No Mud For Me, Thanks!

People often wonder why I left America to live in Bulgaria.  This question has been raised on both sides of the ocean.  Why would I move to Bulgaria when all of the comforts of America were available to me?

First of all, it's not like Bulgaria is a terribly uncomfortable place.  I like it here.  No, that’s inaccurate.  I love it here.  I love the people, I love the land, I love the history, and I love the beauty.  It’s a great place to live.  I can hardly count myself among the martyrs while being in such a wonderful country.

That being said, America is an amazing place.  Just compare America with the kinds of trouble that exist around the world today.  In the middle-east people flee for their lives as a terrorist group wages an unspeakable war.  In Eastern Europe a tyrant carves up Ukraine.  In Western Europe refugees flood in from war torn countries by the millions while terrorist set off bombs to pointlessly kill people because they don’t approve of their culture.  In North Korea people starve while their fat little dictator builds a failed nuclear program.

Health concerns around the globe continue to be a major problem.  Basic sanitation eludes much of the world’s population.  I have heard that over a billion people still have to go outside to use the toilet.

Meanwhile, in America the big conflict today seems to be whether or not a man who feels like a woman can use the women’s bathroom, and the biggest health concern is that people have too much food.  We Americans sometimes forget how good we have it.

So why would I leave?  Why would I raise a family in a different part of the world?  Why would I give up the comforts of America?  Am I a fool who follows God’s will because I’m too stupid to understand the value of pleasure?  Am I really so easily pleased that I don’t care to live in the greatest country on earth?

Actually I am not easily pleased.  That’s why I followed God’s calling to move to Bulgaria, and why I will continue to follow His calling no matter where He sends me.

C. S. Lewis said it best:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

All of the simple pleasures mentioned are things I enjoy.  But I will not be a satisfied ignorant child who spends his life making mud pies while missing something so much better.

I love serving God.  I love what it does in me and to those around me, and I will continue to do it as long as I can.  There is nothing that compares with it.

No mud for me thanks.  Who's up for the beach?