Thank you so much for your continued prayers for us. We rely on them and the grace of God to lead us daily in His will and purposes for this trip.

On Monday, we flew for 2 1/2 hours to Thessaloniki, Greece, which is in the northeastern part. I (Athena) have never been to this part of Greece. We were picked up by two brothers and taken to the home of Phillip and Baso. There we had a good time of fellowship and prayer. The next day, we had a meeting in their home from about 1:30 to 8:30 in the evening, with a break for dinner at 4. We were with the pastor Minoli and his wife Angeliki. They are the most wonderful, loving and dedicated couple, and they work very hard for the ministry here in Greece, pastoring at least two small churches.

They have many difficulties, some which we do not face in America. We will explain more when we are home. However, the enemy is the same everywhere, and we all fight battles that are similiar. They do not have any help and support like we have. God knitted our hearts together in a very special way, and we were able to pour into them and pray for them, and minister many things from the Word of God. Also in attendance were our hosts, Phillip and Baso, who are like assistants to them in the church. In addition, another pastor, Dimitri, from the island of Thassos came and was our interpreter. He was very touched by God and asked us to minister to him and his wife at the conference. He had been hurt and was not very trustful of church leadership but God is changing that. Todd, who is American, but married to a Greek and has lived there 18 years came also.

One of the most special things with regard to the vision God had given us and Shari was the way Ron and I were able to minister side by side, sharing the teaching and exhortation equally. We found out at the end that this model encouraged them greatly and gave them an example that they desperately need here in Greece. They asked us many questions about marriage and raising children.

On Wednesday, we repacked and got ready for our flight to Athens. We had one small break before we left for the airport and we took a brief walk around the area where we were staying in Thessaloniki. We took some pictures of buildings that date back over 500 years to the time of the Byzantine occupation of Greece. The weather is much warmer here in Greece.

Our flight to Athens arrived at 2:10 and we were picked up by two young brothers from the church and taken to where we will stay for the next two days. We then went to the home of the pastors in Athens, Giorgos and Lydia, and enjoyed a wonderful meal together with a number of the brothers and sisters.

Because we are having to do this from a computer other than my own, we will not be able to make all of the individual blogs with matching pictures. We will include pictures that relate to today's blog and you will have to try to make sense of them.