San Francisco Nights (2015 update)

Several years ago, while visiting San Francisco on our way to preach at the Bulgarian church in Las Vegas, we were completing our research on Ivan Voronaev’s biography at Berkeley, who studied there after his arrival to the States in the 1912.

While there, we decided to call a high school friend who lives and works in the area. He had moved to the States in 1998 while I was working in D.C. We tried to keep in touch since then, but I had not seen him for years. And with all our travels it had never worked out to cross paths.

So early one morning that same week, we were having coffee at Starbucks near San Rafael. He shared some of his experience as an immigrant, about his family spread thin between here and Bulgaria and about his brother who had just moved for work to Phoenix.

I’ve already written about these events with more detail in “Finding Friends in Phoenix or the Story of an Arizona State Quarter”. In short, this is how the idea for twin Bulgarian churches in San Francisco and Phoenix was born in the spring of 2009.

Today, when this dream of two churches is so close to become a reality, I look at this rather incidental and spontaneous meeting and wonder. If God can bring two old friends to start two new churches, what else does He have stored for us in the future?