible study, and a group of women visited some ailing church members.  We had a blast getting to know the team and are looking forward to them coming again. God went before us!

And that brings us up to October.  We have continued to strengthen relationships already made and look for new ones everyday.  I have already met up with two women I met, and am planning playdates with two more hopefully some time this week.  God continues to shine the light right before us and we continue to follow.  We continue to pray that His will be done through us here, and that we would get to see an awakening among the Bulgarian people. God is with us!

Family Matters

I have learned to value many things in life, and time with people is one of the biggest.  We are only on this earth for so long, and it is mainly through interactions and time spent with people that we are really remembered.  For this reason alone I cherish every memory I am able to make with people I love.  We recently returned from a vacation to Germany.  Now, before you think we are rich, we had a conference to attend the week before and simply tagged on extra days as vacation.  However, Steven's parents were able to travel with us and it was wonderful.  I have been blessed with great in-laws, and I'm not saying that simply because they might read this blog.  I truly have been blessed.  They both became ill while on this trip, yet managed to keep up with everything we did.  I could tell they didn't want to miss a moment with us or their grand kids.  The encouraging thing about it is that my kids made so many great memories with not just me and Steven, but also with their Papaw and Mamaw.  We have pictures of them all in front of castles, cathedrals, and the Alps together.  Not to mention the hours spent in a rented van simply driving the countryside.  Now the fact that it was in Germany is really neat.  However, the time spent could have been anywhere and been just as precious to me.  It was the act of being together as a family and experiencing life together that made it great! 

Beginning to see God move!

As you can tell from my previous post we have been here for one whole year.  It has been a great year, and we are starting to really see God move among people we know here.  Yes, it took a year for this to happen, but I praise Him for His timing and grace in even letting us be here.  We have many friends who have started to ask us some great questions about the Bible.  We even have a few who are interested in starting a Bible Study! :)  However, coordinating times for this is another story.  I want to share the opportunity I had just yesterday to share with a friend of mine. 
    She speaks great English, but we meet once a week so she can help me with my Bulgarian.  I have really enjoyed getting to know her and she has an adorable little girl that is in love with Eli. So very cute!  Anyway, I have been meeting with her since October and while I always speak biblical truths into our conversations, I hadn't had a good chance to share the Gospel.  This all changed a couple of weeks ago when she began asking me about who we work for, and what we will really be doing here in Bulgaria.  I was able to tell her we are looking at starting bible studies in the villages.  She lit up and said, " This is wonderful! Bulgarians don't know what the Bible says."  We then started talking about baptizing babies.  I told her that while I understand it is a tradition in many churches in Bulgaria (and America as well), the bible never mentions baptizing infants.  She was intrigued and shared an interest in being able to read the Bible herself to find out if this was true.  I told her I could get her a Bible in Bulgarian and in English and she was extremely receptive.  Our meeting ended and we planned to meet the next week.  Well, we just met yesterday and she came armed with questions.  She was excited when I told her I had a Bulgarian Bible for her and that my father-in-law was bringing her one form the states in English.  I then showed her the verses about Jesus' baptism and explained this was what we based our belief in baptism on.  I told her that while many churches do have the tradition of baptizing infants, the Bible tells that the only way to Heaven is through Jesus Christ.  So, how can a baby understand that.  She agreed and had many other questions about the Bible, such as, what is the difference between the Old and New Testaments.  I explained and through that was able to tell her the plan of salvation and why God sent Jesus.  It was just getting good when her boss called and was very upset she wasn't in the office.  So, we had to quickly finish our lunch so she could get back.  I know that time was ordained by God, and I pray He will continue to give me opportunities to share with her.  For her to be genuinely interested is extremely rare in Bulgaria, and I praise God for this chance!  Please pray that her thirst for biblical knowledge would continue, and that when she receives the Bibles she will be excited about reading them.  Also pray that God will give me wisdom on how to answer any questions she might have.  But, most of all, REJOICE with me in the work the Holy Spirit is doing in her life!!!

Our first year in Bulgaria

Wow, I have been anticipating writing this blog for months now.  I have thought about all the witty ways I would tell about how great our first year on the field has been, how God has sustained us through some very big challenges, and how we are more excited now than when we first got here about what God is doing in our lives.  Now the best way I can think to get it all down and not write a book is to simply list the many things we experienced in shortened versions.
Our year of firsts:
1. We lived in an apt for the first time with 3 kids
2. We experienced and conquered public transportation in the capital city
3.  We traveled by train.
4. We found ourselves able to only communicate with a small handful of people
5. We enrolled our children into Bulgarian schools
6. We learned to lower our voices in public so we didn't stand out as the obvious Americans
7. We have gone without decent beef for 1 whole year
8. Stacie learned many creative ways to cook just pork and chicken.
9. Steven learned that in the winter the ice is very, very slick
10. We experienced our first white Christmas, as well as the lowest temps and most snow Bulgaria has had in decades.
11. The kids got to go sledding
12. Audrey built her first snowman (it was as tall as she was)
13. Steven preached for the first time
14. The kids flew on a commercial airline
15. We worship as a family in a foreign language
16. Stacie visited a doctor, who told her not to ask any more questions
17. We will be having baby #4 not on Texas soil
Through it all we have experienced God's grace and guidance and give Him all the glory for a great first year here.