Equip Level 2 Class in Sofia

On Friday and Saturday (Mar 18 & 19) we, along with Nick Nedelchev, presented the third class of Equip level 2. These are people who completed level one a couple of years ago and elected to go on.


Most of these people are mid level or senior leaders in both businesses and churches. We actually had about an equal split between business people and church people so the insights were varied and interesting.


This class is more interactive and participative than level 1. We break the students down into small groups for discussion a large portion of the time. That makes our life a little easier!

When we finished, we headed immediately for Plovdiv, where we will spend most of the rest of our time in Bulgaria. Vanya, one of the class participants gave us a ride. As you can see, her little Toyota was really packed with luggage!!!

Equip 1 in Stara Zagora

For the last three nights, we have been presenting the Equip level 1 material to students in Stara Zagora. These are people that we know very well. We have been coming here and teaching them for about eight or nine years now and we have watched them grow. It has been a joy for us.


The people here are, for the most part, members of the Care For All team in Stara Zagora. They function at a very high level and really understand and practice all of the best attributes of high functioning teams. So, when we talk to them about mentoring and teamwork, they get it! Their insights are profound and their desire to learn and grow is amazing. They are the kind of people that keep us coming back and back because they appreciate what we bring them and they use it!



As I think I have mentioned before, our teaching is nearly all done at night because the people are working during the day. So today, we went to the Metro store (like their Sam's Club or Costco) and bought enough food to prepare 20 food bags. Then we went to a poor Gypsy village and gave out the food. It is always a humbling experience and reminds us of how truly blessed we are to live where we do.

Bulgarian Theological Seminary in Pleven

For the last two days, we have been in Pleven teaching leadership at the Bulgarian Theological Seminary extension course. By the time we returned to Sofia, we were completely exhausted having spent two hours on the road and then teaching for eight hours on Friday, teaching another eight hours on Saturday and then two more hours on the road back to Sofia. However, it was a terrific experience and well worth the effort.


As is fairly common in Central Europe, theological educational institutions have had declining enrollments. Their response has been to create extension programs in cities around the country so that people who wish to study can do so while they continue to work. Also, they don't have to move to Sofia and have the expenses of living away from home. The program is working quite well and the BTS has extension programs in several cities outside of Sofia. Pleven is one of them.



This was a group of older students, for the most part. The people were nearly all in their late 30's and up, so they had lots of life experience. Many had lived under communism. So the Biblical principles of leadership that we are teaching really resonate with them. We had terrific discussions and they were very engaged and had excellent insights.

Our Equip 1 Students in Sofia

Here is a picture of our Equip level 1 group on Sofia and one of our crazy host, Dinko!

Equip Level 1 Seminar in Sofia

Last night we began our second module of Equip Level 1 training in Sofia. We will continue tonight and tomorrow night with this same group of people. All of these people are from the region in and around Sofia. We will be working with other groups later in the trip.


A number of these people are new. They were taught the first module by others in the group after we were here last fall. That is exactly how the Equip model is supposed to work; we train people and then they train others.


Our discussions were very lively and they were and are a lot of fun. They all have a lot of life experience so the concepts that we are presenting are very real to them and they quickly see how to apply them. This is one of the things that makes teaching adults a lot more fun. Because of their life experience, they grasp things more quickly than young people who don't have those experiences to draw upon.

Marriage Seminar in Grabovo

Today we conducted our first teaching seminar of this trip. It was a day long marriage seminar for a small church in Grabovo.

The people were very nice and highly attentive. I don't think they get very many foreign visitors here and so we were an event! That made it more fun for us too.

Many of them came up to us afterward and told us that our teaching was very timely and relevant to what is going on in Bulgaria today. Unfortunately, that is the same thing that has weakened and eventually destroyed so many families in the U.S.

Our hope is that by raising these issues and giving them tools to cope with them before they become chronic they can avoid some of the heartache and heartbreak experienced by so many families.
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Sofia and Grabovo

After about 12 hours in the air we arrived in snowy Sofia yesterday. We had left Richmond in 50 degree weather and so the snow and freezing temperatures in Sofia, while not unexpected, were a regression to winter weather. As usual, the first day was uneventful. Our host, Ludmil Mandichev, picked us up at the airport and took us to Casa Farrari, our home away from home here in Sofia. Once we were deposited, he left us to rest, shower, venture out to the little restaurant a block away for dinner and then early to bed. We are never sure how the first night will go. Often we wake up after five or six hours of sleep and can't get back due to the confusion of our body clocks. This was the exception and we both slept hard and long!

Today, we boarded a bus and traveled about three hours to Grabovo, a town in the northern part of Bulgaria. Tomorrow we will be doing an all day seminar on marriage for the church here. It is a "daughter" church of Blagavest, the large church in Sofia where we have taught many times so we are glad for the opportunity to come here. This is our first time in this town and, of course, we are already meeting new people. Tomorrow will be fun. Sorry, for the lack of pictures but we will take some tomorrow and share them on our next post.