Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 7

Today we started off in Monastiraki, which is the major tourist spot in Athens, to grab a quick lunch and a couple of things for our family. After a short period there, we hiked up to Mars Hills to a time of Bible study, prayer, and reflection. It was fantastic to have such great reason to praise God and to talk through our trip. For me personally, I also enjoyed working on my sermon for Sunday from that key place in Greek Christian history… hopefully, the message will be as inspiring as Paul’s unknown God message!


Anyway, once we finished our time at Mars Hill, we made our way to Holargos. Today was different at our main campus because the students were receiving their marks or grades. Due to “report card day” they did not have the usual sports programs, but we were able to talk to the kids and say our goodbyes for now.


At 5:00, Sophia (the primary basketball director) drove us to a school we had never been at before to allow us to lead basketball with those children. The kids in this program were in 2nd and 3rd grade (7-8 years old – younger than our normal group). Unlike the other school, all of the parents came with them and we had a brief time to meet all of them. It was fun playing with the younger kids, and being able to lead the entirety of the session. We were not expecting to be given the reigns in this school, but we were elated to do so – we will definitely have to think through some age appropriate drills for next time!


Another cool thing about today was that our friend from America that has recently moved here joined us today; his name is Ryan. He has a very good heart and great mind for how to Shine in this country. We are excited to see how God uses him here and what will come of our newfound friendship. Fortunately, we were able to introduce him to Sophia, and he might even be able to enroll his own children in the sports academy of Holargos! It would be incredible for them to have an ongoing relationship with the workers and municipality – please pray this works out!

Ryan was also able to meet Bill. We stopped by Bill’s restaurant and introduced them to one another. Bill has a very busy schedule, but we are hoping he makes time to study the Word with Ryan and develop a friendship with him as well – please pray for this too! Our time with Ryan today, playing with children, introducing him to our friends, and dialoging about our work here encouraged our hearts greatly. It is our hope to continue this partnership and watch what happens!

Whenever I return home, I will do a summary of our trip. As a final prayer request, please pray that God would bless us with a safe and uneventful trip home. God is good, and He is definitely moving here!

Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 6

Today we started by going to my favorite place in Holargos, the local tennis club. For whatever reason, I find it to be extremely relaxing and enjoyable. The main worker there, Helen, remembered me when I came in and even asked if Christy was with me – pretty cool that she remembers her too! We visited for a little bit, but had limited conversation as the club was extremely busy. (Whenever we walk from one place to another in town, we have been trained to constantly pray for those we come in contact with, Raymond taught us that!)


Next we went to visit another friend over lunch, someone we had the opportunity to share with last May. As we came in, he was excited to see us (he knew we were coming). We spoke briefly before we ate, but spoke for a good amount of time afterwards. Long story short, he not only remembered our previous conversation, he had been thinking about it and reading his Bible. After going through the plan of salvation and what it means for Jesus to be Lord of your life, he thought about it and asked Jesus to be his Savior and Lord! This was so exciting!!!

Something else of note today happened on our way to the municipality, we saw a group of teenagers reading and passing around a Bible. We had no clue what they were saying, but we do know it was a Bible and we also know they were reading and talking about it. In the same way that God worked in the man’s heart in the restaurant, he can work in these teenagers lives as well! He is so faithful and so able to break through anywhere at any time through anyone for anyone! God is so much better and capable than we can imagine. The Holy Spirit is always at work in the hearts and lives of people, we just need to instrument who declare His glory and exalt Jesus.

After our incredible experience, we went to the school we work at and played basketball with the kids. Usually we will run drills or participate with them, but due to cold weather they typically cancel… However, today there were about 14 or so kids who showed up, “because they knew we would be there.” HOW AWESOME IS THAT!


Anyway, we played with them for a little over 2 hours and then had to leave… because Jamie got his lip all busted up! One of the kids accidently hit Jamie’s lip with his head going to a ball. Fortunately, we were able to get some ice from a local music café and stop the bleeding. The poor kid who messed Jamie’s face up felt terrible and profusely apologized. Jamie kept trying to reassure him it was not big deal and not to worry about it, but the guy still felt bad.


For dinner, we returned to the restaurant we ate at the other day with our friends Kostas & Catalina. Believe it or not, we order the goat again, with some pork as well. It was a good dinner and a fantastic day. God is good!!!


There are 3 other things you need to know about this day that are quite funny:
1. Jamie wore shorts today. He has been bound and determined to do so since we first decided to come, and today he did. Never mind that it was below 50* all day (except for 15 minutes, maybe). It was so cold, the sports academy in our municipality cancelled the programs… but Jamie wore his shorts. To his credit though, we did see 2 other people in shorts, in a city that has more that 5 million people! (Notice the heavy coats and scarves the people are wearing next to Jamie... who is in his shorts)


2. We saw a dude with a man purse or as Jerry Seinfeld calls it, a European carry-all!



3. Jamie got his tail whopped by a 10 year old… (ahem, suffering for Jesus) then proceeded to eat an orange in a quite humorous way.


(Goat, it's what's for dinner)
(A health club with an interesting name, Gym N' Tonic)
(The tennic club)

Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 5

Our time in Athens keeps getting better and better. Monday we had an opportunity to spend the entire day in our neighborhood. We started off with prayer walking. Going through the municipality, and asking God for opportunities for His light to shine and for favor in developing relationships. We even had the opportunity to hike up a small mountain that overlooks Holargos for pray for the entire community.


We were surprised to find that a market was going on, and had the opportunity to walk through that as well. Since it is in the end of the winter season here, I was not expecting it, but it is always interesting to see the various people selling fruit, flowers, fish, clothing, and random supplies. By the way, non-brand name sweat pants will cost you 5 Euros, but knock Puma sweat pants will cost you 8, which really amused me for some reason.


The funniest part of the day was visiting Kostas’ office to mess with a lady named Effi. She is the person in the office who said she thought we were some sort of s-p-i-e-s. Kostas had given me some personal information about her to mess with her a little, and it was quite effective. We went into the office and I sat down at her desk. Immediately I asked her specific questions about her family and told her I had been watching her. She and her coworker (our friend Nikki) looked completely stunned!


I went on and told her, “I don’t think we have officially met, I am Jason Bourne and this is my friend Bond, James Bond” (referring to Jamie). Immediately they knew Kostas had let us in on her conspiracy theory and we all had a good laugh. This might seem like a small thing, but to me, it is huge in deepening our friendship and relationship with the people in Holargos.


Later on, we made it to the schools where we played basketball and participated in the drills with the kids. Sophia, the basketball instructor, was happy to see us and had us play games that would involve us with the children. It was really cool to see some of them who recognized us and were happy we made it over again. Not only did we interact during the scheduled academy time (5:00-6:00), we played for about 45 minutes before and 90 minutes afterwards. We had a great time and are ready to return tomorrow!

Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 4

Today was a great day. After breakfast, we headed to Holargos to watch their semi-professional teams play basketball. The women’s game started at noon, and they scored an easy win. We enjoyed watching the elbows fly and some of the players get intense, but we were concerned when our friend Kostas did not show up.


At the conclusion of the game, I called him on his cell, but he did not answer. We were quite disappointed and decided to grab lunch before the men’s game. On our way to a local restaurant, Kostas called and asked if we could meet him at 3:00, which we were more than happy to do. He took us to a Cretan place called Biftekaaatsi. Amazingly enough, he gave us the name of the place and the street and we managed to find our way there – keep in mind we do not speak the language, had no idea where the street was, and I thought the place was called Vistacatsi!


Anyway, Kostas showed up with his wife Catalina. We had been told that most Greeks will eat dinner for at least 2 hours, so we were expecting that the meal would last until the men’s game started at 5:00. Somewhere around 6:40, we figured that we would not be able to make the game at all, which was fine by us.

Our time with Kostas and his wife was awesome. There are many interesting things about the dinner. First of all, we asked them to order for us, which they did. They started off with several appetizers: a huge bruschetta-like bread thing (almost like a bagel with tomato and goat cheese), goat cheese wrapped in a crescent and covered with honey, sausage, cabbage rolls, and a salad with honey mustard. Then we had our main courses: chicken, meat patties, and goat with pasta. Ironically enough, the goat had the best flavor (I would have taken pictures of it all, but I did not want to look too goofy).

We talked about lots for different things as well, from family to politics to culture. They have a 15 year old boy and a 10 year old girl, and we face the same basic issues with our kids – wanting them to be respectful, caring for their future, desiring to protect them from the rubbish on TV, etc. Due to the Greek economic crisis, they have many concerns about what is going on in their county, but maintained a relatively positive attitude. They said the biggest problem within their culture is that the people do not follow simple laws.

The dinner ended with them driving us to our bus stop and inviting us to their house the next time we are in town. We plan on seeing Kostas and his staff tomorrow. As is the case with most of the people we are in contact with over here, they do not understand why we are here. In fact, one of the women in his office is convinced that we are some sort of s-p-i-e-s, which is absurd and hilarious, especially since we are involved with sports - I told them we want to learn how to better play soccer... Anyway, he gave us some information on her to rattle her cage a little tomorrow, which we are really looking forward to doing.

Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 3

Today was the only day where we did not have plans this trip. We took it easy and slept in, then tried to figure out what exactly we wanted to do. We decided to go to Piraeus, the main port city in Athens that we had ran through on our last trip, but did not have time to walk through. A couple of stops before we arrived on the Metro, we learned that the green line did not make it all the way to Piraeus due to construction. However, we were able to find our way there on the bus.


Once we arrived, we found that the city was dead, probably due to the Metro not running into town. Having seen a futbol (soccer) stadium, we asked an information desk worker if there was a game there this evening. She said there was so we decided to go there and check it out.



The stadium is home of the Olympiacos Futbol Club. The game started at 7:00PM, which was less than 2 hours. We decided it was a unique opportunity worth capitalizing on, so we purchased tickets for 15 Euros and went to the game.

The fans chanted during most of the game, but it was primarily limited to one rowdy section or quarter of the stadium. They sang, jumped, threw stuff onto the field, and even started fires with flames. It was pretty cool to watch… from the other side of the stadium! Olympiacos tied 2-2, which was disappointing for them because they dropped out of first place to a team that was near the bottom of the league.



This is a picture of Jamie & me and their mascot... He was friendlier with Jamie than me, which I was grateful for!

Athens Trip – March 2010, Day 1 & 2

We had a really good trip from Tulsa to Athens, with the exception of the ungodly start time, 4:15AM! Our first flight departed Tulsa at 6:00AM for Detroit. We had the perfect visit there too, only 35 minutes. We raced from one side of the airport to the other, leaving enough time to grab coffee and jumped on the plane headed to JFK (New York).

Once we landed at JFK, Jamie turned on his phone to receive about a dozen text messages informing us that the Greek public transportation was on strike, including the airport, meaning we would not be able to land or enter Greece. The major thing that was forgotten is that although we left on Thursday, we would not arrive into Athens until Friday, thus the trip was still on. We departed NY at 4:10PM and landed in Athens (ATH) around 9:30AM on Friday.

We were meet by our American friend Jonathan, and took the metro train from the airport to Syntagma Square, the location of our airport. We checked in, dropped off our luggage, and headed straight to Holargos to visit with our friend Kostas. Kostas is the director of athletics for his municipality and has become a good friend. We set up events for Sunday through Thursday, including eating lunch with him (and maybe his family) on Sunday.

Later that Friday evening, we had the opportunity to go to a refugee center. There are some people who have started a work there reaching out to Muslims. They feed them, provide food for them, and share with them. Last year alone 70 people were born again. On Friday night we were able to see a group of men receive certificates and share their stories, it was awesome.



We ended the night having dinner with a group of 20 world changers from Oklahoma (Nowata) and Alabama. They will have 80 people total once they all arrive, which will give the local team here much support. Although we had been told that they would be largely working with us in our neighborhood, they will now be doing something different. All in all, it was a good day and we are excited to see what will come of our trip!

Greece June 09: My Favorite Part of the Trip

My Favorite Part of the Trip is easy, being able to have Christy go with me! It was awesome to watch her light up the faces of the people she came in contact with, especially Helen in the coffee shop. God used her to embrace the people and have them embrace us too. She shone the love of Jesus throughout the trip and I could not be happier that she went.


Now when we pray for the nation, city, and our friends over there she can visualize what we are praying. As our partnership continues, she can refer to her experience with the people. When our kids get older, they can see her example of going even if it challenges every fiber of one's being. She overcame her fear of flying, fear of the unknown, and burden to be with her kids to be obedient to The Calling to go.


Not only that, but we had a great time together. Seeing the history of the Acropolis, studying God's Word on Mar's Hill and in Corinth together and drawing closer to Jesus is priceless. We will not forget Sunio and Aegean Island. She was my best part of this trip, and this trip was incredible!

Greece June 09: Shinning Bright

To go along with our theme for this year (SHINE in 09), here are some examples of how our team shined in Greece!