first weeks in athens

i'm easing into life in athens.

a variety of activities have filled my first two weeks. with three trips to ikea under my belt, i know their snack bar menu well and am beginning to think i could lead you to any item you might need to furnish a home here. my team has helped me paint my apartment, hang shelves, and navigate the local grocery store. we've spent a couple of days at the beach.

we kicked off the school year with planning meetings for our long-term staff-- discussing our current reality, dreams for the future, and broad-scale plans for this year. i'm enjoying working with our team. this week we're taking a team retreat in Evia, a town about an hour away.

you can pray with me. . .

-that the Lord would give us good time in His Word and in prayer during our retreat and that He would lead our hearts and minds to His direction for this school year.

-that He would draw our team close to one another. Pray that we'd really love and enjoy one another.

-that the Holy Spirit would be leading Greek students to Jesus as we begin the school year. Ask Him to prepare hearts to turn to Him and experience abundant life in Him. I want Him to put questions and desires in them so that when we meet them He can use us to show them the way to Him in Jesus.

I returned to the San Diego summer project this week to help the students process what they’ve learned, pack up our stuff, and prepare to return to their campuses. I’m so encouraged by God’s mighty work in their lives! I pray He transforms families, campuses, communities, and nations through His work in our students’ lives. One student said, “I came to project knowing where I was headed in life, but all the details seemed complicated. Everything has changed. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it’s not complicated anymore. I’m going to do whatever God tells me to do. I want to live my life for Him.”

The Lord used my time as a student at Baylor University to change my heart in a similar way. During my college years the Lord deepened my love for Him. My senior year I studied the story of the woman who poured perfume on Jesus’ feet in John chapter twelve in Bible Study Fellowship. Realizing His love and sacrifice for me challenged me to give Him my most prized possession. As I prayed about what I valued most, it dawned on me that I valued choosing a future path that insured financial security, enjoyment of my career, and living close to my family in Colorado. Like the summer project student, I told the Lord that I was willing to go wherever He wanted me to go and do whatever He wanted me to do.

At Baylor God also broadened my love for people— both the people around me and those I’d never met around the globe. I remember attending my first Campus Crusade for Christ meetings my freshman year and hearing that they were going to the world, trusting God to change lives with His love. I remember asking the Lord to give me His love for people. I remember watching my heart grow in compassion for people in my classes, for the girls I led in Bible study, for the Mexican students we ministered to on my first summer missions project, and for people all over the world who hadn’t experienced abundant life through Jesus. I prayed that the Lord would use me to help them to experience the riches of knowing Christ personally. As you know, the Lord answered that prayer pretty directly. Since college I’ve loved serving with Campus Crusade at Texas Tech, in Mexico, in Houston, at the University of Northern Colorado, and across the Great Plains Region.

This fall He’s expanding my ministry scope by sending me across the globe to serve on the Campus Crusade’s national campus team in Greece. I’ll be pioneering campus ministries in Athens and across Greece.

I’m compelled to go to Greece by the need for people there to hear about Christ. I just received a prayer letter from one of the couples on our campus team in Athens. They describe this need:

“ We continue to be amazed (and saddened) at the lack of any real understanding of the gospel among most Greeks that we meet— both young and old. Jeremy’s been asking students this question: “If you wanted to grow in your relationship with God who would you go to for help?” The answer has been the same every time: “ I would NOT go to the church.” But when he asks them where they would go, there is no answer. They truly do not know who they would talk to who could help them take steps to grow in a meaningful relationship with God. As we build into our relationships with our Greek friends and they see how Jesus impacts our daily lives, our friends have started to notice a difference in what they thought being committed to Christ looked like. We’re very encouraged because we’ve seen that our friends are becoming more interested in the Jesus we know.”

My team currently leads two teams who are on the field— a team of Americans in Athens and a Greek staff couple who serve in Thessaloniki. We’re asking the Lord to reach students in these locations and in a handful of other cities where we’d like to send campus teams in the future.

I’ll be working with good friends from my Baylor years (above). We have three families (with seven little boys!), one couple, and three singles in Athens. We all live in the same neighborhood near the University of Athens and Athens Poly-technical University.