The two weeks

The last two weeks were extremely busy for us and as a result we did not get a chance to write another post until now. In our last post we gave a quick description of what we would be doing and for the most part it came about just as we expected.

There was a lot of traveling, puppets, and gifts which proved to be a lot of fun for the children and the puppeteers. If there were leftover gifts the van got to share some the goodies inside. Alla was one of the main characters in the puppet show and I was camera man and sound guy. We all helped set up the puppet theater and tear it all down but since all i can say to the kids is "ne Bulgarski" which means no Bulgarian, I figured its better for me to take pictures than interact with all the children. All the groups varied in size and character depending on what part of the country we were in. Closer to Turkey there were a lot of Muslims. Our largest group of kids was at an elementary school which we estimated had 250 kids. Once they all knew they would get presents after the show it was madness! We also had a few groups that were much smaller in size especially in the orphanages. The typical size there was probably 20-30 children which seemed a lot more manageable than 250 little animals. We spent more time with the orphans, typically opening the presents with them and getting the opportunity to see a child stuff his face with a large chocolate bar. The second week was similar but we spent most of the time in Sofia and retirement homes. I also got a chance to play one of the puppet roles which was fun.

Overall the puppet shows were a success and we pray that some of these children will take something from them that will lead them down a different path than many of the present day Bulgarians. It would probably be helpful if we explained what the puppet shows are about. For that I will hand it over.... popcorn, Alla.

Hello all!!!:) Well....the main character, a little boy, is on the hunt for true happiness after his grandpa tells him that the Bible he always reads is just that. The boy then comes across people and asks their opinion. One guy tells him its in money and then a pretty girl says its in beauty. Another character says its in strength and yet another tells him its in wisdom. Then, the character i played comes along and tells him about Jesus...in which he can find strength and wisdom and beauty. Its really quite cute. I enjoyed being a part of this wonderful program they put on. It was interesting that they let us come to their schools and day cares and orphanages and openly speak of Jesus. I guess if you bring presents they don't really care. I would always watch the faces of the teachers to see if I could tell by that if they were unhappy or something. I didn't really see anything crazy. There were a few ladies with attitudes but, surprisingly to me, it went really well.

We got to see a lot of the countryside and some mountainy areas of Bulgaria as we were driving around to do the shows. It really is a very beautiful country. Its nature is amazing!! We drove down almost to Greece and almost up to Romania. We didn't go as far east as i would have liked to see but im sure we'll get a chance in these next 4 mos or so. It'll be better to go to the black sea when its warmer anyway.

I got to see my favorite little girl again...i helped her open her present! She's still just as amazing as i remembered her to be. The orphanages were definitely more enjoyable, for me anyway. I just didnt like handing the gifts out to the kids as they were walking out the door. Doesnt really leave time for me to take it all in and connect in any way. Or even to see how the kids differ from kids in other cities. The gypsy kids were interesting to see too. I'll have Mike put up pics on photobucket, you'll be able to tell which ones are the gypsies.



Christmas has come and gone. It was kinda a weird one. Even though it was good, its just not the same without family. We have a tree but didnt do gifts for one another. There was just no time, and mike has all the money and we're together all the time. It wouldnt have worked well even if we tried. We spent christmas eve at Sasha and Oksana's with 2 other couples. It was time well spent. Christmas day we went to church and to a church-wide lunch afterwards. Hung out with our new best friends: Ira, Sveta, and Marina...our fellow Kostinbrodians. (the little city 10km outside of Sofia in which we live) And then we went to church again. For New Years the plan is to head up to Vitosha Mountain (if im not mistaken) for their youth retreat. That should be lots of fun. We have a lot of fun with the youth, even though Mike doesnt know whats going on. I can follow conversation but its hard to follow jokes and after a while my mind gets tired from all the paying close attention and translating in my head and i just zone out. With most of them we have no problem communicating! I feel like we'll never learn Bulgarian because everyone speaks English or Russian when speaking to us. We leave for the cabins on friday of this week.

Thursday is the last day that the puppet show will be played. Emmanuel (pastor) is taking us with him to one last school for the show and gifts. It'll only be us 3. That will definitely be a challenge...it takes 7 people to do the puppet show. Ive played 2 roles but this will be a little much. I'm sure it will be fine, but kind of chaotic. I cant wait!:)

So one more day of rest for us and then we're back on the move. I always try to be brief and it doesnt work, sorry for the ramblings. Love you all! Miss you all! Thanks for reading!

Settling in Sofia

We've been in Bulgaria 3 weeks now. We've been busy with all sorts of things. Mike more so than me. They have him running around a lot. He's had this lingering cold for the past 2 weeks but now he is feeling better. He hasn't had a chance to get over it because it's just been go, go, go. He's so great! Doing all these things with a smile on his face and without a single complaint. My cousin Sasha, or "Sasho" as the Bulgarians say, does not stop moving from sun up to like midnight, no joke! He's constantly on the move. Between work and his ministry and his kids and getting their business going and doing things around the house he literally only sits down to eat and even then its only for a few minutes. And I thought Mike ate fast. So Mike has been his wingman. I've mostly been helping with babysitting (what else is new? right?); But also with their store. Sasha and His wife Oksana run a thrift store and the opening of their second store was this last week. There was a lot of work with fixing up the space and getting everything in there and up and in an organized fashion. And getting it ready for opening day. Not to mention decorating for the holiday season. It's been really nice getting to know his family. I knew them from their annual trip to California (during which they come to my parents one of the evenings they are in town) but only enough to keep up with how old the kids are pretty much. The kids teach me Bulgarian. Mark's children's books and Diana's Disney channel are also a great help! I'm still scared to speak it but I am getting a lot more comfortable with the understanding part, when people speak slowly.

Thursday and Friday of last week and this week were spent plugging into some of the ministries they have going. This girl Mariana goes around to the really poor gypsy villages and teaches the kids to read and write. There are no laws that require kids to go to school. Although most kids do go to school there are a lot of children that do not, and have not...ever. It was really sad to see girls, bigger than me, that could not copy the simplest of letters from a piece of paper onto the board. Reminded me of toddlers that haven't developed their fine motor skills. That's exactly what it was though, they just hadn't ever used a writing utensil. One of the girls had her nails painted she has to have fine motor skills to do that and they probably use silverware. But I'm sure it's different. Mariana says it was really difficult to get them civilized enough to create a classroom setting. Things like waiting their turn to speak and staying in their seats were foreign to them. It was good when we joined them though, it looked and felt like a typical classroom. She constantly needs to remind them to wear clean clothes and clean themselves before they come to school. I imagine it being very difficult for Mariana, she does this on her own. There were approximately 15 kids; all different ages and different levels of understanding. She has 3 groups of kids and meets with each one 2x a week for about 3 hrs each time. Thank God for people like her. She was so loving and patient with them. I was in awe! Another ministry we were able to help out with was visiting orphanages. One was for kids ages 0-7 and the other kids 7-18. I have met orphan kids before but I have never been to an orphanage. That was quite the experience. It was very difficult for me to see all those kids without a home or a loving family environment. Especially the one with the younger children. It felt and looked like a giant preschool. They had to like herd the kids along. Even if you gave the slightest amount of attention to one of them they would just be beaming. Or some of them didn't even know how to react; one of the many things that made me cry. Being in an orphanage and seeing how the kids live and how many forgotten kids there are is difficult for anyone to see I'm sure but with my exceptional love and compassion towards children it was especially hard. We went to the older orphanage 2 times and to the younger one once. I definitely need to prepare myself emotionally for when I see the little kids again. I have a favorite little girl there. But I forgot her name:( from the moment I walked into the room where they were all waiting for us I noticed her. It wasn't even the fact that she was really cute, it was more so how she acted. She would like blush every time I smiled at her. A lot of the kids are pushy and clingy but not this one. I don't know if they are taught this but when we were leaving they started to say "az iskam s tebe" which translates " I want to go with you". I did not know how to react. It was very difficult to fall asleep that night. I could not get them out of my head. Seeing a real orphanage definitely had a huge impact on me. I hope we get a chance to help them to a higher degree. We go back there on the 20th with our Christmas program but I want to see if I can discuss with someone about spending a little bit more time there and maybe on a regular basis. I would like to volunteer to help them with their daily routine, not just come and hang out for an hour every Friday. They only brought out the kids that were 3+ but they have little babies! That is going to break my heart!

The next two weeks will be spent visiting 25 different orphanages/old people homes in the city of Sofia and a lot of surrounding cities. We will leave as early as 630 am and not return as late as 10pm. We will make as many as 3 visits a day and we hear we will be doing quite a bit of driving. We will go with a Christmas program and with gifts. We spent all of yesterday preparing gifts and practicing a puppet show for the kids. We are really excited to take part in this.

We have been in our own apartment 1 week now. It is now beginning to feel like we're actually living here as opposed to visiting. We also have our own car. We will post more information about our new lives very soon. Now we're off to sleep as we have an early morning tomorrow and for the next two weeks.

More Pictures

As a result of several requests we decided to put more pictures online for you all to see. Click on the link below and it will take you to our online photo album. Then click on "All Albums" to see all the pictures. Enjoy!

http://s1196.photobucket.com/profile/mikeandalla/index

We will be posting more about Bulgaria soon so stay tuned.

From Rome to our new home

We didnt mention one of our stops. The one after Israel, and before Malta. Maybe because we were unintentionally trying to put it out of our minds. It was to Limmasol, Cyprus. We had a pretty interesting mishap occur. I'll start with saying that Cyprus was nice but we werent that impressed. We determine how much we like a city by the amount of pictures we take....we only took like 20. The weather was pretty nasty and it seemed like the beach was the main attraction but we didnt get to enjoy that. Every city we've been to has a ton of Cathedrals. It seems that every where you look there is another pretty catholic church. So when we saw a church that looked a little different (christian), we showed a little bit of interest. The people inside(setting up for the service) got super excited and convinced us to come in. I kinda wanted to sit in on the church service from the beginning but once we got to talking and they told me that a big chunk of the congregation are Bulgarians and that the service is translated into Bulgarian and that worship was in Bulgarian I really wanted to check it out. So we came back when it was time for church. I was really impressed with how much of the Bulgarian I understood. That made me happy. Well here is the issue....we were cruising back and forth between time zones so there was a little confusion on my part as to when to change it. The previous night we got a notice that said to set our clocks back an hour. So I told Mike to change it. Not realizing that the bulletin was saying to change them the next night, not the night they gave us the notice. Well we get to the church...late. Mike catches that the clocks at the church are off and wants to head back early just in case. Well I agree that we need to be cautious but I really wanted to say bye so i kept dragging it out so that i got a chance to tell them we were leaving. The bulgarians and the other ladies were so so great to us. We were like stars at church, they were so happy to have guests. Just didnt wanna leave with out saying thank you for being so welcoming and things. But I'm stupid, and need to listen to my husband. By the time we got to the shuttle bus station it was 130...last shuttle left at 1!! Everyone was supposed to be on board at 130...so we get a taxi to take us to the port. Freaking out the whole way of course! They were putting the ramp up when they saw us running towards the ship....oh my goodness...I've never felt such relief. Last ones on board...and like 10 mins before the ship left. I told Mike to remind me of this whenever Im being stupid. I cant believe i almost got us left behind in Cyprus! Well that is the craziest thing thats happened to us so far...thought i should share...sorry so lengthy.

and popcorn: Mike :)

After our wonderful time in Malta our next stop was in Messina, Italy which is a city on the island of Sicily. Like all the coastal cities in Italy we have been to, there are large hills right before the water so you can get a very nice view if you go up the hill and that's what we did. We were able to see the mainland Italy from the hill, and the passage of water between Sicily and Italy was also very beautiful to cruise through. In the city we did a lot of walking and sightseeing for the five hours of time we had there.

Messina was our last stop before we arrived in Rome this past Thursday. We spent 3 days of what seemed like nonstop touring of the city. We had a blast but Alla got worn out from all the walking so now she needs new shoes again! After roaming Rome (waited a long time to say that:)) we were ready to leave as we saw all the sights and got guided tours of the Colosseum and the Vatican/St. Peters Basilica. It was pretty crazy to see and understand how great of a city Rome once was.

We had some crazy neighbors in our hotel. They arrived at about 1 am the first night we were there. Yes we knew when they came...and when they went. I don't think I've ever come across such inconsiderate people. It was as if they were in our room, that's how loud it was. They had a kid...the kid could not be normal. I've seen and heard my share of kids and never have I heard crying like this. It was more of a scream. And it lasted for an hour at a time!!! While we're trying to sleep. There were two families, on either side of us! So they kept slamming doors, going back and forth between the 2 rooms; shouting things as if it's day. They were from India is what we gathered. They were on Indian time is what we assume, they stayed up SUPER late. Really thin walls or really loud people, not really sure. Mike banged on the wall but that only helped for about as long as the banging lasted. Then that child started right back up again. Besides the fact that we had to be on their schedule (couldn't go to sleep until they were) we liked our hotel. Actually, there were Mosquitos too. Tiny ones that buzz in your ear. We didn't see any we just heard them when lights were out....smart little suckers! I woke up last day of touring with a puffy eye! I got bit on the eyelid, which caused major puffing! This happens to me way more than to the average person! I would say around 10 or so times, since I was mid teen years. Big juicy eyelids of mine. So "I wore my sunglasses at night"....haha. No, just all day.
We also realized while we were in Rome that the background on our blog is a picture of Rome! I'm really happy we figured it out because lidiya was giving us a hard time about not knowing. There ya go Lida! :)

We are now writing from Sofia where its cold and its not even the coldest months. I need to go shopping for warm clothes. We got dropped off at my cousin Sasha's house where the heat was off since last week wednesday. Sasha and Oksana are in Germany until tomorrow. It took us 24 hours to get the house to a comfortable temperature. The plan is to stay here for about 3 months, maybe longer. We hope to get an apartment but we dont know when that will be. We have a dinner date...our new friends that picked us up from the airport are having us over for dinner. Gonna go get ready.

Mike and Alla

Malta!!!

We officially have a new favorite!! Malta! I told mike I'd like to live here. We had a feeling we would like it here! I expected to see a bunch of little maltese puppies running around...but only 1. Mike was super excited about this tiny little island because the strong man competitions he watched were held here...i liked the name. It is soo beautiful! We started out with a little boat tour...it was amazing! The rest of the time we had there was spent just walking the streets. We stopped for coffee and hung out in the middle of a busy shopping area. I liked it there...just taking it all in. (again, we'll edit our posts and add pics when we get a chance)

Yesterday we celebrated our 1 year anniversary!!! Yay! We are officially out of the newlywed category...kinda sad. We kinda just lounged around all day since it was a day at sea...it was wonderful!

Tomorrow we cruise on to Sicily and the day after that....Rome. :):)

Shalom!!

Sea of Galilee

We're in Haifa, Israel! Found some wifi...yay!!:) Good old Mcdonalds:)

Jordan River

Today was my favorite day of travels...by far! We got to go to Nazareth, Capernaum, and surrounding cities! We drove around most of the Sea of Galilee. We saw "The wine church" where Jesus performed his first miracle...turned water into wine. We saw the place that Jesus fed the 5000. Also, where Jesus walked on water and where the sermon on the mount was given. In Nazareth we went to the church where the angel told Mary of her upcoming pregnancy. (we had to wear these long skirts over our clothes when we were in the holy places, mike too). We stopped by and got to soak our feet in the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized. And this was just the northern tip of Israel! We are definitely in agreement that we want to take a trip back here to see Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the dead sea...

Our taxi driver was a character! He was wonderful though, took us to the best places around town to eat. We had falafel and another pita sandwich type thing. We spent about 9 hours with him!

Haifa, Israel

Since we posted last we've been cruising the Mediterranean! The first stop was Napoli, Italy...where we saw the ruins of the hidden city of Pompeii...up until Israel that city was our favorite! Stop number 2 was Rhodes, Greece...I was super excited about Greece since my dad always says we have some Greek in us. It was great I just wish we got to go to someplace that wasn't so touristy. We'd like to go back there too if we get a chance. Relatives in Athens...see you soon!!:) Stop #3 was Antalya, Turkey. There are some beautiful beaches there. If you ever visit watch out for stray dogs, they are everywhere!!! I was so scared! Mike just laughed at me. Greece had a ton of cats...we thought of Wes and Elizabeth and Tanya and the girls...the cat lovers in our lives.:)

Sea of Galilee

Well we're gonna head back to our ship now and we promise to post pics of our stops as soon as we get the chance.

We love you! Skype us!! Please!:) We've tried skyping but no one is ever on...we need more contacts. Add us at hpmisi@yahoo.com!

Mike and Alla

Week 1 of our adventures: walking, walking, walking!!

This past week has been wonderful! It's passing way too fast. We started our journey to Europe with a stop in Boston, MA where we spent a few days sightseeing and spending time with family (as mentioned in previous post). Here are a few photos of our time there. Oh and just a little fun fact...maybe not so fun...Boston (except for the airport) doesnt do toilet seat covers. I found that odd.

Madrid, Spain

Madrid, Spain

After Boston we flew to Madrid, Spain where we had a 12 hour layover. Even though we only had about an hour or so of sleep each and the weather was nasty, we decided to take advantage of the time we had there after the guy at the info booth told us how easy it was to get to the city and back.(run on?) We're really happy we did! Madrid is a very beautiful city, really busy. All the sidewalks are stone...uneven stone. It was really hard on the feet! I find that with every city we explore and with every pair of shoes I try.:) I dont know what i was thinking, but i definitely need another pair of shoes...comfy, walking shoes.

Milano, Italy

Milano, Italy

From Madrid we flew into Genoa, Italy where we are currently staying. The weather was so bad when we were flying that the plane landed in another city and we had to take a bus ride over to Genoa. We then found out that a river in the city flowed over its banks which caused a national emergency due to the floods. We heard that 6 or 7 people died due to the flood but where we are staying we could not notice any damage.

Today, which is Sunday here, we took a train to Milan, Italy to do some more sightseeing. Milan is definitely the city to go to if you're into shopping! It's sun so aside from the very crowded main strip most of the stores were closed. Not just stores, everything it seems. From the time we got out of the train station to the time we got back to the train station my eyes were peeled for a cute place to sit and get coffee...but no luck.:( The weather was a little rough with all the rain but overall the stop was worth it. They have a huge castle we got to go through and also a massive cathedral that you can see in the pictures. Now we're back in Genoa for our last night here before we get on the cruise ship tomorrow. Internet has been hard to come by, hopefully we will have a chance to post again once we get off the cruise in Rome, if not you'll be hearing from us when we've arrived at our first home base: Sofia, Bulgaria. Keep checking in:) Mike and Alla

1 more hour on US soil

So here we are!! So very close to departure! It seems as the day progresses the more queazy I feel. My stomach is all crazy by this point. I hope I'm just nervous and not anything else. :)

Our couple days in Boston were spent mostly with the family (which was soo wonderful to us). Gourmet breakfasts and such. I'm really glad we got to know them a little bit. And really really glad we got to be there for Peter's birthday. He is such a great kid!

Throughout our travels we will be updating this map with each stop so you can each see where we have been. Currently you see our journey to our new home in Bulgaria. If you click on Sacramento and click on the right arrow you will see our itinerary stop by stop. Enjoy!!!

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

First Blog

We decided to create a blog for all of you to see what in the world we will be doing on the other side of the world. From random thoughts to life changing moments, expect to see it all as we spend the next year serving and traveling Europe. So stay tuned in to see what the next year has in store for our lives.

~Mike