Hello,
I keep waiting, thinking that any day I will have something
amazing to report about our container, but instead I’m here to report that we
have had a lot of phone calls, but not a lot of action. Right now,
both the shipper and our broker are working to have customs move the container
(while it is still in customs) from the other port to the port near
us. This will cut our daily storage rate in half. There
is no way now for anything to happen before we leave on Thursday for the
Philippines.
We closed Tea House for the first 2 weeks in April.
Week 1 we spent in prayer and listening to God. For me personally,
it was probably the first time in my life, I felt free to sit and study my
Bible and pray for 5 days in row without feeling guilty that I should be doing
something else. I had a great time in the book of John and in the
book of Zechariah. I’d like to teach on the book of John some day
soon. I came away feeling refreshed and rested.
Week 2 we met together each day to pray, worship and
plan. That week for me was exhausting. I was the facilitator
without planning ahead for enough time between days to prepare for the next day
ahead (I had accepted evening activities, like preparing the going away gift
for a teammate, attending a baby shower, and eventually the going away
party). Next time I will be wiser. Each one of us had
come away from our week alone with the concept that God wanted our team to
invest more in relationships with refugees and to become less task
focused. Many different scripture passages were read and remembered, but
each had the same theme.
To put that into action, we decided to only open Tea House 2
days a week (instead of 3) and to only serve tea. Giving away food would
have been an impossibility at some point because of furloughs and medical
leaves happening over the summer, but we decided to begin now and continue through
the end of summer. Occasionally when we have teams come to help, we
will serve food. We also moved the starting time to be 1 hour later
in the day. On Thursdays, when we would usually serve food, we are
now open all day (6 hours for men, 3 hours for women) for showers. This
allows for more people to shower, a real need on the warm spring and summer
days. On Fridays, we will host a different ticketed event each
week. This week we gave away bags of food (sugar, salt, oil, pasta, rice,
tomato sauce, canned milk, laundry soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and soap) to
50 families. We are still doing language classes and seekers classes on
the days we are open for tea. Wednesdays are still our team days
for team meetings, and one on one meetings with the team leaders (us).
It was an incredibly different week on the new
program. We had time to sit and talk with refugees (without the
craziness of trying to serve nearly 900 meals). We weren’t rushed
to close at the end of the day and clean so showers could begin, because showers
were on Thursday. On the shower day, Gary showed the movie, “the Passion”
and sat around and answered questions about the movie, while the men waited for
showers. The refugees loved the grocery bags. We have ideas
for movie nights and clothing give aways and evenings at the
park/playground. The staff is excited about the freedom to do
something different and about giving themselves permission to pursue
relationships which they love. Even just the change to start
1 hour later allows staff to visit in refugee homes for dinner and to stay late
and still get to work on time the next day.
The most precious day of the planning week, was the last
day, Saturday. After the worship time, Gary interrupted the agenda
to speak on behalf of the staff to officially welcome us as team leaders and to
pray for us for an extended period of time. It was a very unifying time
for the team .
This is getting long, but let me tell 1 more
story. On Sunday the 6th, our refugee friend “F” from
Afghanistan asked our friend Kallie if she could speak with her
privately. She wanted her to know that she had secretly prayed in the
name of Jesus. She had asked Jesus if he would either help her and her
family get to Germany where her elderly mother lives, or make them happy living
here in Greece. The day after she prayed this, her mother called
and offered to send them money for plane tickets and gave them permission to
leave Islam and learn more about Jesus. This was unbelievable to
her. Her mother had been so against her attending church here and making
friends with Christians and she had not even told her she had
prayed. The following Sunday, the 13th, again she asked
to speak with Kallie privately, so Jim and Kallie took their family to
dinner. At dinner, in the restaurant she asks Kallie how she can ask
Jesus into her heart. She insists, just tell me how in English and I will
pray in Farsi. I want to do it right now, so they did. They
will leave soon for Germany, but continue to pray for “F” and her family.
Carolyn and Susan on our team have been helping her 8 year old with his Greek
homework each week. They gave him a Bible which he reads
avidly. God is working here. Pray for the husband that this
would be something that would draw them together and not drive them
apart.
Also pray for a new Somali family. The husband’s name
is Jamal. The mother, Fatima, is ill and cannot hardly hold the baby boy
born at Christmas time. They have almost nothing (except a digital
camera—I know this makes no sense) and are new to Greece. I was
washing tea cups and saw him taking their picture, so I went out so that he
could be in the picture and the next thing I knew, I was in the pictures and
hearing their story and holding the baby for the next few hours. I have
no idea who finished washing the cups, it certainly wasn’t me.
Thanks for being on my prayer team.
Blessings,
