Beautiful: The country of Bulgaria is breathtakingly gorgeous! There are many different types of landscapes. Everything to farms with fields and orchards to mountain tops covered with snow. But more importantly, the children we ministered to were beautiful. We visited many homes where most of the children were handicapped and many parts of their bodies were physically deformed. Putting shoes on some of their feet was really difficult because there was no way their foot would fit inside a shoe. Many couldn’t walk. But they were still beautiful. Many people have cast them off as garbage and have classified them as ugly. But God made each one of them and He made each one uniquely beautiful. One of my favorite song is by a band called Gungor and the song is titled Beautiful Things. This is what the chorus says:
“You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things You make beautiful things out of us”
Beautiful
Hopeless: Much of what we saw while we were in this country left me feeling completely hopeless. As we drove through the beautiful country side we would come upon a village that would be completely run down. The homes were ugly and falling apart. Gypsy villages would be made of cardboard boxes and broken pieces of fences. Even in Sophia, the country’s capital, there would be some nice buildings and shops and then right next to it would be a complex that was built when the country was under communism. Windows would be broken out of it and wooden boards would be supporting the structure on the outside. In some of the orphanages we visited my stomach would churn as we walked into the building and the smell of the sewer would overwhelm our senses. In October the weather was starting to get cold and the children would be improperly clothed and no one seemed to care. Even the attitude of some of the children was disheartening because you could tell they were just out to get as much as they could and they were not grateful for anything. The country of Bulgaria is in a hopeless state. Life there is very difficult even if you have a job. But life is a living hell if you are an orphan in Bulgaria.
Hopeless
Reassuring: Even though this country is in a vicious cycle of brokenness and there seems to be no hope to help these people God reminded me that He will take vengeance on all the evildoers who harm the helpless. Psalm 37:8,18-20 says:
“Refrain from anger; and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
The Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will remain forever; they are not put to shame in evil times; in the days of famine they have abundance. But the wicked will perish; the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish - like smoke they vanish away.”
As much as I wanted to act out of anger and do something to help the helpless and bring hope to the hopeless God reminded me that anger only makes things worse. He knows each one of those children and I believe that there is a special place in the Kingdom of God for each one who is born into this broken world and treated like trash, not just in Bulgaria but all over the world. One day the Lord will take revenge for those who have been mistreated and misused. As hopeless as some of the situations are in Bulgaria there were some homes were the children were well cared for and the buildings themselves were very clean and well built. This trip was reassuring in the fact that there are some people who do care for the helpless and are doing their best to take care of them. It was also reassuring to know that one day God will come back and fix this broken world and restore His creation.
Reassuring
Beautiful, Hopeless, Reassuring
"Beautiful Things"
All this pain I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
All around Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things You make beautiful things out of us
