a week of good gifts!

"Great and marvelous are Your works,
O Lord God, the Almighty;
Righteous and true are Your ways,
King of the nations!
Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name?"
Revelation 15




The Lord has worked in marvelous ways in the last ten days through our Christmas trip! 22 people from the U.S. joined us, giving tremendous lift as we reached out to people here with Christ's love.

During our five days on campus, we made dozens of new friends. More than that, God opened doors for us to talk about how He redeems us and gives us life. Greek friends repeatedly elaborated that they want to join us for more discussion about following Christ in daily life.

On Friday over 60 of us celebrated Christ's birth at our office. God brought new friends and old ones, who easily mixed with one another. We played games, chatted, ate festive foods (some of which were provided by Greek friends), and enjoyed a rousing white elephant gift exchange. Our time culminated with a reading of the Christmas story, emphasizing that He is Immanuel-- "God with us."

We had the honor of helping to serve meals to hundreds of homeless people and refugees from the Middle East. More exciting than that, we loved being part of extending Jesus as the bread of life to them. We may well be the first people to share the gospel with them because Greece is the first stop on the border out of the Muslim world. To hear more, click on http://sharing.theflip.com/session/d37bf8144a6fa7c62411132e9402b70a/video/8169236.

Our team also spent some devotional time studying the journeys of Paul in Athens and Corinth as we visited the sites where God moved mightily 2000 years ago to bring His message to this part of the world. He used the visits to give life to His Word in our hearts.

Please pray...
-That the Lord would remind our Greek friends of the things we shared with them on campus this week. Ask Him to lead them to follow Him.

-That God would lead the poor and the refugees to find true life in Him this Christmas.

-That God would continue to refresh our entire team (those who remain here and those who joined us last week) and that He would multiply the faith, hope, and love He's expanded in our hearts this week.

the Christmas team has arrived!

Eighteen friends from the United States have joined us for the week! (And four more come tomorrow!)

We've spent two days on campus and have had great conversations with new Greek friends. We've talked about all kinds of things with them and we have plans to spend more time with them later this week. I'm encouraged that we're building so many new friendships! Please pray that God would continue to build trust and guide these friendships to be long-term friendships that lead us all closer to Him.

Last night we helped serve a "Love Meal" to refugees from the Middle East with another ministry. I so enjoyed serving alongside this group of old and new friends. We'll get to serve them again this weekend for the Christmas meal. Please pray that God would fill us with His Spirit and give us strength to continue to reach out to college students and to refugees this week with His love. Ask Him to make His love evident to them.

a great thanksgiving!

Our friends filled our "Steki" (the greek word for hang out) on Thanksgiving for a full, fun evening. Over thirty of our friends joined us-- our biggest crowd ever!

We all wrote things we're thankful for on some windows we have stacked in the Steki.


We made paper hand turkeys. We read a passage from the book of John in English and Greek. We prayed. We ate turkey and mashed potatoes, vegetables, and pumpkin pie.


My friend, Eleni (below left), brought her boyfriend and said repeatedly, "we like your company!"



After dinner some Greek friends played traditional music for us.



We enjoyed a rich evening with our friends and their friends! I think God is drawing together a group of Greeks around us. Many of them are joining us in exploring who Jesus is. At our Monday Bible discussion following Thanksgiving eight Greeks joined us-- outnumbering the Americans!

Please pray that God continues to lead us all toward abundant life in Him.