Meet Ludmil and Marianna

We arrived about 2:00 PM on October 14 and were met at the Sofia airport by our friend and host, Ludmil Maudichev. He and his wife, Marianna and their two girls began as our hosts, then became our friends, and now have become ministry partners.

Ludmil and Marianna operate the Casa Farrari, a bed & breakfast in the heart of Sofia and our home here. Ludmil is also the assistant pastor at his church and Marianna teaches school. Years ago, when we started coming to Bulgaria, we quickly learned that hotels in Sofia were outrageously expensive. We knew we could not keep coming here if we couldn’t find something more affordable.

We had actually decided not to come back and were going to finish our trip in a city a few hours away. Pat wanted to go see a consignment shop that was selling goods made by local women to support themselves so we agreed I would go ahead and she would stay in Sofia another night and come the next day. When we went to the hotel desk to extend one night, we were told that the hotel was full. Condeleeza Rice was in town to inaugurate a new treaty between the U.S. and Bulgaria and all of the hotels were full. Our host said he knew some people who were opening a Bed and Breakfast and he would call to see if it was open. It turned out that they had opened just a few days before and we were one of their first customers. The rate for the room was excellent and so our problem was solved. We have been coming ever since. This is just one of many tales we could tell that, taken together, assure us that we are where God wants us to be serving at this point in our lives.

Three years ago, their church expressed an interest in having us do a marriage seminar for them, which we did. Ludmil and Marianna were our translators and they also began using the principles we were teaching in their own marriage. Since then, we have come back and taught it twice more. This time we will do it for a much broader group and another couple who is passionate about strengthening marriages will translate for us.

Together, we have now developed a plan to use this seminar as an outreach to the community. Marriage problems are becoming increasingly common and we want to use it for family conflict resolution and divorce prevention. This is typical of how we try to work here; finding reliable partners who share our passion for a topic or an issue and work through and with them. We will say more about this later when we do the seminar.