Pre Operation Joshua Days

Another day here in Greece, another camp site! Wow, I never thought we would grow up to be such campers. In fact, the younger people here tell us this is something that we should have started when we were young and by now we should have graduated to a RV or something!

We are in the Peleponese, the western land mass of Greece where there was a lot of fire damage last summer and also earthquake damage this Spring, to begin the first year of Operation Joshua. This is HM's attempt to take the land of Greece with the Word of God. In five years, we are hoping to pass out New Testaments to every house in every village of the mainland of Greece.

We have a skeletal crew here on site and the excitement is building as we anticipate what God will do through the distribution of His Word. Already we have shared a New Testament with the owner of the camp ground and she says that this is the first time that she has ever read it.

Our plan is to pass out 40,000 New Testaments in this part of the Peleponese, Ilia from the 23rd to the 29th of July. We are anticipating about 80 people to help us get this job done. For now, we are under a big tent that friends from Thessaloniki generously lent us and we are packing up the bibles into bags. Assembly line work does get quite monotonous day after day and I am glad I never had a factory job!!

Camp days at Porto Astro

Camp days are busy and sometimes it reminds me a lot of the movie “Groundhog Day!” Same thing, just another day, if it were not for the neat interactions with people each day it would be hard to tell one day from the next. The days are full and fulfilling. We have breakfast, a time of prayer and daily quiet time with God and then we are off to start the day. Some are helping with the campers, presently we have about 70 at the camp, some are directing work teams about 40 people, many are preparing the delicious meals we have each day, and then there are the other chores such as cleaning bathrooms, doing dishes, taking care of the finances, the arrivals and departures, boats, waterfront activities etc. As you can tell there is much to do here and we are enjoying serving here at Porto Astro. The weather is hot and the water sparse so we bathe and cool off in the sea. Here are just a few glimpses of life here at camp.

Refugee camp was awesome!

We hosted for the first time a refugee family camp here at Porto Astro June 15th to the 18th. Being a pilot program, we had no real idea of what to expect but God knew exactly what He had in mind for this time and it went really well. We hosted ten families, almost 40 people, about 30 kids!! The pictures really tell the story best but is was a great time. The families were able to spend time together away from the city in a restful place together and we were able to love and serve them with the love of Christ. They were all Muslim families so it was a unique opportunity to minister to them. We ran programs for the children, ladies and men where we clearly presented the reason for our hope in Jesus as the Messiah. We did crafts, made bracelets, did rock climbing, swimming, had a magic show, ate and laughed and talked together a lot. They were some long discussions and one family has even been to church the last couple of weeks. Our new friends were sad to leave and said this was the best time ever for them. They had trouble putting into words the gratitude they felt for this incredible fun family time here at Porto Astro. Thank you all so much for your prayers and financial support that made this camp possible. We were all so blessed to be a part of this.