Akbar's family reunion

It was a special privilege for us to be part of a welcoming team that met at the airport in the very early morning hours Saturday to welcome to Greece Akbar's wife Lela and his almost 7 yr old daughter, Bita. Akbar is a refugee friend of ours from HM who fled from Iran almost 5 yrs ago. He had not seen his wife or his daughter since that time. As long as we have known him, he has been working to get them here with him. He has tried various means, including hiring smugglers and locking himself in at the UN building, to get them here but until now he had not been successful. Lela and Bita were even arrested and imprisoned in Turkey recently. Akbar is a very strong, intelligent, prideful man who is not used to not being able to provide for his family. The challenge of securing his family's safe arrival here has humbled and consumed him. With the help of the HM team, largely Bruce and Johnathan, and a multitude of praying friends, Akbar has been able to obtain the paperwork necessary to reunite his family. It was a hugely rewarding experience for us to be there with him as his daughter ran into his loving arms. There were lots of hugs and tears and love flowing that night as we clapped and praised God for this answer to prayer. The really neat part of the story is how God used this whole process to draw Lela and Akbar both into a loving relationship with Him and their surrender to Him.

Mike's birthday

I played a little surprise on Mike for his 51st birthday this past Saturday. I got him up at 7am and whisked him off to the port where we took a two hour ferry boat ride to the island of Andros. We spent the day site seeing around the island and then spent a very peaceful afternoon and evening at a great little villa that overlooked a bay. We had a nice dinner with phone calls from family back home and then watched a beautiful full moon and a sky full of stars together. On Sunday we spent more time driving around the island and then coming back home in the late afternoon. It was a very quiet but restful time together and I think Mike really enjoyed the surprise!

Spring is here and so are visitors!

The Wilson Family

Jennifer Fichera

The Caperwray Girls

One part of our assignment here in Greece is to manage the “HM Guest House” which is the apartment that is downstairs from us. Since we moved in in December one family, the Wilsons, occupied it. Sad to say, the Wilson’s left Greece after working here with HM for four months and are continuing their travels to visit a few other missionary families on this side of the globe before returning home to Seattle in a few weeks. Since then we have already had two sets of visitors through our doors. Three young girls on Spring break from Caperwray Bible School in England stayed with us one weekend and then the Bougas’s from South Africa were here for a few days last week. Needless to say, it has been busy, trying to get the beds made, the towels cleaned and dried and some basic essentials set up for the place. We are excited about this opportunity to meet new people as they come through and we have been blessed already by all those who have stayed here.

Other things about our home life haven’t been as fun. We have been struggling with some of the new appliances that we bought in December. The washing machine just quit, the refrigerator freezes things and the solar panels we had installed on the roof took four visits and 6 weeks time to work properly! It’s quite a challenge to call people and try to get repair men out here when we don’t speak the language. I am thankful that Mike has been handling most of the calls and we are about one third of the way there. I can’t even begin to tell you how many hours and days we have spent trying to get these things done. Waiting at home for someone to come who never shows up etc.!!

Good news though, Mike has been successful in getting us the internet at home now and in getting all our paperwork done and turned in to the local government office to apply for our residence visa. It appears that everything is in order and they have granted us a temporary pass but the bad news is that the licensing agency that handles the paperwork now is on strike for a month!! We also learned that our travel is restricted by the government until the official visa is secured! One step forward, two steps back J

I am still struggling through language school. Level two is much more challenging than level one. I have just 4 classes (I’ve been counting since 16) left and then will hire a tutor for more individualized help-yeah!! I am learning humility in new ways as I find myself praying not to cry in class when I am often overwhelmed. I am in a class of 8 and am the slowest, oldest learner-aka the “dumbest kid” in class. Another uncomfortable thing!

One really neat story I must share. Because of one of the transportation strikes two weeks ago, I spent an extended period of time at a bus stop waiting with a group of people for a non-existent bus. The next day I saw the same young man at my regular bus stop and we got to talking about how we managed to get to our schools the day before. During the course of the one + hour commute, God gave me the opportunity to share with this guy the good news about Jesus Christ. The whole story about how God sent Jesus to rescue the world and our ability to have eternal life by believing in Him. It is interesting that God works in such mysterious ways-would I ever have chosen a strike that caused my trip to school to be 3hours and 25 minutes, absolutely not, but would I ever have known that this is what gave me the opportunity to share with this young guy about Jesus and life in Him!! Surely His ways are beyond our ways and understanding.

Oh well, the days go by and we often find ourselves with mixed feelings between what- in- the- world are we doing here and what an incredible blessing it is to be here! Thank you for your love and prayers for us. Glad to be partnering with you all. Blessings.

Studying Revelation on Patmos!

I recently got the chance to go on a nine day trip to the island of Patmos with the Greek Bible School. Twenty of us went to do an Alpha Course Study (first time offered by HM in cooperation with the Greek Bible Institute) on the books of Daniel and Revelation. I (Mike) first must say thank you to Peggy for letting me go. It was hard being away but the time went fast.

I found it captivating to be on the island where John, who was exiled and about 80 years old, received the revelation about the last days of earth from God. We even visited the cave where scholars think he was when he wrote the book.

I really enjoyed the study of the seven churches in the beginning of Revelation. Things were not so good in them and I realized that we can learn a lot from them. We talked about how the conditions of the churches mentioned relate to the churches today. A few things that really hit me were:

-being lukewarm

-what we are accountable for?

-what is worship?

-how can we be in the world and not of it?

-how can I be on guard against Satan and false teaching?

-how do we not “water down” our faith?

-how can we prepare for suffering?

After looking at the whole study, one of the main things that keeps coming back to me is about prayer and fasting. Not just prayer to ask for something but prayer just to come before God and to thank Him and to find joy in Him. This really made me consider my own prayer life. I realize that I need to be spending more time with Him. I feel so bad for all the times that I haven’t done so well with this. I’m not good at fasting either but now I think I will try to do this more often.

I am back from my trip and life is getting busy again. Here I am writing this and already I am reminded how I need to spend more time before God. Satan sure is a good deceiver and he has ways to pull us into thinking we can put things off until tomorrow or the next day or week. Sometimes, we even think we are doing a good job or being close to God.

This trip to Patmos really made me look at my relationship with God. I realized that this is something I need to examine and I need to be honest with myself about how I am doing in this relationship. It also made me think that if the end of the world was tomorrow; would I be happy with how I’ve handled this relationship today? God is always there, waiting for us to come to Him. Don’t miss out.