Romania and Bulgaria in EU - 01/01/2007

Romania and Bulgaria are now officially in the European Union.  This makes the total number of countries in the EU to 27.  It's a complicated process that I'm sure some people understand better than me.  I know that Romania and Bulgaria will not convert to the euro immediately, but I"m not sure when they will, maybe in one or two years.

Eurostat statistics show that Bulgaria and Romania will be Europe's poorest members with gross domestic product per capita barely reaching one third of the European average.  So it will still be an uphill battle for Romania and Bulgaria.  They both still have a lot of changes to make, in order to improve their economies, as well as their levels of crime and corruption.

Lord willing, I will be doing another mission trip this year or early 2008 along the southern border of Romania and do an outreach in both Romania and Bulgaria during the two week project.  I'm excited about this.  For one, I have never served in Bulgaria.  For two, we will be helping a really sweet Romanian pastoral couple who came to our last pastors conference.  For three, we will be working in the absolute poorest part of Romanian and Bulgaria and working a lot with Gypsies.  Pray for this project.