the City No Longer Deserted

Dear Friends -

I apologize for not being able to keep up with each of you by email as much as I would like to - we have been veryy busy. No more restlessness though, so I guess it's been an answer to prayer haha. Please pray the Lord would grant us energy and rest despite the lack of much sleep or free time.

Some updates -

On Monday night we got to cook dinner for Argyris' family. It was hands down one of the best memories of the trip so far! So much joy. Because we were cooking for 15 people, buying groceries from a corner market and couldn't read any food labels, had to improvise measurements when converting units, and using a small kitchen in the Bible School with one tiny oven, etc, it took about 4 or 5 hours to even get everything prepared. Everyone on the team was involved and the random roadblocks we ran into - like finding maggots in the garlic right when we needed to cook with it - really unified us as we rushed around trying to make the night perfect for this amazing host family. We set up tables on the roof and brought an extension cord and lamps up there and me and Chelsea went and cut flowers from the neighbors (oops) to put in vases and we managed to get some music playing as well and the whole thing was just beautiful. They liked the "Southern style" feast and somehow the Lord just made everything turn out SO great even though it felt like a scramble pulling it all together. When Argyris and his family came up to the roof for dinner they were amazed and the youngest son, Erastos, exclaimed "You all are crazy!" It brought me so much joy to be able to serve them in this way and to enjoy fellowship that night on the roof with them and with my team. I can't fully express the whole scene to you, but it is a memory I will always treasure.

We have been putting on festivals every night lately for the Albanian and Romanian immigrant and refugee children, trying to raise awareness of the First Church community center and to develop relationships with the parents as well. Me and Mallory have been in charge of face painting the past two times and I'm pretty sure it's my new passion. It's helping me curb some of my frustrations with the language barrier. Being able to say little else to the kids besides "Hello" and "What's your name?" and "Color?" and "You're welcome," I love the one-on-one interaction and being able to pray specifically for each child as I paint hearts and stars and footballs on their arms and hands and faces. Holding their tiny palms to mine was oddly dramatic and emotional as I envisioned the potential years ahead for them and prayed those hands would be used to serve the Lord and to lead others - that those hearts would come to know Him and treasure Him and want Him more than anything else in the world.

An exerpt from my journal - June 18, 2009 -

Last night we spent the night in First Church and slept on the tile floor of the smaller sanctuary. This saved time not having to take the metro/bus home and back. It was awesome to get to sleep in downtown Athens, with the Parthenon literally across the street, listening to the traffic on the other side of the wall.

This morning we went to Nea Zoi (New Life) again. I went with Donna into at leat 8 different brothels, maybe more, I lost count. There are so many - the streets are literally just lined with them. All but one of the brothels we visited today had Romanian prostitutes in them - majority of which are probably victims of trafficking. Romania, and 2 or 3 of its villages, close to the Black Sea, appears to be the new target area of traffickers. Because of the language barrier, it was hard to communicate with the girls as much as last time - Donna didn't translate for me as much as Nichole had. There was one Romanian girl who knew a little English though, and we sat and talked with her and with the madam for probably a good 20 or 30 minutes. Ironic icons of Jesus were scattered along the walls, as well as other random trinkets and flowers and fragments of broken beauty. The girls always smoke and drink coffee between clients, so the brothels smell strongly of coffee, cigarette smoke, and cheap perfume. I'll remember vividly this girl as she spoke to me and to Donna, her dark and smudged lipliner widely outlining a beautiful, worldly smile, which creased the premature lines around the corners of her eyes and deepened those on her forhead to betray the emotional, physical, and psychological toll her life and occupation have already taken on her 28-year old body and heart. She sells herself, knowing she'll feel used. She makes herself look beautfiful, knowing she won't believe it. She could work in the taverna and make in a month less than a week of prostitution earns her. Money and stigma and hundreds of other factors prevent her from fleeing the darkness into the unknown. I could write pages and pages on this. God - please do something! Set them free! Bring Light and Truth and Salvation! Glorify Your Name in all the earth. And here in Athens. In Omonia. In this brothel. In this girl's heart.

"They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord; and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted." - Isaiah 62:12