Shalom Church Blog

Shalom Church in Lovech now has their own blog. It can be found at http://shalom-lovech.blogspot.com/. Check it out!

It has some history and pictures of the purchase of the building and also has pictures of things completed since we left Bulgaria the end of June.

The Banner of Hope still waving!

According to Meloni, they are now putting in dry wall at the church site. The momentum is rising with the church after we came and worked those two weeks. They continue to be excited about what we did and the amount of pledges they needed to continue the building was reached while we were there! Hope to post some pictures as the building continues!

Team # 2 now known as Team Slava Na Boga

Just a quick post to keep you updated on our journey.....both flights were delayed a little in both Chicago and Newark but we were able to ride back together and arrived in the church parking lot close to 1 AM. We were all in good spirits, with no clean clothes left and talking about how much we loved Bulgaria and want to go back! Thanks for all your prayers.

FYI - Slava Na Boga means Praise the Lord!

Sofia, Bulgaria

Images from Sofia.

Frankfurt, Germany

Some Frankfurt images.

Making Progress

Looks like we will be leaving today. We have checked in and have seat assignments on Continental Airlines flight CO 51Y. We will be delayed leaving but are told about 12:45. If all goes as planned....... we should arrive at Newark about 3:45 and then on to RDU about 9ish. Rebecca and Amy will be on American Airlines also arriving in RDU about 9ish. Thanks for everyone's prayers! We've have a great MISSION!

We found them!

Rebecca and I finally found the other part of Team 2 at another hotel. We rode a couple of shuttles and pestered :) our concierge and information desks at the terminals until we located them.

They had been looking for us too.

We are coming back to the U.S. on different airlines but should arrive within 10 minutes of each other in RDU. Keep praying!

All of Team 2 is in Frankfurt, somewhere!

Rebecca and I are flying out tomorrow on American (or so they say) - at 2:25 pm to Chicago and arriving in RDU at 9:10 pm. Sources at United say that the other group is booked on Continental Airlines to New York - arriving around 9 pm to RDU.

If other members of team 2 see the blog -- try finding us at the Sheraton Airport Hotel. We miss you.

Stuck on you.....

We made it to Frankfurt ok and quickly found out that flight 941 was cancelled. 941 was our flight so we waited in line to find out there were no more flights available to the US. Everything was FULL. We have a flight tomorrow leaving Germany at 2pm arriving in Raleigh about 10pm. We were able to get our luggage and were put in a hotel. If anything changes further, we will update the blog and emails.

Good Bye Lovech, Hello Sofia

We said our goodbyes to Meloni and Tosco and are settled into our place in Sofia. Meloni lined up a local church member to walk around and show us Sofia. Leave for Airport @ 4:00am.

George Mihailon's Testimony

This video is a testimonial from George
Mihailon, the Pastor of Shalom Church
in Lovech Bulgaria. At the end, the
battery ran low and the video was cut
short...sorry.

Laying the Foundation

Here is the construction video of Team Perseverance
hard at work laying a concrete slab on the second floor.

Lovech, Bulgaria

Prayer

We also prayed for a member that requested prayer.

Anne Pollard

While at Tosco's church we asked the local Bulgarians to pray for our special friend Anne Pollard. The whole Pollard family has been on everyone's mind this week.

Getting to Sofia Bulgaria

The video clip is of Team Perseverance getting to
Frankfurt Airport in Germany, and Rob explaining
how God is an on time God! After an 8 hour delay
in Frankfurt, we arrived in Sofia Bulgaria at midnight
Bulgarian time.

Tosco's Church

We went to Tosco's church tonight and Bill spoke to the people. The title of his message was "One Way, No Parking and God's Grace. It was a great job Bill.... Thanks!

Writing is on the wall.... and floor.

We began writing scripture on the walls and floors.

Making Progress

Giving is Living

Shirley decided to give Meloni the blanket that was made at the soup kitchen. She has done so much for the kitchen and those workers were pleased that Meloni was going to receive it.

Home meetings

Scott, Buddy and Terry went to one of the members of the church to have a home meeting. We shared things about Covenant and the different small groups we have. They shared things about their church too. They were excited that we took our time to come this far to help them with constructiion on their church.

Soup Kitchen... Who will be your Miracle today??

Rebecca and Shirley went to the soup kitchen today. Rebecca shared the scripture reading for the day and Shirley had a hands on project to make a blanket. Everyone seemed to enjoy the group project.

Same song, another verse....

Today we continued mixing the cement. Scott was explaining how the shovel worked to Amy.

Bill is unloading one of many wheelbarrels of cement.

"One way and NO parking"

Tonight we met Svetly and George downtown for dinner. Before leaving, Buddy had to do some "southern" talking to get out of the parking lot... :)

Smooth Talking

Shirley was the only one they would let help smooth the cement. She was doing such a "good" job.

Work Zone

Here are some of the guys with John "Ivan". He is a local from the Soup Kitchen and stopped by to help at the church he also attends.

Making progress

Here are the Bulgarian men working on one of the rooms. They said the Americans mixed the cement better than the electric mixer did..... Go Team!

Water babe?

Here is Amy playing the role of water babe....

Elephant has left the building....

No fancy cement equipment this week.... The team had to mix all the cement for the rooms by hand..... For those who want to know... it's 3 wheelbarrows of sand with 2 bags of cement with about 2 and a half buckets of water from the water babe!

Pile'em in....

We didn't tell the van to come back to pick us up from the orphanage so everyone piled into Svelty's little car. Scott, Buddy and Bill were real troopers with the together time they had riding back. Svetly had a good time with this....

God's important children.....

We spent time with the 35 kids in the orphanage. Team one took some pictures last week and we gave each of them photo books for them to keep pictures in. More pictures were taken and will be given to them before the end of the week.

Here we had a tour of the facility and took them ice cream.
We had a fun time making balloon art with the kids. We did pretty good being we had not practiced.
When we were leaving they said "bye-bye" instead of "Chow". These kids are a real blessing!