A Day at the Beach and the Day After...

The day did not go exactly as planned, but then the best days never do. We had invited our team, several families from the Persian Christian Fellowship, the young men from the "nest", a brother and sister from Chechnya, 1 family from Turkmenistan, and 1 family from Afghanistan. The plan was to integrate the new families with the ones from PCF so that the Muslim families could build relationships with believer families that spoke their language--except for the part where neither new family came. After I got over being disappointed, I started to pay attention to what God had in mind for the day.

My favorite little toddler came. His father became a believer in the fall and his mother has moved from hardened to suspicious to curious over time. She didn't come to his baptism, but she did come to the last one we had. I sat with her and she listened carefully as each new believer told their story. Today she had her hair uncovered and she floated in the sea cooling off her always too warm 7 months pregnant body. She laughed with the PCF ladies and felt for the first time like she belonged. What must it be like to leave home at 17 to marry a man you love, but your family wants to kill? Now she is all of 19 and expecting another child, far from Afghanistan and far from family. She grew up in a village and now she lives in this dirty, hot city. She speaks a dialect of dari that is difficult for our farsi speakers to understand or to be understood by her.

The Chechnyian (is there such a word?) siblings are kids I met on my first trip in 2000 on their first day in Athens. Their father was killed and their mother brought them to Norway where they were deported to Athens. I met them on their first day out of prison where they had spent 3 months in a room with 17 other criminals. They are still not believers, but it was refreshing to see them playing apart and laughing. In the past (even last summer) they would never play out of eyesight of the other (which was quite a challenge at camp when we didn't let boys and girls sleep together). They normally spend their days alone in their apartment while their mother works. Their older (16 year) old sister (who did not come) watches them.

We had a pleasant day in the sea. The children didn't want to play the games we planned, although the young men from the nest (our temporary shelter) found the soccer ball and played a game. We had souflaki for dinner and then the kids went back in the water for a short time before story time (my big moment). The next thing I knew, teammate Carolyn is carrying a limp 9 year old girl and laying her by her mother with her dad running close behind. She had swum out too far and got tired and just went under. It turned out eventually she was OK, but even with her dad in the water, no one was close enough to keep it from happening. That sort of broke up our little party and we never got to story time. What a strange way to end the day. It could have been so much worse.

This morning I got to the ARC and the gate to the stoa would not go up. It has a motor that died. I thought we would have to close today, but eventually 7 men working together were able to push it up. We opened (late), but there were very few refugees today. After I got home, I heard that there was violence outside our door last night and that many refugees didn't feel safe coming today--maybe we should have stayed closed. However, I'm glad we didn't.

With so few families there, I had a lot of time to spend with the ones that were. I had a great day. I might have missed shaking hands with an Afghani 3 year old who greets me with a giant smile and a warm "salaam" every time I see him. I would have missed giving a toothbrush to a homeless woman who had her things stolen and missed the conversation I had with her about how Jesus is setting her free from her past and healing her negative thoughts. I think someday soon she might be able to go back to work and rebuild her life. I also would have missed seeing my favorite toddler climb on the table, pick up a mug of ice water and quickly dump it on teammate, Becky's head before his mom or I could grab it out of his hand. I had to cover my face because I was laughing so hard and she was trying to discipline him sternly. Moments like that are priceless.

We showed the Passion today and many were intentlyly watching the entire movie because it was finally quiet enough to hear the words.

I think any minute it may start raining. I can hear the thunder from the warm summer storm. It has been a strange 2 days, but I would not change a thing.