Fourth of July

Though we are not in the U.S. we celebrated Independence Day on Monday.  We had some guests over for a backyard meal of hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, potato salad, and watermelon.  Sasha did most of the cooking, and I did the grilling.

Our neighbors came over.  They have two girls who played with our girls.  They had a fun time, and Sophie practiced her Bulgarian by continually asking the neighbors a Bulgarian question she knows quite well.  "What is this?"

We also had some Americans over.  Our evening was a mix of English, Bulgarian, and even some Polish thrown in as our neighbor once played volleyball for a Polish team.  It was lots of fun sharing our American heritage in our new Bulgarian home.

Our celebration also cleared up some misconceptions about us.  One of our neighbors saw the U.S. flag flying off of our house and confessed that he thought we were British.  The guards who protect a large house a few doors down started asking around about us as they had previously thought we were Polish.  (When we moved in our license plate was Polish, so they assumed that we must be too.  The U.S. flag caused them to doubt their previous conclusion.)  The great thing though is that more people know us now, and barriers were broken down by our little get together.  Now we pray that we can have a stronger influence on our neighbors lives and shine the light of Jesus among them.