A few more of the Eyes of God

Now that I'm at a computer and have camera photos downloaded, here are a few more of the cave that we went in. Bobbi lived within ten minutes of this incredible place for most of her life, but had never been there. (It's not very accessible to someone who can't walk!)

The two-person carry over some of the steeper parts.

See the guy rock climbing?? This cave is HUGE!!!

And there are the eyes. Nearly symmetrical, and completely a natural formation.

For scale - a photo with people in it.

This is the other end of the cave - you can come in from either side. The crazy thing is that when you're on the top (the road goes right over the top of this!) you have no idea it's here, except for a little sign pointing you down a gravel trail.

We followed our cave visit up with a drive through the area around the caves. Absolutely incredible, and the photos just don't even come close to describing how beautiful and massive these things were!

A close up of the last shot.

(Look for the gazebo at the top of the bluff - this will come in later...)

cute underpass

Having a translator along meant we were able to follow the sign to the "gazebo" and ask directions of an old man when we couldn't tell which narrow car-width trail was the way we were supposed to go. So off we went, bumbling along this mountain trail in our rental car. (Did I mention that Matt paid his $20 to AAA and got himself an international driver's license???)

It was worth it:

There's nothing to stop you from going right out to the edge...

You can see the opening to the Eyes of God on the right hand side of this photo...

And a lizard joined us. :)

Bobbi's teacher

We had the most delightful time visiting with Bobbi's teacher - two hours on Thursday, and then she invited us to her house for tea on Friday, so another two hours. Bobbi wishes she'd talked more, and a number of other things, but overall, it was a very pleasant time, and some of the things that *were* really important to Bobbi to get to talk about we were able to do.

(I'm not really angry at whatever Boriana is saying here!)

(Really fun restaurant, too, built by a local guy who as a hobby makes these very interesting buildings from rock and whole tree trunks. I'll post some photos of another house he's building that we stopped at. In the meantime, here's another shot of the restaurant from the street, which I post mostly in case there are any other families who have adopted from Pleven reading this, because you may recognize this from your drive there from Sofia!)

These bathrooms were so cute! The doors are so short! (Not sure if any of you have had experience with "squatty potties" before??? Besides Dondi...)

Pretty courtyard where we ate. Not nearly as many mosquitoes as there are back in MN, where we joke that they're our state bird!

It looks like a castle on the outside!

When we went to her home, we parked around the corner, and Bobbi got to use her walker to walk herself down to her teacher's house. This is the first time I've been inside someone's house when I've been in Bulgaria. Her house is small (she inherited it from her grandparents), but it's fresh and tidy and comfortable and inviting.

One last hug goodbye - SO hard for Bobbi to leave, but it was so good to give her a chance to get back here.

The Eyes of God

Can you believe this is in Lukovit??

I have more photos on my other camera, because this doesn't do justice to the incredible scale of the cave we were in. 

We're a few minutes from leaving to go to Bobbi's old home to visit the kids and staff that she spent so much of her life with.

A simple request

I'm very much looking forward to sharing some photos, but I've been taking most of them on my camera and not my phone, and haven't downloaded yet.

In the meantime, would those of you who pray join us in asking for sleep for Bobbi?? She's in surprisingly good spirits, but had not had any really good stretches of sleep since the night before we left Minnesota. It's 3am local time here, and she hasn't been able to fall asleep at all tonight.

Thank you

We're really here!

Hardly seems real, but we're really here in Bulgaria! We stayed last night in the hotel we always stay at in Sofia is and later this morning will rent a car and Matt will drive us to the town Bobbi grew up in!!

This means war

[I began writing this over two months ago at the beginning of May. There are many drafts of this sort waiting to be finished to a degree that they're worth sharing. This one still falls short of what I had envisioned, but I'm hoping captures enough to fall into the "worth sharing" category, and, with the passage of time, it is now relevant in a timely fashion that it wasn't when I began writing it, as you shall see...]

I read an article a few weeks ago about the "little word" that will fell Satan (think Martin Luther and his Mighty Fortress). The argument, and strongly so, in the article is that the single most effective tool we have at our disposal against the attacks of our enemy is to call him out for what he is: a liar. Think back to the first interaction with Eve: Did God really say that you should not eat of any tree in the garden?...You will not surely die. What a different world we would be in if the response at that point had simply been, "Liar!!"

Adoption is war. Not prospective parents against beauracracy, or limited funds against looming deadlines, not parents against children, but at the front lines it is a war of Truth against the lies of the enemy. Children who are orphans, and I think particularly those who are orphaned through abandonment are bombarded every day, with very little buffer, with deep, debilitating lies of the enemy.

You are unlovable.

You are garbage.

Nobody really wants you.

You are just a burden.

You are worthless.

You are nothing.

If you were dead, who would even care? No one.

No one. 

Nothing. Trash. Unlovable.

If you add a disability into the mix, the spread of possibilities for the lies just broadens.

Adoption breaks into the trap of those lies with something totally different, and without even needing to say it explicitly, it shouts out, "Lies!"

We love you.

You are precious.

We want you.

We are willing to sacrifice for you - our time, our money, (our sanity???!).

Your life matters to us.

We care.

We love you. 

A few weeks ago our son Owen was able to join a group of people from our church on a week long trip to an orphanage in Jamaica that a past member of our church started about 20 years ago. I just read our pastor's reflections on the trip on one of his blog posts, and it was significant to me that what he found to be the most important thing they did on their trip was the ways they were able to reinforce the truth of God's love to these kids. This home, founded by a believer, and established on principles that make the communication of God's love a central part of their philosophy of caring for these kids, has made a huge positive impact on the lives of the children that have grown up and are growing up in that home.

We (Matt, Bobbi, and myself) are less than 48 hours away from our own international trip back into a different culture. We've been planning for two years to get Bobbi back to see some of the people that she knew while she was growing up, and this is it. We are excited (very excited!) but also know that we're entering a battle zone where we're going to be coming face to face with the lies. As I've done in the past, I'm asking those of you who know God to join with us in covering our trip with prayer, that our hearts and minds would be saturated with Truth as we spend our upcoming days in places that we've been before, but this time with a new identity, particularly for Bobbi: beloved. daughter.

Thank you!!

What is the greatest need?

Leah, Bobbi, Rinnah, and I (oh, and Eben, too!) got to go to Joyful Noise, a local Christian music festival. We only had tickets for one of the two days, but that was plenty. Bobbi got in free as a "graduating senior" and Eben did, too. (Well, got in free, that is. NOT as a graduating senior!) We got another free ticket through Hope Kids, and that made the day as a whole a relatively cost-effective "girls' day out" excursion.

Bobbi has noticed that being in a wheelchair makes you stick out, and as a result, we sometimes get to meet a variety of new people at events like this!

In particular, Bobbi had two different people ask to pray for her over the course of the day. Their dramatically different perspectives got me thinking. But first, I think, I want to share this from Mark 2:1-12.

And when [Jesus] returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.  And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them.  And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.  And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.  And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts,  “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—  “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”  And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

Here's what always gets me about this encounter: Jesus looks at that man and sees that this man has a big problem - and it's one that he can fix. What is the problem he sees?? Well, this man has sin in his life that, left unforgiven, is going to have seriously negative and long lasting (eternal!) consequences! And there's not a single thing that poor man, or anyone else, for that matter, can do about it! Jesus looks at that man lying before him, does a triage of the situation, and heads straight for the main deal. Son, your sins are forgiven.

Now right off hand, I'm guessing that isn't what his friends were thinking about when they brought their friend to Jesus for help. We know it wasn't what those standing around were anticipating, either. But it IS what Jesus saw as this man's greatest need, and the one that he addressed first. The healing of his paralysis? That wasn't so much for the man himself (though he certainly was glad for it, I would guess!) as it was for those standing around watching. Jesus tells us that the reason that man was healed physically was so that we may know that Jesus really does have the authority to take care of our real problem.

So, then, let's circle back to our day at the concert. We chatted with a variety of people over the course of the day. Two of those encounters involved someone asking if they could pray for Bobbi. What happened in each of those encounters provided a striking contrast, and, I think, one that could inform the way we pray for the people around us.

The first went like this: With the motley crew of concert goers in our little party...

Newboys United cardboard cutouts!

...a graduating senior, a fledgling almost-teenager, a solid elementary schooler, and an under-one. Oh yes, and a 40-year-old mother, too, so we had a variety of different concert-enjoying preferences. We started out the day up in the bleachers, but as the day moved on and the concerts became more engaging to our older two, moving closer in to the action was an engaging option. We used the 30-40 minutes between concert when people were moving around to get Bobbi a spot RIGHT up next to the fence in the "standing only" section, and that's where she stayed for the rest of the night! Rinnah, Eben, and I went back up to the bleachers, and Leah alternated back and forth. Between sets we'd all congregate together by Bobbi, and that's where we had our first conversation.

A man, maybe in his early 50s, meandered over, introduced himself, and we started chatting a bit. He was there with his family, and enjoying the down time to meet new people. He'd recently quit his job to go back to school to become a pastor. A few minutes in, he asked Bobbi if he could pray for her specifically, and for us as her family in general. And I loved this: so simple, but he asked her what he could pray for. Her answer? Right on - she was nervous about starting her new job (nine days until her first day) - her first job ever!! She asked him to pray about her tendency toward anger, and a few other things. We prayed together, chatted a few minutes, and then he rejoined his wife and daughter as we got settled in to prepare for the next concert.

The second encounter happened as we were making our way out to the van after the concert. Eben finally fell asleep about an hour into the Newboys' concert and was completely, totally zonked out in the baby carrier. Rinnah and I found Bobbi and Leah, and began the arduous task of pushing the wheelchair across the astroturf. If you've never tried this, you don't know what you're missing! We were joined by another family, and the dad muscled her across the field for me. Right after we made it onto the dirt and started getting close to the gate, we were approached by another person. This man came to me, asked if he could pray for Bobbi, and I gestured her way - she can answer for herself! Without any more conversation, he asked her why she was in the wheelchair, she answered "cerebral palsy" and he begins praying that her cerebral palsy would go away. She gave me a patient, slightly amused smile (how that girl has matured!), then he gave her a pat on the shoulder and he was gone into the crowd.

I can't help but think of these two well-meaning men in the context of the Man, Jesus. What is Bobbi's greatest need? Where does SHE know that she needs the most help? She knows: it's not her legs. Yes, it would be great to be able to walk, and to use her arms, but when someone took the time to ask her, she knows that her greatest need is not outward, but inward.

So I write this as a reminder to me, and also to anyone listening: let us not presume to know more than we do. Let us not get so distracted by the outward appearance of things that we miss the true heart of the matter. Let's not forget that we serve a God who does heal the sick and the broken in spirit and in body, but let us also remember that when he was here on this earth, he did not leave the whole region of Galilee free of all disease, blindness, lameness, you-name-your-disability, but he did leave the whole region and the whole world both then and now with a way out of the biggest problem any one of us faces, and that, I hope, ought to help us appropriately triage the situations that face us every day. Don't neglect the small problems, but don't confuse them with the Big one.

Oh, and I should mention, too, that one of the perks of being right up front is you can share your bag of kettle corn with Matthew West!

Human touch

Apparently even Eben knows that there's no substitute for a little bit of human contact!

You're welcome, Mira!