Last year he was our little “tiger,” this year he is our little “loov.” (Lion in Bulgarian). Last Saturday we attended a “Fall Festival” for the missions’ community here in You can see pictures on the link below. Happy Halloween and Drew says “Grrrrrrr!”
A highlight included a day trip to the Rila Monestary. While Marc and I had been before, Fall in all of it’s glory had arrived and was beautiful to explore on a brisk, sunny autumn day. We all felt like school children on a field trip as we drove up the mountain road past Rila. Dad enjoyed the livestock which ambled across the road every now and then, and taking pictures of Bulgarian tractors.
It was a lovely time and made home, for a brief period, seam not so far away. We were grateful for good weather and good health for my parents. The two weeks flew by, and we could have easily filled another two more. My parents need another 2 weeks of vacation just to recover. While dad knew before hand 
Mom also experienced a bit of how dangerous it is to walk with your “shoulders up, head held high” here. We saw her acrobatic side as she missed a 2 inch step in the middle of a restaurant while carrying Drew and did a textbook tuck and roll to save Drew any harm. Overall the greatest joy was to see how happy Drew was with everyone together. Numerous times he would say, “Papa, JeJe, Drew, Mommy, Daddy do it to-geth-ER.”
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers during our time together.
Love to you and yours-
Lisa
Click the link below to see more pictures:
With great pleasure I want to announce that Stoyan (Tony) Lalev has been elected Executive Director of UTF at a special meeting of the Board of Trustees on September 28, 2006. Tony will fill the position left vacant when I was elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees late last year.
When I asked Tony to come on board full time, it was with a specific plan in mind to prepare him for leadership in the school. I have been encouraged by his growth in maturity and management. In these last few years he and I have worked closely together in almost all matters, and I am confident that he is ready to assume the role of Executive Director at this time.
I (Marc) have been spending a large part of my summer planning and organizing the school’s first “Alumni Event.” We are actually developing a full Alumni Program and this event was the “kick-off” to implement this program. 
Our objective for this event was to be a social gathering for all past graduates, over the last 10 years, to get together and re-connect. The second objective was to communicate to the graduates what an “Alumni” is and what an “Alumni Program” does. I feel both were accomplished.
The weekend was a huge success!
We had 69 people show up for the event – which is great as we were hopping for 60 to attend, but prepared for 70. We had a great planning team consisting of SEND missionaries and UTF staff (Bulgarians). The team did a great job coming together and owning their pieces of the event. It was a great display of teamwork as we all had out part in making this even successful.
The former graduates really enjoyed seeing one another again. Many of them personally thanked me for organizing the event as they really enjoyed it – many people on the planning team received many of the same comments. Besides the social element – I really wanted the “Alumni Program” to be communicated clearly. Given my lack of the Bulgarian language – this was hard for me to judge – but many said they were excited to participate in something like this. Now we just need to use the momentum of this event into implementing the actual Alumni Program.
Thank you for your support – it really was a great success!
