Cousins Guests of the (Georgian) President!

Well, sometimes you just stand amazed at how God orchestrates a situation. Ben has a cousin, Amy Binder. Youngest of four girls, she grew up on the mission field as a Wycliffe MK in Bolivia, daughter of Ron and Fran Olson. She married Eric Binder, who was also an MK, and who is an artist. Eric and Amy took the Perspectives on the Christian World Mission some years back and then proceeded to set out on a grand adventure to see where God might have them plant themselves for His sake. They took their three beautiful sons and roamed many countries (that I won't mention here) in a van, that if I remember correctly, was blue. They drove and drove, settled for short times, then drove some more, often camping in the blue van. They did not know exactly what they would do once they found a place, but left that decision for after they arrived. They finally settled in the country of Georgia and have been there a few years now.

After getting settled somewhat, they began researching various avenues they could take which would allow them to stay in the country with some small business. They moved forward last year with creating Ronny's, a pizza restaurant. So, with this background, you can jump into the story which we began to hear just a few weeks ago via email.

They write:
"A director from one of the popular TV stations was in our shop tonight having pizza with his family. He heard a bit of how we chose Georgia and said it was a great story. He said he would send a film crew tomorrow. Pray that we will have the right words. Thanks."

------------------------------------
Two days later:
We got four minutes on primetime news tonight! Here is the link.

http://imedi.ge/?p=16681
(Cut and paste into a new tab. Sorry, I can't figure out why it's not letting me link it for you.)
------------------------------------
The next day, they sent an email that was just about one line, saying that as a result of the news story, they had been invited to a major event, where they would be introduced, but they were somewhat worried about whether they were ready for the business that might be brought on by the event. That was it.

Here's the next email:
Ok, for security (?) reasons we were told not to mention the upcoming event last Friday. Here is the scoop...Our family was invited to attend the Georgian President's State of the Union address at the Parliament building. He "accidently" saw us on the news the previous Saturday, and chose to include our story in his speech. It was an honor for us. The publicity has already impacted our business and relationships here. But we are still very tired and feel like we can't catch up. Wyeth left today for a model UN conference in Turkey, so Ezra and Atticus will be spending longer hours at the shop with us again. Our best pizza maker is recovering from surgery and out all this week. We are trying to negotiate with various builders working on the walls of our house. We need more pizza boxes printed! We need more delivery drivers. Our lease for Ronny's needs to be renegotiated this month. We are praying Tim Morris' famous prayer, "HELP." Thank you for being part of this with us. Love, Eric & Amy


http://rustavi2.com/news/video.php?fr=video&id_news=35838&ftp1=1&ftp2=0&ftp3=0
(Sorry, I guess you'll have to cut and paste it into a new tab.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unbelievable, isn't it? Just some tentmakers, selling pizza, being salt and light.
The link is for the entire Georgian President's address. You can hear him talk about Eric and Amy (for about 5-10 minutes!) at about the 1/3 mark. (Eric is holding a headset to his ear with the translation. If you listen to the news story on them, though, you know his Georgian- along with the rest of the family's- is coming along very well.)