Blessings,
Birthdays…. Both of us are celebrating birthdays this summer.
Brenda on June 24 and me (Jim) on July 16. I don’t mind telling my age, born 1957 in Wausau, Wisconsin, but I’ll leave it up to Brenda to tell hers. (She was born in Lakeland, Florida)
As we get older birthdays are not the big of deal to celebrate with us, but they’re still part of our lives. But at the
same time we are so grateful all the wonderful years we have had on earth.
For Brenda’s birthday, three of our four kids were at our house plus two of grandkids. So nice. Those little ones have so much energy…
Seeing our kids grow, and now grandkids grow, we look back with amazement at how our lives change throughout the years and where God has taken us.
We of course, like just everyone else, have different perspectives on life in our 60’s than we did in our 20’s and 30’s. We have so many more memories to look back on, but at the same time we continue to be excited about the future.
As we look at the next twenty-plus years of our lives and ministry we stay as excited we have always been as we love doing what we get to do, minister as missionaries, reaching the nations of Eastern Europe.
We are always amazed at the people in Eastern Europe that God connects us with in that part of the world. About five years ago a pastor from Bulgaria contacted me and asked if we would help him start a church in the capital city of Sofia. Sofia is a city of 1.2 million people.
My first trip to Bulgaria was back in 1996 and I imagine I have been there more that 50 times since that first trip. It’s an amazing country with some amazing committed Christians.
Bulgaria sits in the very southern part of Eastern Europe and Turkey to the south. In May I was once again in Bulgaria meeting with and working with three different ministries we work with there.
One of them was Filip and Rosy Rashev, whom we have been working with since 2019. We helped Filip and Rosy start a church and it was such a privilege to be with him to see first hand how their church is growing some 5 years later.
Seeing the young people on the worship team, hearing the worship, and see this thriving church make such an impact on so many really humbled me.
We could tell this same story in every country we work in Eastern Europe.
Filip and Rosy told me that we were the very first people to help him when they started their church and that us believing in them and their vision was a key reason they are thriving today.
Thank you for helping us do what we do. Please know it is NEVER TAKEN for granted.
Jim and Brenda