Here Is The Hope: Bulgaria 2019

I’ve been living in Bulgaria for two weeks.

My purpose in coming here was to write a series of articles. I am writing heart-breaking stories of horror, of nameless depravity, of seemingly endless cycles of poverty and hopelessness. Yet they are also laced with divine redemption. Of supernatural change. Of hope.

One story I wrote was of a girl who at two years old watched her father beat her younger brother to death when he would not stop crying. Now fifteen years old, she is dating a twenty-year-old man, who uses her freely in exchange for his “acceptance” and “love.”

Another sweet girl is fifteen years old. She was sold by a family member to sex traffickers for money. No one knows where she is.

These are just two examples.

One of the sweetest children I have ever met, was hungry, was beaten, was taken to an orphanage. Yet God’s redemption has him placed in a godly foster home, learning and becoming a godly young man who gives and loves with all his heart.

Here is the hope.

Even here, in a joyless nation, with spiritual darkness hovering over its borders, the Lord is at work.

In my heart, He is at work. “Jesus, I feel like we’re in a new place in our relationship.”

I am learning to speak to people, I am learning how to walk in freedom. I am falling in love with reading God’s Words. I am learning grace in a new way. I am finding my place.

This is another one of my randomly rambling posts. I wanted to document what I’ve been learning, to express to whoever reads this what I am seeing.

I’m sure I could sum this all up neatly with some cliché ending, and maybe this is it. 

Or maybe not.

There is more to Jesus than you see, and there is more in your heart that He desires to do. I hope you know that. I hope you let Him scrape off the scabs that have built on your heart, to let Him hold your raw and red heart in His hands. You can trust Him.

That’s all.

He loves you.