2013 Family Recap

Wow!  What a big year 2013 was in our lives.  This was the year of change, that much is certain.  The rest of it is marked by decided uncertainty, and also by God’s faithfulness.  Here’s a little about what happened in 2013.

January

After receiving multiple offers on our home on Dec. 31, we welcomed 2013 with a day of negotiation and realtor-finding.  We signed a contract with the buyers of our home on Jan 2.  Thankfully, they wanted to rent the house to us for 2 additional months, so we had 90 days to vacate.  Let the packing, selling, and temporary-house hunting begin!  At the time, we still had no idea where we were going to end up, but selling the house (for almost asking price!) was a huge confirmation from God that we were indeed supposed to be heading somewhere.

February

In February, we began selling our belongings in earnest.  Craigslist sales became an everyday affair.  We were offered a temporary place to live by friends, which was a huge blessing and took much of the stress off of us.  We also reached a decision to head to Bulgaria!  We set a departure date for July 9, and started fundraising.  We also had our family photos taken by a friend who did an excellent job, and ordered our prayer cards.

March

March was a blur of more selling, fundraising, and moving!  We left the only home the kids had ever known and moved into a temporary place at the end of the month (the Sunday before Easter!).  Our month looked like this:

April

April was a relatively quiet month.  This was the time when we started to settle into the idea of moving overseas and away from everyone and everything.  Living in temporary housing 30 miles from our beloved little town gave us a chance to slowly adjust to the idea of being much more the 30 miles away.  We began looking at every moment with loved ones in a new way and cherishing every moment.  

May

In May, we celebrated Elijah’s 6th birthday.  This was a very fun occasion for him as it marked the first year he was allowed to choose his own birthday activities.  He chose Jump-it, dinner at Texas Roadhouse and a sleepover.  We also did quite a bit of fundraising travel and speaking, including the amazing day we spent speaking and sharing at our beloved home church in Hillsboro, IN.

There was also one 3-week-long near panic regarding the FBI clearances and fingerprints… but we would prefer to leave that in the past. :)

Elijah and friends on his 6th birthday.

June

The month of June was a month of lasts.  It was full of tears, and bittersweet moments.  It is also overflowing with lots and lots of precious memories, many of which are making my teary-eyed as I write.  There were visits with family, park trips, and outings that we will never forget.

There was also the first round of goodbyes, these to family members that did not live close by, as we knew we would not have a chance to see them again before departure.

This was also the month of watching God provide for our financial needs and lots of prayers for documents to arrive in time (they did!).

One of the most precious memories in June was of Milena’s baptism.  Many friends and family came to celebrate with her, and it was a wonderful evening.

Milena’s Baptism

July

July was…  indescribable in a short paragraph.  Or even a full blog post, really.  We packed We said goodbye.  We left.  We vacationed briefly in Chicago. We flew.  We arrived.  We made our first trip to Greece.  We rented an apartment and moved in.  So much emotion.  So many new experiences. 

August

In August we celebrated our first milestone in Bulgaria.  Milena turned 8!  Along with her birthday, we also received our first package from the USA.  We began working and settling into life in Sofia.  We bought a car, had our first dinner guests, and attended church Sundays and Wednesdays.

Also in August, we got involved in an Embassy playgroup with people from all over the world, and started to make new friends.  We also met the Mann Family, who were later to become both great friends and ministry team members.

We also started school early, in preparation for our 2014 trip to the US.  Already we were looking forward to seeing friends and family again.

Milena’s 8th Birthday Breakfast- Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

September

In September we got into something of a routine, but frustrations were rising with our current ministry situation and we sensed a change coming.  God was working, though, and by the end of the month we are starting to see Him bringing things together for us to join the Church of the Nazarene (our denomination) as Tentmakers in Bulgaria.  It was a perfect fit for us, and we began to transition.

October

In October, we officially submitted our resignation to the first ministry and joined the Church of the Nazarene.  This change brought much peace and “settling” for our entire family, and things began to settle into a new, happier routine.  Some of the homesickness began to fade and we started seeing the purpose in our calling here.

Don began working with a ministry to the refugees here in Sofia as well.  It’s been amazing to be involved in a front-lines ministry to people from around the world.

We also took a walking photo tour of our new city, which resulted in many great shots for this Mama to scrapbook!

November

November began with a fun trip to the Nazarene National Assembly, where we spent time getting to know our new teammates and met many of the pastors and leaders from across the nation.  For the kids, the highlight was definitely the visit to the castle in Veliko Turnovo,

We decorated for Christmas mid-November, after making most of our own decorations.  We also celebrated Thanksgiving with a lovely Turkey dinner with Bulgarians and Americans alike.  It was a great holiday!

A group shot at Veliko Turnovo (minus Sarah, the photographer)

December

December, while filled with Christmas celebrations, had a few other highlights.  The Nazarene Sofia Church found a new rental location, and Don spent much of the month preparing it for our first service. 

Our team also made great progress in planning the soon-to-be-built new church building.  We ended the year with a rough drawing of our plans, a business plan being written, and a timeline sketched out for 2014. 

Christmas was nice, but quiet.  Most of our friends were travelling over the holidays, so we spent a few quiet days at home with way to much food and some fun Skype chats.  We were blessed with several packages from US family and friends, and this made Christmas far more special. 

We ended the year staying at the Mann’s house for a few days, enjoying the big yard, trampoline, and unusually warm weather.  The New Year’s Eve fireworks here are amazing!

Listening to Don read the Christmas story on Christmas Morning

Thank you for supporting and praying for our family through this year of ups and downs.  We are so blessed and encouraged to have an amazing support team. 

We are also blessed with an abundance of great friends and family, both in Sofia and in the USA.  We are beyond grateful for God’s faithfulness in 2013, and we are excited to see what miracles and amazing things God will do in 2014.

Much Love, Don, Alyssa, Milena, and Elijah

Another Guest Post: Easing Transitions

I have another guest post up at Missionary Mom’s Companion.  I meant to post this earlier and it slipped my mind, but you can still go and check it out HERE.

Here’s a excerpt from my post:

Our family is new to the field, and there was one thing that we did while leaving that made all the difference. We took a 3 day mini vacation just before catching our overseas flight.

I read this suggestion online from Laura Parker, a seasoned missionary mom. Laura was sharing the idea in the context of “things we wish we had done,” and the idea immediately resonated with me. When we left the US to come to Bulgaria, we were leaving the only home my kids had ever known. It was my husband’s first overseas move. It was my first time overseas in more than a decade. It was a LOT to process.
The long weekend away was just what we needed.

You can read the rest of the post HERE.

Greece!

Just 6 days after arriving in Sofia, we headed to Greece with our attorney to apply for our visas.  The drive t5ook about 4 hours, and when we arrived in Thessaloniki, the first place we went was to the seaside for a short cruise.  The ship itself was a cruising café, so the cruise was free if we bought a few drinks.  No worries, I was ready for some coffee at that point anyway.  :)

The weather was perfect, the sun was shining, and we were really savoring the moment.  Being on the Mediterranean was pretty amazing for this Midwest family.

After the cruise, we checked into our hotel room.  The room itself was nice (though very small), but the view was perfection.

For dinner we headed to this tucked away local hotspot, on the recommendation of our attorney.  We could not have chosen a better place for a seaside dinner.  Great food, better view and experience.

In the morning, waking up on the balcony enjoying the sea breeze was wonderful.

After a nice hotel breakfast, we headed to embassy, filed our papers, and headed back to Sofia.  In a few weeks we will head back to Greece to pick up our visas!  Then we apply for resident cards and work on the kid’s visas.  Please pray that everything goes smoothly with future trips across the border and our paperwork processing.

Our Apartment

We’re now completely settled in our new apartment.  Please email me if you would like our mailing address (postcards for the kids are highly valued and carried around everywhere for days.  Just saying.  :)

Here are some photos.

As for the date stamp on these photos…  Well.  It has since been corrected.  These are indeed 2013 photos.  :)

Coming soon… observations from Sofia.

Our First Day In Sofia

We arrived in Sofia on Tuesday afternoon, and were greeted with a warm welcome by some old friends, who had prepared lunch for us.  It was so much fun getting reacquainted! Honestly, I don’t remember many details of those first conversations, other then the basics, like the delicious food and the feeling of being with friends that I have missed.

After a visit and a little unpacking (we stayed at Pastor Plamen and Debby’s house for a few days) we headed to IKEA for a meal with friends and a little activity.  This trip was designed to keep us awake until a decent bedtime.  It worked!  We had another nice visit and walk around IKEA, then collapsed. We slept reasonably well, and felt soooo much more human in the morning.

The second day we jumped in headfirst to deal with many of the details needed to settle in Sofia.  We started with a visit to currency exchange, then a visit with our immigration attorney.  The we opened a bank account (also required for our visas), had some awesome pizza, and coffee with Dessy.  I have a photo, but she made me promise not to post it.  :)

The iced coffee, however, was wonderful, and exactly what the mid-afternoon slump required.

After the coffee, Johnny (another new friend) took us to the police station to register.  This was required for our visa application and had to be done in the first 5 days.  Basically, it means that we have to let the government know where we are staying and how to contact us.  We used Johnny’s address for this, since we didn’t yet have our own. 

After all this activity, we capped the day off with a tour of the neighborhood we hoped to settle, and a relaxing dinner at a local Chinese restaurant.  Turns out, the grocery store tour and the Chinese dinner provided that night by Dido and Milena turned out to be EXACTLY where our new apartment is!  We didn’t know it that night, however. 

Up next… apartment hunting.

And Then It Was Time

Monday, July 8.  Flight day!  We checked out of our hotel at noon with all of our luggage.  We had 13 suitcases, 4 rolling carry-ons, and 4 backpacks.  Whew! 

We had to wait for about an hour to check our bags.  Apparently British Airways had no morning flights that day and the counters were closed.  We couldn’t get very far with all the bags, so we waited.

Then we went through security, and waited again.  :)

And then we boarded the plane.

The kids did great on the flight.  They only slept about 2 hours, so we were all exhausted when we arrived.  See?

In the next post, I’ll share some of our first impressions of Sofia!

Thanks for reading!

Fortnight of Moving, Part 4

Part 4 of moving involved one of my favorite cities, Chicago.   We drove the rental van loaded with all our luggage to the airport area hotel, and loaded up our room with luggage.

We spent the first day in Chicago downtown, eating brunch at our favorite place, PJ Clarke’s (awesome BTL’s!), walking lakeside, and visiting the Children’s Museum and Navy Pier. 

Our second day in Chicago was a quiet one, mostly spent at the hotel pool, followed by a dinner with Alyssa’s sister Cynthia and Brother-in-law George.  It was a perfect, relaxing day,

And then, on the third day, it was time to head to the airport.  To Be Continued…

One note- we were given a valuable piece of advice by a fellow missionary family.  This family shared with us that the best thing they did to ease the transition for all of them (especially the kids) was to put a little distance between the goodbyes and the flight.  This is why we took this time in Chicago, and I am so glad we did.  It was exactly what we needed to reconnect as a family, relax a little, and shed out tears before we got on the plane.  It really did make the transition easier.  If you are a family headed to or from the field, it’s worth it.  Honest.  :)