Day Four

By: Joe Sanders

Today started with the question of “How can we finish?” and ended with “How did he do it?!”

The work in the girl’s apartment is nearing completion. After a few days of wondering if the project would be done by Wednesday, boss man Wayne is confident the new floor will be completed by the end of Tuesday. Monday consisted of plenty of measuring and cutting. Wayne put down the support beams for the new floor while David and I cut the OSB board (particle board) to fit the cleaned out section of the old floorboard. To make sure we were on the right track to finish, we skipped lunch and worked a full day from 9 to 5:30 without a break. By the time we finished, the particle board had been placed in one of the rooms we had been working on and the next room had been prepped for completion. We are hoping to be very close to putting down the completed floor by lunch time Tuesday. Misho has been a lot of help with the work on the floor. He is very smart and a very hard worker. Also, Niden and Bobby continue to work on the downstairs showers and they have done a very impressive job.

            After a long day of work, we enjoyed a nice meal (even though we had to wait the traditional Bulgarian service time of one to two hours) and finally made it back to the hotel for Zoiko’s magic show. After being a witness to one of Zoiko’s live bird tricks earlier this week, I was greatly anticipating tonight’s show. Zoiko has three birds: Gooko, Jennifer, and their son Joe. Tonight’s entertainment was Gooko. Zoiko involved him in many tricks, including getting him to play dead only to reawaken with a snap of his fingers. Zoiko showed us many of the tricks he had learned while performing in Turkey, such as magic card tricks and one that comprised taking everyone’s watch and tying a large knot in a rope, only to magically get the watches back to their owners without harming the knot. Zoiko and his assistant Niden were very impressive and Zoiko has improved incredibly from last year’s magic show. If this is what he can do with only one year of proper training, then there is no telling what the limit to his potential is. It is always good to share a few oohs and ahhs and laughs with Zoiko and Niden. We don’t know what we will do next year without them. They are always a big help, Zoiko with the activities for the other kids and Niden with the construction work. All of the other orphans look up to them and it will be hard to replace the help they provide us. Please pray for their future careers and endeavors as they set out later this year to make their own career paths and livelihoods. We know that they will work hard at whatever they attempt and will be successful as long as they do their best.