Well, we made it to Sofia. Unfortunately, our luggage did not. Apparently, our mad dash through the Philadelphia Airport was not equaled by our luggage, and it did no arrive on our flight from Frankfurt with us. We filed the claim and it was handled very professionally, but in the mean time we're all without bags. We're due to preach of the largest evangelical church in Sofia tomorrow morning, and we'll all be in two day old clothes! All of us except Darin who thought it would be a good idea to be ultra-casual on the flights here and wore a t-shirt and old sweat pants. After we got situated in our hotel, we went out and scoured the downtown area for some decent clothes for him (and a shirt and tie for Bruce). It took us more than an hour-and-a-half, but we found something!
After we took care of that, we spent the better part of two hours walking around the center of the city looking at the old churches and buildings. We saw two churches from the 11th and 14th centuries and one from the 4th! Yes, the 4th! Next to that church are a whole variety of Roman ruins that you climb on and around at your leisure. It was fascinating; my wife would have loved it. Sofia is a very interesting city. It feels progressive, the stores can be very expensive (even by our standards), and the advertising is very western, even overtly sexual. The feel of the city is very old but definite traces of western influence and new development everywhere. We went to a mall today that would rival most in the States.
One interesting connection as I close. We were met at the airport by Theodore, the 20-year old son of Victor Virchev (our host in Sofia, pastor, and head of the Bulgarian Evangelical Alliance). He lives in studies in Wales, and his sister lives in Australia. She attends Hillsong church and is married to the youth pastor there, Scott. Scott is one of the best friends of Steve Kelly, pastor of Waves Church in Virginia Beach. So how 'bout that?! More to come...
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