Countdown

The countdown in my head has officially begun. I'm typing this Saturday night, and I only have 9 more days left in Greece. I don't know when I will have the Wi-Fi to post this, (our router is down), but whenever you read this I will be even closer to leaving, to flying home. The clock is ticking in the back of my brain, and it's so weird to think that I'm getting close to the end of this grand adventure.  Back in the states my family has already gone back to school, and summer is slowly preparing to draw to a close for me as well...

But not yet.
Part of the penultimate trend in my thoughts is due to how many people have already left. Of the five intern girls who were together at our maximum, Danae and Kayla have already left, and Bri is preparing to leave Monday morning.
On the other side of the scales however, we have gained one extra intern, Susie, a young elementary school teacher from northern Ireland. It's fun how much a different accent livens our apartment up. She got here Sunday, and she's here for three weeks, so she will be leaving just a few days after Betty and me. In the meantime she gets to put up with us dragging her around Athens to show her all the cool places we've found over our stay.
She also gets to discover new places with us. This week we finally got to go on our two official Kenn tours. Kenn is the short term team supervisor for helping hands. He's a retired firefighter from California with a bible college degree, who knows an incredible amount about the bible and the cultures where it was originally written and read. Since about week three he's been promising to take us to see the Roman agora and mars hill where Paul would have visited on his trip to Athens. He's also been promising us a day trip to Corinth, where 1st and 2nd Corinthians are addressed. This week, we finally worked out our schedules to do both.

Disclaimer, you may want to have acts 17 and 18 handy for some of this.
Tuesday after work was mars hill, where Paul preached in Athens. It was the four of us interns (Bri, Betty, Susie, and I), Kenn, and a group of three ladies from Nebraska that are also at helping hands for a few weeks. We started at the bottom at the Roman agora. We learned the word "stoa", a covered walkway or porch such as in an outdoor mall, which was also a feature of the Jewish temple. We saw the area where Paul probably really met the court of religious leaders since their meeting place had probably been moved downhill by the time of Paul's arrival. Then we climbed up mars hill to see the plaque where people act like Paul preached and to enjoy the view of the city and the acropolis. Finally, just for fun we hiked up the hill next door to enjoy the sunset before getting dinner. It was a lot of walking, but I enjoyed it, and most of all I enjoyed Kenn's teaching.  All the way up and down Kenn was telling us about the bible. He was talking about the old testament and how Jesus and later Paul used old testament imagery. He discussed greek and Roman culture, and what the city was like when Paul arrived, what specific thing he saw and why he said and did some of the things he did.
Today (Sarurday) proceeded we went to Corinth, and it proceeded in a similar fashion. The biggest difference was that we had all day, and instead of two hills we climbed one mountain. It was hot work, but the view was incredible.  Kenn has clearly put a lot of thought and effort into understanding scripture, and he offered such richness out of verses that never stood out before. To be able to look around at the street where the Corinthian synagogue was located, to read acts 18 again and wonder which of these houses   Paul stayed in, that was a really cool feeling and it was all the better for learning from Kenn that Corinth marked the first place where Paul started a church that was not part of the synagogue. The first time that the news were called out rather than the gentiles were called in. It is a shift that I had never noticed, and might never have noticed without Kenn's experience. The whole day was a blessing.

Greece has taught me a lot of cool things, but as it begins to wrap up, I realize anew just how much I am bringing home with me. So many new experiences and new understandings that I can't wait to share with all of you in person back at home.  The clock is ticking his countdown, but I don't care because I am still going to choose to look forwards with joy to what God has waiting around the bend for me to learn about Him.

A Dramatic Change of Heart

There are a lot of things that need done on a typical day at helping hands. Some jobs are assigned by habit. Lisa, (one of the Lisas at least), is the undisputed authority of the baby room. Other duties, such as staff devotions, are rotated among the permanent and semi-permanent staff.  Today I finally had my turn at one of these rotating jobs, planning and running the lesson for the kids room.

In some ways it's less significant than it might sound. I've helped in the kids room plenty of times, and I've even helped others plan and prep the classroom activities. Overall it's a very low pressure job. Tell a bible story (via interpreter), have a craft or activity for the kids to do that's somehow related, and then let them play games and just keep the peace until their parents are ready to go. We do a lot of coloring, cutting, and glueing in general.

I signed up a couple weeks ago, so the fact that I would be doing a story had been in the back of my mind for awhile, and as I sat down to plan my lesson, I realized that the story that was on my heart to tell was the conversion of Saul. It's not to most common of Sunday school lessons, but it's a story that I really enjoy, and that I really wanted to share with the kids at helping hands.

I didn't have everything ready the night before, but we have an hour and a half on Tuesday morning to get things ready before everyone arrives. As I was discussing the story with Bri, I mentioned how dramatic it is. Saul is the epitome of a villain, zealously hunting down Christians to arrest or kill them. And then, despite all narrative expectation, Jesus appears to him, not to curse or kill Saul, but to redeem Saul, and send him out into the world as the first and ultimate missionary of Jesus' resurrection. It's so dramatic, I wondered if we could somehow get the kids to act it out, and them Bri said that, "Hey, isn't one of the other volunteers a theater major?" Sure enough, we hunted down Mallorie, a soon-to-be theater major who is part of a short term team from New Jersey, here for two weeks, and the next thing I know, Mallorie and I are planning out how we are going to perform a skit of the conversion of Saul for twenty or so kids.
It was so fun!  I had been a bit anxious about my story choice. The conversion of Saul is rich, and dramatic, and meaningful, but it's not simple, and it's not particularly easy to explain or hear sometimes. With a skit though, I felt like we were doing the story justice, and at the same time doing something more fun and interesting to the kids than a simple story book.
Calvin, one of the guys from the New Jersy team, was our Saul, Mallorie played Ananias, the man who Jesus sends to heal Saul, and I was the narrator/disembodied voice of God. That's not a job description you get to use every day. Cavin did a great job, and was a great sport about kind of getting dragged into it without a lot of preparation. Mallorie was so helpful planing everything out, and getting excited with me about it, and I think she had a lot of fun putting on a face paint beard. As of me, this was exactly what I wanted to do for my lesson. We had head coverings for the two actors, two chairs for Saul's house in Damascus and Ananias' house, and I had a pair of flashlights to be the "bright light" and my cupped hands to be a booming voice from heaven. I think our skit was over 80% narration instead of dialogue, and the run time was probably at least 25% made up of "Saul" stomping around and grunting. It was simple. It was sloppy. It was literally thrown together in less than an hour, and the kids were enthralled. I was a little too focused on pacing my words for the translator to watch the kids closely, but for once I didn't notice anyone fidgeting or bouncing in their chair. They were watching. Our translator was a ten year old Afgahn girl, whose dad helps around helping hands and sometimes leads the kids lesson himself. She was really nervous about the whole thing, but she did a wonderful job, and I am so proud of her.
Once our skit was over I summed up the message a little bit, and then passed out supplies for our craft. We colored paper plates to make masks of Saul. One side was angry Saul, before he met Jesus, and the other side was happy Saul, afterwards. The kids finished that somewhat sooner than expected, and we played games for awhile and then wound up watching tom and jerry at the very end. Slapstick us universal.

I had a lot of fun putting everything together, but more than anything else I hope the kids understood the message I was trying to share. God can forgive anyone. He doesn't just grudgingly accept sinners, he chooses to seek out even people who hate Him, who are angry at Him, so that He can change their heart and use them to do His good work. In Athens I've heard a lot of stories about Jesus appearing to Muslims in dreams. It may seem strange to us, but in Muslim culture, that is one way that God is at work, revealing himself to His children. Saul's journey: from proud and angry and rule-focused, to overwhelmed and blinded by Jesus' decision to chase after and love him, to joyful follower of the Lord, Saul's journey reminds me a lot of what hundreds and thousands of Muslims are experiencing right now. I hope it resonates also in the hearts that heard it. God is at work here in Athens and everywhere in the refugee community, pursuing His children I order to change their hearts as only He can do. How blessed am I to get to perform however small a role in His great story.

Compare, Contrast, and Cooking

Hi everybody. I know it's been a while since I've posted. I know this because it's apparently been so long that mom felt the need to text me a ladybug emoji to "bug" me to update. When mom breaks out a ladybug, you know I must be late. It's only been, what, a week, almost two. Wait, two full weeks? Really? Oops, that's longer than I meant.  So basically, sorry it's been awhile, but I'm fine, and I'm back. So, on with the blogging!

First of all, we are all officially back at helping hands. Some of went back Faros today as a Thursday, our flexible day, but most of the time we are back in the groove, working at helping hands all week and exploring Greece over the weekends.  This weekend was actually kind of quiet for me because I wasn't feeling super well, but I also wasn't feeling super miserable, so I stayed home and did nothing but rest all afternoon on Sunday, and that helped a lot. Then Monday of course was the Fourth of July. (Speaking of which, happy belated Independence Day to everyone back in the states!) Monday is already a helping hands meeting/fellowship day, so the entire team went to Kenn and Lisa's apartment for meeting first, and the proud tradition of burgers, pitch in, and chitchat afterwards. It's actually rather funny, since at least half of the team are Finnish, Greek, or some other nationality, and many have never even set foot in the states! They were all wonderful sports, and tagged along for the fun. Some of the Finnish kids were probably the most patriotic people there, playing around with the small American flags and singing along to pandora patriotic radio.
The interns contributed by bringing desserts.  Bri, Danae, and Kayla all got up Monday morning (earlier than me, but that's not saying much!) and made one pan of brownies and a couple of containers worth of red and blue cupcakes with white icing. The cupcakes were even gluten-free, so that Bri could enjoy them.  The results were lovely, and pretty tasty too!  The brownies were darker, rather than super sweet, but they were rich, and went great with Lisa's home-made ice cream. Yay! The cupcakes on the other hand were so sweet that they were hard to finish, but good enough that you wanted to try. They tasted just like sugar cookies in cake form.
After dinner we went up to the roof to enjoy the view. We didn't have any fireworks, alas, but we did have he natural beauty of God's splendid sunset to enjoy.
It's so funny to celebrate the Fourth of July, the American holiday of all holidays, when I'm in a completely different country, but it also feels kind of appropriate. I may be far from home, but my freedoms and heritage as an American absolutely came with me. For one thing, my perspective on all the new cultures I'm experiencing, both greek and middle eastern, is intrinsically shaped and shaded by my past experiences in America. Discovery of something new by default seems to imply comparison, if only to establish that this is something new. It is not the same as anything discovered in the past. For example, I've had chicken, and pita bread, and French fries, and lettuce before, but I never had a real greek chicken gyro until I arrived here. New experience, but one that I can also compare by noticing that gyros serve the purpose of burgers or fast food in the states. They are everywhere, cheap, and portable, while McDonalds is is a relatively rare sight. Comparison. I think that it's interesting, without ruining the interest or excitement of discovery. "What is different?" seems like the most fascinating and enjoyable questions for a traveler, arriving or returning, and it is a question that bridges countries rather than separates them. This is the beautiful country I come from. This is the beautiful country that I get to visit. ISN'T IT COOL!!!

Ok, past the philosophy and on to a completely different topic, I did try something new this week at helping hands. I finally worked in the kitchen. I've popped into the kitchen to help on different days, but this past Tuesday was the first day that I specifically volunteered for the kitchen to be there all day. Usually I've been with the kids, the babies, or just a floater, so kitchen was change. First observation: it's a lot less social. Kind of a nice break. Second observation: it's a lot of work.
Tuesday is a meal day, so I was helping regular cook Donna and her regular helpers Kristi (Finnish, staff person) and Ella (Greek, volunteers weekly) dish up a full meal. The oven is out, so we were serving "sandwiches", fries, feta, and two hard boiled eggs with the normal non bread and greek salad (aka, veggies). Not what I would call a typical sandwich, but tasty all the same. That meant boiling something like 300 eggs, frying a huge mountain of fries, and once things were cooked, dishing three different components onto 130 plates and topping them with the equivalent of a soft taco shell. My assistance with the hot cooking part was limited with so many experts around, but dishing up was a little hectic. In a lot of ways I just asked for a job and then did it, weather that was dishing out bread, sweeping the floor, or chasing Ella away so that I could carry the heavy rack of plates from dishwasher to table to dry, because she apparently has a bad back and those plates are heavy! It was exactly the sort of meaningful grunt work that I enjoy doing, and it was fun, but it was definitely strange to be so secluded. I saw the whole group of refugees at a glance maybe twice when I stepped out of the kitchen for something. By the end of the day when we were finished cleaning, there were only a few families and maybe half an hour left. The biggest interaction I had was picking a 2-year old girl up so that she could look over the balcony railing at the cats down in the alley with me. It was cute. It was also maybe five minutes of complete seclusion with the two of us and a lot of cat noises. Fun times.
Overall, different is the word I keep applying to my day in the kitchen. I enjoyed it a lot, and will probably do it again, but I also probably won't do it every day for the rest of the trip. After all, I came to both help, and learn, and I also like being out and about where I can meet new people and learn their lives a little bit better every day.