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.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
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