Riots & Strikes

Have you heard about the riots here in Athens? It's pretty big news over here as we experience the general public's outlast at the police over the fatality of a 15 year old boy. I'm not going to get political or place blame on either party here....this post is to just recount to you our experience.

Today, Wednesday, December 10 was to be a big day for our family. We have been preparing for furlough for some time now and this date was circled on our calendar for months. Last Saturday night, I believe in downtown Athens, a police officer shot and killed a 15 year old boy. This has sparked outrage in the community.

So, how has this affected us? On Monday night, while trying to pick up Brother Jimmy, the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, and his family, the riots started and spread through the part of town where Jimmy lives. We've rented a big 12 passenger van to haul our luggage to the airport and thankfully, I was driving that. Suddenly, out of nowhere, approximately 50 youths (ages 15-25) surrounded the stand still traffic that I was part of. Brandie and the girls were not with me at this time (thank God!). The youths started harassing cars and throwing rocks and fruit. About 5 or 6 of these youths picked my car to try to intimidate. Before I knew it, they had surrounded my car and started rocking it back in forth with me in it. To be honest with you, this scared me to death. I didn't know what to do because they were already burning cars in the center of the city. I was hoping not to become a "well done" missionary at this point. The man in the car in front of me started yelling at the youths and they threw a rock through his window. Immediately after that, about 15 feet from this car, the youths set a dumpster on fire and it burned very quickly. In a matter of seconds, flames were jumping 15 to 20 feet into the air. All of this happened and I just prayed for God's protection and I'm here to tell the story without a scratch on my body!!!

Fast forward to this morning. It is about a hour drive from the my house to the airport. When we arrived at the airport and parked the van, we discovered that the nation wide strike scheduled for today has indeed affected the airport and it is closed. CLOSED!!! We are flying with the German carrier Lufthansa. At the help desk for Lufthansa, there was nobody to help...just a note that said, "If the 24 hour strike has affected you, we apologize." I thought "if..." There are no flights in or out of Greece today. They left a phone number and we called it. The earliest we could get a ticket was on Friday. That's two days away. Plus, on the phone, they told me that since they were not responsible for the strike, that there was nothing they could do (like accommodations, food vouches etc).

It has all worked out so far though. Since this very difficult few minutes this morning, Lufthansa (who is not at fault) made reservations for our family at a 5 star hotel here at the hotel plus food vouchers at a "fancy" restaurant. Tomorrow morning, they want us to report to the front Lufthansa desk at 5 am to see if we can get a ticket "stand-by" and if we can't, then we'll stay another night here and fly at 6:05 am Friday morning. Emily has a birthday part on Saturday...needless to say, we were going to spend Thursday and Friday preparing for that. Thankfully, my mom has taken a lot of this responsibility upon her shoulders and is a huge help.

We are all okay and we just want to get out of this mess. Many say the violence could get worse before it gets better.

First Convert

After 4 1/2 years of ministry (after handing out thousands of tracts, Bible's, and other pieces of literature and building many relationships through which we've shared the gospel), on our last Sunday before furlough, we've had our first convert. We praise the Lord for His eternal promises!!! Words are not enough to describe the feeling today as we watched a lady put her faith and trust in Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior. Please pray for her (name withheld on purpose) as she attempts to reach her family with the gospel.

Catch-Up Post

As promised....

We started the month of November in Olympia, Greece. As you may already know, Olympia is the birthplace of the "Olympic" Games. Wow....it was an awesome place and well worth the 4 hour drive.

Thanksgiving came and went. In the past, we've met with other missionary or American families to celebrate. Not this year. We used the day to see Epidavros. It's an ancient amphitheater built 400 years before Christ. It was an awesome experience. On our way home, we ate our "Thanksgiving" meal at a traditional Greek restaurant. We had grilled chicken skewers, Greek salad with feta cheese, olives, fried potatoes seasoned with oregano, and fried cheese. To top it off, the owner provided us with a huge plateful of fresh oranges on the house. Wow, it was a delicious meal and we were stuffed!!!

After Thanksgiving, we started preparing for our furlough. It will be here before we know it. Our flight leaves on December 10. We will land in Indianapolis and spend Christmas with my family. On the day after Christmas, we will travel to Tennessee to spend time with Brandie's parents. We are so excited as this will be our first Christmas in the U.S. since 2003 and it will be the girls' first Christmas in the U.S. period. Hopefully we will have a white Christmas!!!

I apologize for ignoring this blog. We've been so busy and we look forward to a nice Christmas season. We will keep you updated promptly from now on.

As for our immediate plans, as we said before...we will spend Christmas and New Year's with family. In January, we will start our traveling to report to our supporting churches and also visit some new churches in order to raise some more financial support.

2 Weeks Until Furlough

I've ignored this blog long enough. Preparation for furlough is in high gear and we're running around like chickens with our heads cut off! Check back in the next day or so for a "catch-up" post.

Euro Relief

Man, this is nice! We're not losing as much to the exchange rate as we were just two months ago. Every missionary in a European country that either uses the Euro or a currency that is based upon the Euro is thanking God for the slip of the Euro against the U.S. Dollar. We hope this trend continues. When we served our 6 month internship in 2002 here, the exchange rate was in our favor as it took only $0.90 to buy 1 Euro (those were the good ole' days). Hopefully, in the next few months, the exchange rate will once again at least equalize. That would be very helpful.

4 Years Ago Today

Do you remember what you were doing 4 years ago today? We remember exactly what we were doing October 1, 2004. This is the day that we landed at the Athens International Airport with all of our stuff packed in 13 bags and stars in our eyes. Brandie was 6 months pregnant with Emily and was at the end of the time that it was safe for her to fly. We landed about 6:30 pm local time. Only 9 bags made the trip and the other 4 were delivered in the next few days. We rented a car though orbitz.com...it was supposed to be an automatic. When we got to the counter of Europcar, they informed us that they didn't have any automatics to rent. I had never driven a stick shift out side of a supermarket parking lot. But, with God's help, we made it. It's about a 26 mile drive from the airport to the apartment were staying in at the time...and it was quite a bumpy drive (Ha! Ha!). We had a map and some foggy directions to the house....but we made it. Finally, at about 11:00 pm, we were able to grab something to eat and turn in for the night. This was the start of an adventure that has shpaed our lives in so many ways.

Santorini Getaway

During the last of August, we had the privilege of having Adam's parents come and visit for a couple of weeks. During that visit, we made an unexpected 3 day trip to the island of Santorini. It was absolutely one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen. There is an underwater volcano that the island is a result of and because of this, the beaches are black! It was so cool! Here are just a few of the hundreds of pictures that we took while we were there. Enjoy!

These pictures were not taken on the island, but I thought I would throw them in anyway!

Nanna with her babies.

New Family Picture