our trip to Greece

Our Trip to Greece!

We arrived back in Spata, a suburb of Athens last night, where we are staying with the pastors George and Lydia until our departure for home Thursday.

Our last three days were spent in the Christian churches of Greece 12th annual conference on the island of Evia. The theme was "Going to the Transformation (Metamorphisis) of Maturity". You can see picture I took of the beautiful poster that was across most of the stage showing the process of change the catepillar goes through to the become a butterfly. It was a wonderful theme that God gave Themis as he was in prayer for the conference. There were many ways that the various speakers developed it, but God was really challenging His people to change and to become mature so that they could be a testimony to win the world and that they could become mothers and fathers in the church instead of babies.

I took a lot of pictures and a few videos of the crowd of 660 people worshiping God and also of the teenagers who were down at the front seeking God and receiving prayer from Themis. I will share a few here. They also had a baptisimal in the pool, where Themis baptised a lot of people.

They used Shofars (the horns of sheeps or goats that were used in Israel) some of the times, which really excited the people to shout to the Lord. We had communion together yesterday morning. Ron was asked to serve the unleavened bread like we make and to lead in prayer for part of it. We also both greeted the people on the second day. The people were so loving and accepting of us, and we did a lot of prayer with them and some specific counseling with some inbetween services. The services were marathons. There were five services, which lasted from 4-5 hours each, usually 1-2 hours of singing, worship and prayer and 2-3 hours of preaching, etc. The difficulty for us was that we could not sing or understand the songs because they were all in Greek. For the messages we had little transistor radios with someone translating into English. But this was hard because there was often a lot of static, etc. My ears will never be the same from having earphones in them so long and so loud, and we had to concentrate so hard to understand. Sometimes there were two translators-from German to Greek to English. The messages were challenging. Many people here take naps in the late afternoon and then they go half the night. We were meeting with people all those times, however, and I am very exhausted.

The most amazing thing for me was the favor, love, acceptance, and heart connections the Lord gave me with many women. It was very humbling. They opened their hearts and lives to me so quickly and completely, and I was able to minister to them with God's love, prayer, and even practical things.Also a couple little girls, one of which I will show you again. I will tell you more about this aspect when I am back in Boise, but it was awesome and the most fulfilling aspect of the whole mission trip. Also God gave us a connection with a lovely couple from Switzerland, Hans Peter and Esther. I show you their picture here, and I know God has future plans for us with them. We also spent some time with Krasi and Hristiana and their family. This is the family we support in Bulgaria as a church. They are faithfully doing a very good work there in a very hard field, so we need to continue our prayers and financial support for them.

We love you and appreciate your prayers for us. We are looking forward to coming back to America and our church that God has given us to shepherd. We miss you!

Since the last post, we got packed up and ready to drive back to Heraklion. Once we were ready, we invited a 20 year old young lady we met to come visit us for some personal counseling. She had some relational wounds that she needed to share with someone who would understand them and give her godly advice. We spent several hours with her and I believe the Lord gave us His wisdom for her. We had lunch together at a restaurant named "Monastery" and then we drove back to our apartment in Heraklion. We arrived at 7:30 and rested for about one hour and then we started packing for the flight to Athens the next day. We were served a dinner at 9:30 PM and then we went to bed.

We awoke the next morning and finished packing and had a light breakfast and then were picked up by Brother Adonis who took us to the airport where we met Themis and flew together to Athens. We were picked up in Athens by Brother Giorgos and taken to his house where we picked up some clothes we had left there and left some we didn't need for the conference. Then we drove to Themis' house where he picked up his clothes and then we traveled to the island of Evia where the conference is being held. It was a beautiful trip because this time we took a ferry instead of driving over 100 kilometers to the conference sight. The ferry landed at the city where the hotel is. We had a wonderful Greek dinner at a restaurant joined by Themis' son, John and wife Flora, her parents and another pastor couple who work in Limia. From there we traveled to the conference sight and got checked into our rooms.

After a some rest, we went to supper at 7 PM and this was followed by a prayer meeting with all of the pastors and wives available. It was an awesome time of prayer and God prepared us for what He wants to do in the next three days. FYI, my phone number has changed. If you have an important reason to call me, dial 011-30-698-339-0643.

In this post we want to give you a view of where we stayed in Chania. It was so quaint and beautiful. We could stay here for a long time. In the interior of the rooms you can see where they have exposed the 400 year old bricks and mortar. It is creates a very interesting and appealing look. The one picture is of the bay around which many restaurants and shops are gathered and then a view of the Venetian area of town that has been converted into hotels and shops. Also, there is another picture of Paul and Diane at their home. Today we are meeting Barbara Cooke to help her through some hurtful things that have happened to her and then we drive back to Heraklion. We leave at 10:20 am for Athens on Friday and then we will be driven to the island of Evia where the conference will be held. Themis has called all of the pastors a day early to pray for the meetings. I don't know if we will have Internet service there so the blogs will come only if we do have access. Keep praying for Athena. She had her worst night last night with only two hours of sleep. This has been such a trial for her but she has been a real trooper. She ministered with all of her heart in every situation and God gives her the strength but we still believe God wants her to sleep and the lack of it is an attack of the devil on our ministry. Blessings to all of you. We love you and miss you.

On Wednesday we got up and tried to catch up on our blogging but it was too big of a job for one day. We spent one half hour in the city walking around and enjoying the sites. The rest of the time we were getting ready for our next assignment which was to spend the afternoon with Paul and Diane Cooke. The devil is trying to dismantle their relationship and we tried to be there for them to help them do the things they must do to defeat the devil. These pictures are of our time there and also of the future retreat area they are building. They have a beautiful house on a hill that overlooks all of Chania. In the back area they have a plans for a large swimming pool, a large hottub, an incredibly well equipped kitchen area, barbeque area with three types of barbeques and numerous gazebos to relax under. They want this area to be for pastors and wives who need time to rest or for small groups of pastors for teaching and training retreats. It is very beautiful. Paul and Diane have always made their homes available for pastors for no charge wherever they have been. They have lived in Canada, New Zealand, USA, Belgium and now Greece and they have followed this principle everywhere and God has blessed them for it.

After being served a wonderful breakfast on Tuesday morning, we spent a little time in the city of Agios Nikolaos visiting the shops owned by Dinos and Virginia and also the pastor and his wife, Tifonas and Nike. Then we drove back to Heraklion and went to our apartment and got different clothes for the next two days and repacked the car and headed out to the west part of the island to the city of Chania. We got to our hotel with only about one half hour of wandering around in a city that is an absolute maze of tiny, narrow one-way streets. We checked in and were immediately picked up by our gracious hosts, Paul and Diane Cooke and taken to their home for dinner with them and several families in the church who all speak English. The pictures are of sisters Eleni and Kathi; Paul, Diane and Barbara Cooke; and a view from the balcony of our room at the hotel. Barbara is twenty years old and will be moving to Athens to attend university. Paul and Diane paid for us to stay in a quaint hotel that is a remodeled building constructed by the Venetians 400 years ago. During the evening we were able to encourage the people in serveral different areas. Eleni and Kathi both have serious health issues and were very interested in learning about how to strengthen their immune systems. Athena was able to give them a lot of information and websites to help them. We also talked a lot about raising children. There is a cultural problem in Greece in how children are raised. It is total child-centered parenting and results in total pandemonium in most of the church services. It is not a good testimony and often keeps people from inviting others because they are embarrassed about the children. We have gotten the Growing Kids God's Way program for the churches here but they still haven't gotten the translating done so it can be used. We see this as one area where God may use us in the future to help establish the Biblical groundword for GKGW so they will accept it. They will only be willing to change their culture if they are sure it is God's will. Greeks are very proud of their culture and are reluctant to change unless God is requiring it.