Graciousness

The first week we arrived in Razgrad, we opened bank accounts. It turned out we opened the wrong kind of account, so when we were in Sofia for Thanksgiving, Jessica took us to a bank there to change our accounts. The new accounts gave us debit cards and lowered the monthly fee. We received our debit cards last week, and were told they would be activated that evening. Because we needed money at the time, we just withdrew it in person. Saturday was the first time went to an ATM to use our debit cards; we needed to get out money so we could pay for our monthly rent and utilities, and we had no cash in our pockets at all.

 Long story short, none of our debit cards worked because we tried to activate them in Razgrad and not in Sofia, where the account was opened. This morning, between the three of us, we spent over an hour and a half at the bank waiting for our debit cards to be activated. The process was not too complicated, but we just had to be patient. One of the bank ladies who spoke English was especially helpful, and even walked Katie through the process of online banking with our accounts. This lady talked with us while we were waiting, and asked us how long we were going to be in Bulgaria and what we were doing here. She was very friendly. When I was the only person left waiting, this lady came up to me and told me to call her if we had ANY problems, not even anything related with the bank - her husband is a doctor. She wants to help us because we are foreigners.

I am thankful for the way God works. It is wonderful to see God bringing people into our lives who are patient with us and are very gracious in the way they help us. Every time we have been to the bank, all the people we’ve encountered there have been gracious to us and help us even though we speak very little Bulgarian. I wanted to share this story to show how God is working here and putting people in our lives to help us. (This morning was also our first language lesson – but I will share about that another time.) God is blessing us in many ways, and we look forward to sharing God’s blessings with others.