Volos

Wow, what a busy week. We spent the week in Volos, a city about 4 hours north of Athens. Here's a basic rundown of each day:

Sunday - Went to the Greek Evangelical Church and heard from Pastor Miletis. We left right afterward to do a kids festival at a camp nearby. This included a moon bounce, wind tunnel, face painting, balloon sculpting, and other things. Chelsea and I took over the balloon sculpting and basically sculpted for two or three hours straight. This put some stress on MY FINGERS. It was great though.

Monday - Pastor Miletis had a lot to do so we took the day off. It was nice to rest and get our bearings in the city.

Tuesday - Left at 8:30 and picked up trash in parks until about 1:00. Then we jumped in the ocean.

Wednesday - Same as Tuesday. That night we sang some songs at the evening church service and Mallory and Chelsea shared their testimonies. We met a Nigerian named Frank who fled his country to try and find work in Greece. His story was so crazy and sad and amazing - he was looking for work but trusting God for his future.

Thursday - Picked up trash in the morning! Then jumped in the ocean!

Friday - Handed out nearly 4,000 trash bags to motorists at an intersection. This was craziness. Miletis told us to say "ya da scipithia" to the drivers, which means "for your trash."

Now, to explain all this. There is no volunteerism in Greece. We got some of the weirdest stares when we walked the beaches, parks, and highways picking up trash. People honked at us in appreciation, came up and talked to us, and even bought us juice and water. One man wouldn't stop shaking my hand and saying THANK YOU. Later he walked over to some of the girls and kissed their hands.

Crazy though - the assistant mayor of a nearby town, Agria, noticed us picking up trash. He started taking pictures on his phone, so we went up to talk to him. He invited us to dinner Friday night.

We arrived for dinner at about 10:00 pm (welcome to Greece) and ate dinner on the end of a pier in the ocean. The mayor came. They gave us medals. A TV news crew came and interviewed Chelsea and me. It was crazy. At one point the mayor even asked what the differences are between Orthodox Christians and Greek Evangelicals. In the past, Greek Evangelicals would have been considered heretics. It's so great that the community is beginning to change their perception of the Greek Evangelicals.

This picking up trash thing is really making an impact in the community and showing people the love of Christ by taking care of the environment. Miletis has been doing this for 15 years, and his faithfulness was so apparent even in our short stay in Volos.

I am still processing and thinking over a lot of what happened last week. It was so packed full of things that it's hard to really comprehend everything that happened - especially that dinner Friday night!