Having moved a couple of years ago from the comfort of Sofia to the small town of Pravetz, Zhana Georgivea is one of our ministry partners here in Bulgaria. We are privileged to work with some outstanding Bulgarians. Zhana happens to be the closest to Sofia and is heavily involved in Compassionate Ministries, an area that weighs heavily on my heart. Zhana is up to her elbows in serving and loving others as a means to spread the gospel. Living in a part of Bulgaria that has many Roma residents, Zhana works amongst some of Bulgaria’s poorest people. She visits elderly care facilities, orphanages and schools in the areas surrounding Pravetz. She supports teachers and students at the village school in Vidrare whilst also teaching weekly bible classes. She makes house visits to young and old alike, often sharing food and other material goods with them. She is a friend to all in the community. She is a single girl living a pure single life (believe it or not in a community where marriage means little and bed hopping between neighbours and friends is common practise, this is one of the most noticed things as she continues to refuse offers of men from her neighbours and colleagues!) When there is a problem she is often the first to be called to help. Everyone from the mayor to the police chief know Zhana. Zhana sticks out and everyone knows her! They also know what or rather WHO she stands for. Many have come to an understanding and/or relationship with God through her witness. Zhana has shared many stories with us as we have made visits to see her…stories of how the people around her live…stories that emphasis the impact of her simply living right there and experiencing life with those in her community.

Each time that we visit with Zhana I am reminded of what we are really here for. We are here to be in relationship with people. We are here to meet people exactly where they are, not to sit around and wait for them to find us or to walk through our church doors. God didn’t keep Jesus in heaven and continue with sending prophets or writing notes down to us. He sent Jesus to be born, to grow, to play, and to walk right alongside us.

Zhana has shared that many days she doesn’t quite know what she is doing, yet the visible results of her living her life in this section of Bulgaria are numerous! We love supporting her there and will continue to tell her story and raise support for her continued work.

Now continues my challenge of figuring out how this trained nurse, sent missionary, and full time mom REALLY LIVES with those around me during this season of life!

Above is a link to a article that my (Jen) Dad wrote for the Engage Magazine (the missions magazine for our church)… The call of parents is something that us kids recognize, but it was something else to read about it! Love you dear parents of ours! Thank you for supporting us in everyway as we follow God’s call around the world!

In many ways this Christmas was a tough one for me. It sounds silly considering I was surrounded by family (Doug’s parents visited for Thanksgiving and Jamesy’s 1st birthday, and my parents followed quick on their heels for Christmas).  We had fun play times with a lot of snow, and I find myself in the land of plenty when it comes to finding things that I need/want to make the holidays feel special and traditional for us as a family. This year was tough because I missed “home”. I spent many hours reflecting on Peru and Kosovo. I missed our Peruvian friends and the Spanish language. I missed our friends and the fellowship in Kosovo (and you friends in Albania too)! My heart wasn’t quite here in Bulgaria. It was in the past. We love Bulgaria, our friends here and the way life goes here. We are comfortable, happy, and excited to live many years here.  Yet that didn’t cover the feelings of loss that we experience as we have moved on and on and then on again! I guess the processing continues!

As with other New Years, this one did not start with any resolutions. I don’t want to get to the end of another year and have a hard time remembering the resolutions made at the beginning of the year. They may have worked during the quiet months, but not much further! So this year at the dawn of the New Year from my cozy bed with LOUD fireworks going off all around, I prayed a simple prayer (AKA Plea) to the Lord; that throughout the next 365 days 1) my relationship with Him would deepen, 2) as a result of No 1 we will get through all of the ups and downs of the year whilst being a good example to the kids and others and 3) that I would end the year speaking Bulgarian. If we get to the end of 2012 and I can reflect back feeling content that these three things have been obtained and continue to be in progress then I will be happy!

So, the year ahead… following our quiet months we have 10 days in the UK during April for a combined vacation/Home Assignment tour. June through July we will be in the USA doing 6 weeks of home assignment, touring Baltimore, Texas and Wisconsin. August we will likely host a W&W team or two and then September brings the start of Sarah’s pre-school year (how did that come around so quickly?). These are just the things in the calendar right now… goodness knows what the year will really look like! We will keep you posted as it progresses!

This Christmas is an exciting one for us. For the past 8 years we have celebrated Christmas in either the Southern Hemisphere, which to be honest just didn’t feel right, or in “secular” nations that don’t celebrate Christmas. I did not realize how much we missed the Christmas temperatures, music, and festivities until we were confronted with them this year. Jonathan starred as Joshua the sheep in his Kindergarten Christmas play “The Crippled Lamb”. We have visited a German Christmas Bazaar a number of times in central Sofia and we have enjoyed snowball fights in the first snow of the season. We have sung (ok.. tried to sing) Christmas carols in church, seen the lights go up around town and even hung our stockings on a REAL fireplace! It is setting up to be a wonderful Christmas as we welcome my parents a few days before the 25th. We are looking forward to the time to rest, relax and enjoy the celebrations of Jesus’ birthday!

Well, no Christmas letter is complete without a round up of the year…here is it in a nutshell!!  We started the year in Kosovo, newborn James in our arms and much excitement as to what the year would bring. Spring saw the move of the church in Prishtina to a new building that we could use 24/7. What a difference it made and new ministries were started immediately. There was much optimism in the air as to how God would bless the church’s efforts. Late spring, and we got the crazy news that we were on the move again…this time to Sofia, Bulgaria. We were too stunned to really take the news any particular way, but as it sunk in we felt both grief and excitement. We left Kosovo at the beginning of summer, travelled the USA on home assignment, and moved home to Sofia in September. The church in Kosovo continues to grow and reach into its new community. We remain totally excited from afar! We get back to Kosovo semi-regularly to support the folk there. Our assignment here continues to develop and we are starting to settle into fulfilling roles within the team. Some days we are excited by the opportunities here and other days we are overwhelmed! What we do know is that God is with us, he has placed us here and we will trust him!

Whilst all that moving and shaking was happening as a family we continue to grow (in maturity, not numerically)! Jonathan started kindergarten this year. I officially have a school-aged child!! He is loving it and as mentioned above was the lead role in his school play. We were very proud of our solo singing, line memorizing first born! Meanwhile Sarah and James are doing a great job of settling into Bulgaria. They enjoy times with Baba Tsanka every week (who babysits them while we are taking language lessons). She plays with them and talks only Bulgarian with them. Sarah is doing very well with her understanding and we are hoping that as James starts to speak he will be somewhat bi-lingual. Sarah started ballet in September, and is loving being with other little girls her age. =) I find it hard to believe that my babies are growing up so quickly.  Yet they are, and we are enjoying getting to know the little people that they are becoming!

Well, this letter is already a little longer than anticipated! I will end with a sincere thank you to all of you. For, supporting us, being friends to us, praying for us, loving us. We could not be living this crazy life of ours without your participation. We thank God for the way he uses each of you as He provides all our needs.

Our wish for you this Christmas year,
Is more than happy festive cheer.
We pray that each and every one of you
Will see Christmas from God’s point of view.
What a gift he sent us with his son,
His love, his plan, new life for each and every one!
Thank you Father in heaven above,
This season we celebrate Your gift of love!

With much love, Jennifer and the rest of the Mann Clan:
Douglas, Jonathan, Sarah and James!

Well, this Monday I was reading about the importance of Sabbath. As a Mom I always have way more to do than time to do it. Ditto as a missionary. There is ALWAYS something to do! Yet, somehow in there I am commanded to take a rest! In fact, this Sunday evening I was sharing with a freind how glad I was it was Sunday night and we could “get back to the week!” How totally upside down, right?! I am enthused and excited by productivity, schedule, completed to-do lists, the very things that I get from the week. I find rest difficult to achieve. I always have that “missionary” excuse… Those of us who work “in the church” often find weekend to be the busyest times of the week, and thus that becomes a “good” excuse for not taking a break and taking the time to do something restful… reading a book with the kids, watching a movie under fluffy blankets all squished up on the futon, playing outside, baking something for fun allowing the kids to get themselves and the kitchen covered!

Well, I read Leviticus 23:3 “There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of Sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the LORD”.

Boy did that pop out at me… wherever you live… No excuses Jen! It doesnt matter that you work for the church, or live somewhere where regular life and tasks takes a little longer to accomplished. Even in Bulgaria Jen, you need to take Sabbath!

So here I am in front of you blog readers commiting to take a break on Sundays and teaching and examplifying in front of my family this gift from the Lord given to us each week! May this be the beginning of some fun Sunday family restful and playful traditions =)

When as our bosses and our friends they came to us in April and asked in light of their potential move to Hungry for us to consider a move from Kosovo to Bulgaria, it was painful for us all. Jay & Teanna have grown their family, built a mission home and ministered for 13 years here in Bulgaria. After 3 different country assignments over 6 years we decided that enough was enough and Kosovo was home. Our roots had grown deep into the Kosovar soil. Yet, here we all were presented with change. We thought, we prayed, we discussed, we prayed and we thought some more!

Well, many of you know the rest of the story…  Within a few weeks of each other, the Sunberg Six moved to Hungry and The Mann Clan moved into their house here in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Our families just spent a wonderful weekend together here in “OUR” house. J, T, Doug and I had time to talk, reflect and enjoy each other’s company whilst the kids… well they just had ball! Along with the fun, food, meeting with friends and fellowship something significant happened this weekend.

Teanna and I had been able to spend time together chatting about our moves. We both carry heartbreak over leaving our homes and ministries and we both have a deep desire to sense God’s continued calling to the places that we have now found ourselves setting up home, ministry and life. I guess we both needed God to say “You did good, now continue.”  We both have felt guilty, confused and maybe even scared that the we “heard God wrong” during the spring when we sensed God leading our families to move. We talked, we reasoned, we shared our opinions, we committed to pray for each other. Then, last night I overheard Teanna quoting Proverbs 3:5-6 to some of her friends. My ears pricked. As I listened to her sharing that God had given her these verses during the time that they were seeking God’s will over their move my heart started to jump! Anyone who heard our home assignment presentation this year will remember me quoting these verses and sharing how during praying over whether we should stay in Kosovo or move to Bulgaria God spoke to me through this section of Proverbs. A quick summary for those who didn’t have the “pleasure” of hosting the Mann Clan this year. In the eyes of the world, logic, even to our families and church supporter,s moving again made no sense.  Yet however crooked our path looked, this was God’s straight path for our family…how my understanding always stinks in light of God’s. Only when trusting in Him can we begin to understand our lives! And here I am hearing Teanna express that God gave her the same verses at the same time. Wow! I had been praying for Teanna on and off all day that God would give her something… a sign, a word, something that would give her a renewed confirmation that The Sunberg Six are in the right place doing the right thing. And God did it again…he spoke to me, and The Mann Clan. He so often does that. As I erupted from the other side of the room with “No way T! Those are the same verses that God gave me too!” I was confronted again with how grand and awesome our God is. He has this whole thing planned out, but more than that. We have come away from this weekend with a picture of how God works and how interconnected the body of Christ is. We have a sense of being a part of the big picture…the picture that we cannot see or understand but that God is totally Lord over. God is teaching us to trust and submit to His will, leave our own logic and understanding to the side and follow him. Some of the confirmation or clarification that we were looking for and praying for came in those moments of God showing us our joint journey. These moves are His will and plan not simply our desires or based only on organizational strategies, finances or logistics. He is taking us and our families on a faith and character building journey… a joint journey… a journey that has so much history yet one that we are just beginning

The time in Prishtina was fantastic even though it was very short.  I was able to meet up with some of our friends, including Selim who leads our group in Suhareka.  It reminded me just how much I miss living in Ko sovo.  Nevertheless, hanging out with friends wasn’t the only purpose of the trip.  Planning for the future with regard to our Theological Education program was the main reason.  I met with Gil Thibault and Steve Beiler and we were able to hash out a two year plan for classes…and aggressive schedule to move our students along in their education and training.  I’m very excited about it.

One thing that causes me some concern, though, is that funds are tight.  We are in the process of increasing tuition for the students.  But the tuition costs don’t cover things like airfare to bring in a professor (all of our professors are kind enough to donate their time to teach) and other costs.  We would love to find some supporters to help us with this incredibly important ministry…the training of pastors and leaders.  If you are interested in helping us in some way, please let us know via email, Facebook or phone call.  Thanks in advance for your interest and support!