The Gathering of the Clouds

As we sat by the Black Sea we noticed what we thought was a cloud gathering.  But it wasn’t a rain cloud.  It was a gathering of birds—storks to be exact.

A small portion of the storks over Nessebar, Bulgaria in August 2016

Every year in late summer storks from around Europe visit Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.  They hover over the beaches for a while flying in circles, and then as a massive group, the fly south to Asia and Africa.  Some go as far as South Africa.

Why is Bulgaria their meeting place?  Just look at a map and the answer becomes clear.

Stork migration map from birdorable.com: Notice all the lines in Central and Eastern Europe converging in Bulgaria.

If you want to get from Europe to Asia and Africa by land, you have to go through Bulgaria.  True storks don’t actually travel by land, but they do have to fly over land in order to find food, water, and a place to rest when they get tired.  So they meet in Bulgaria and travel in a group for protection over the Middle-East, into Egypt, and down the Nile into the heart of Africa.  A stork that was hatched in central Bulgaria might now be nesting in Cape Town.

Storks are not the only ones who make their way through Bulgaria to the rest of the world.  People do as well.  Be it refugees from the east, businessmen from the west, or Bulgarians going abroad, our little country is a place that the whole world passes through.

This is why we are here.  Just as the storks fly throughout the world, we want the message of salvation through Jesus to spread throughout the world as well.

Come to the crossroads!  God is at work here.