In 11 days I will no longer be a teenager and I'm writing this while eating a "Lion" bar which is basically a Kit Kat and 100 Grand mixed together and so darn good. Today I got off of a bus at 5 a.m. and got to my room, showered and then passed out until 10 and spent most of my day planning and reading and then went to class at 5:45 p.m. and learned about Adobe Illustrator, which is pretty cool I'll say.
Classes started last week and the way classes are put together are so weird. I have Monday/Thursday classes, Tuesday/Thursday classes, Monday/Wednesday classes and they are all an hour and fifteen minutes. Luckily, I don't have class of Friday so that I can travel or just have a long nice weekend.
This is my class list:
1. History of Christianity
2. Bible as Literature
3. Intro. to Bulgarian
4. Investigative Reporting
5. Design and Layout
BUT, I dropped Bible as Literature for Web Design due to Bible as Lit. and History of Christianity being taught by the same professor. Although it was different content, many points were being made in both of the classes and the professor is so intense that it would be hard for me to be in both of those classes. I understand that all people believe what they want to believe and I wasn't expecting a Christian to teach these classes but on the other hand I didn't expect such a devout Atheist to teach the classes. On the first day of class he said "There is no God, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news." The only problem is that he teaches in a way to prove God to not exist, when it should be unbiased, but I'm trying to look on the good side and see how an Atheist would argue, what points that will be made in a conversation against God. It breaks my heart to hear him say what he does, so I am praying, praying, praying and also trying to take in what I can from this man to be more assured of my faith. He is also so very educated and it would be intimidating to get in a class discussion because I feel as though it will more so be a class attack upon what I believe. I know with everything in me that I am so blessed to have faith, to really know and be pursued by the God that created me. So, please pray for me as I take this History of Christianity class, for it will test me and the enemy will use it.
Last week I decided to travel with some people to Athens, Greece. We had Monday off for a Bulgarian holiday so we hopped on a bus on Thursday night and spent 4 days in Greece and that's why I got off a bus at 5 a.m. this morning. We arrived and spent the first day seeing all the sights of the Acropolis, great things built by Hadrian and the Ancient Agora. Wow! it's so amazing to be in a place so old and so stupendous. My favorite thing out of the whole trip though was when we came to Aereopagus Rock/Mars Hill/Rock of Ares which is where Paul gave his "Men of Athens speech" and it is spoken of in the book of Acts and he spoke about Athens being a city of people being "religious" and worshipping idols. He basically laid down the Good News to the people right where I was standing at that point. I almost had goosebumps. It was also slightly convicting because Paul dedicated his life to spreading the Word and I don't feel as though I've been truly doing so lately. I look at the map and now that I'm here, I realize how much time Paul just had to spend traveling to spread the Word, what an inspiration. The enemy has made it so "uncool" and frowned upon to be so intense about what we believe that it actually affects us and I get upset thinking about it. Evangelism is so important and especially because now I see how many people do not want to believe here, I see the need and I feel the need.
Then, I stayed my first night in a hostel, which wasn't bad. I would definitely recommend staying at hostels because the people who work there are typically travelers and know cheap awesome things to do. The shower situation slightly sucked, but I got clean..... eventually. Side Note: The bathrooms in Europe are simply terrible and don't flush any toilet paper down the toilets. On Saturday we went on a ferry to a nearby island and when you think of Greece in the movies, the islands are where you need to go. Unfortunately we didn't get to go to a really nice island, but we got to go swimming on the island Aegina and I have never in my life seen such beautiful water. It was pristine and the perfect temperature. We spent the whole day at the island and maybe got a little too much sun. Half of our group stayed the night and the rest of us went back to Athens. The girls I was with had a few drinks and then we went to go see what Athens night life is like and it was PACKED and ridiculous. People really enjoy they're partying over here, but all the places were bars and we were more interested in finding a disco (primarily for people who just like dancing and appreciate the music), which was no where in the Gazi district. So, we went back to the hostel and fell asleep.
The next day we met up with the rest of our group who came back from the island and then we went to the museums. It was really handy to be a student in Bulgaria, because any student in the E.U. got to get into everything for free, so we didn't have to pay any entrance fees. I saw things that we had learned about in FA Visual back at ASU, so it was actually some knowledge that I could use. I did notice throughout Greece at the few churches that we stopped in that they were very bright. The Orthodox churches that I've been to in Bulgaria have been so dark inside and the ones in Greece were much more inviting. We stayed in Greece for a couple more days and mostly shopped around, but once we got out of the tourist areas, we came to find out that Athens is quite the sketchy city. I, at least saw two big groups of gypsies on the side of the streets making and shooting up herione and they were crouched down and when we walked by this scene, all of us kind of knew to almost start jogging because it was pretty scary. We also believe we saw a girl on the side of the street who had overdosed the night before and was dead. All of these streets were not dark alleys either, just in the open broad daylight. Grafitti was everywhere and I would suggest only spending about 2 days in Athens, because that's all you need to see everything.
In Greece I ate:
-prawns that weren't that great
-awesome ham and cheese phyllo dough pies
-the best pastries I've ever had in my life
-chicken gyro
-lamb gyro
-lamb souvlaki
-legit tsatsiki
-awesome slushes that I can't get in Blagoevgrad
I really need to meet people at this school from other places, lately I feel as though I have only hung out with Americans, which I really like the girls that I do know and think that we'll have some really great friendships. But, I want to get to know people and where they come from. I can't wait to travel some more and see these other places. This is definitely the most exciting thing that has happened to me.
If you have been praying for me to be able to get encouragement, I feel as though it's worked. I have been asking God to give me at least one person to have the same beliefs as me and I believe that I found her now and we're having lunch soon. I might cry from the excitement of having someone to talk to God with who is easy at hand. Now, I'm just trying to concentrate on getting to know people and finding the time for my quiet times which is so very hard, but I will make sacrifices because I never realized how MUCH I need it, until it was all I had.
Bulgaria and God will treat me well, please keep praying and following and I'll try to put more posts up more frequently because if I can encourage you be sharing what God is doing in my life, then the purpose of this blog is fulfilled.
I encourage you to read Acts 17:15-34, that was what Paul was telling the Athenians upon that very rock that I stood not but a few days ago.
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