I read a story recently about Hillel, a famous rabbinic teacher who lived a generation before Jesus:
Once when Hillel concluded his lesson and began walking away, his disciples asked him "Master, where are you going?" He answered, "To do a mitsvah (commandment)." They said to him, "And what is the mitsvah you are going to do?" He answered, "To take a bath in the bath house." "That's a mitsvah?!" they exclaimed. "Yes," he said. "The images of kings are placed in their theaters and circuses. The one appointed to look after these images scrubs and washes them and they [the kings] pay his wages. Not only that, but he is honored like one of the nobles of the kingdom. Now we who have been created in the image and likeness of God, as it is written, 'for in His image did God make man' [Genesis 9:6], how much more [should we scrub and wash ourselves]." [Leviticus Rabbah 34:3]
Our building has been closed for remodeling for the last 6 weeks, so we have not been able to offer showers to the refugees we work with this summer until yesterday. One of our teammates opened up her home and we invited 5 Afghan women and 11 children in for the afternoon to wash their clothes and take showers. The picture to the right is what happens when twin girls find a bucket of water on a warm afternoon, but I thought it best depicted the joy that comes on a day of "holy" scrubbing and washing.
So what does a "shower day" look like? The men are banished. The head scarves come off. The chatter is all in Farsi. The toddlers are on the balcony. One is riding a small Fisher Price car...she is driving to Germany. Another is riding a rocking horse chasing the car. The older children are inside coloring and watching a video. One woman and her children are in the shower. Other women are waiting their turn. Yet another woman is combing out wet hair. The washing machine is humming. Later we order lunch and have souvlaki delivered. The day is hot. The breeze is warm. Laughter is in the air. It is a good day.
Last night, the women had the opportunity to give their phone numbers if they want to continue to study the Bible. 15 women turned in cards. The teenage boys have all decided to continue to meet to study the Bible when they get back. I have a heart for these boys. They have no school, and no program for them anywhere. They are beginning to explore drugs and drinking. I've been watching them slip away. To have them WANT to study the Bible and hang around with a Christian guy from HM, warms my heart. The men are less committed, but at least 1 of them asked me to help him find the church where some of the others go. (Why am I talking to this man when men and women should not speak?....his wife was present and I was inviting them as a family to come to my house for dinner week after next, so that the man could practice his English with Kenn--he was the parts store owner).
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No skit today, but earnest discussion. One teenage boy asks "show me where this is my Bible, I want to read it". As he reads out loud, he reads farther and gets to the part where Jesus says "if you have seen me, you have seen the Father". He comments, "Jesus is saying that is is God, isn't he?" Lots of discussion about how Jesus claims to be THE way and not A way to God.
Cabins are cleaned. Tents are taken down. Phone numbers are exchanged. One of the coolest things for me personally was working alongside staff from the other refugee ministries in Athens. I've not met their women before. We want to continue to pray together for our refugee friends and to do a better job of coordinating what we offer. Many of them work on small teams and don't have Christian friends in Athens. This week will have lasting effect among the staff and not just the refugees.
We put the last refugee on the boat and wave good-bye. Then we swim and clean and debrief. As we begin to eat dinner it begins to rain. Finally a break in the weather. Then it begins to pour, so we run for the boat to load our stuff and begin the journey home. There are two full rainbows in the sky above us over the bay as we cross. I walk in my door in Athens at midnight. I finally get to sleep in my own bed, with my air-conditioner running. God is good. I sleep well.
More swimming. This day, the children got rides with the staff in the canoes. The women got rides on the 3 person tube behind the ski boat. I think the men were on the high ropes course (or maybe that was yesterday) I got to tube behind the ski boat at the end of the day, after my shower in my last clean set of dry clothes. It was a last minute spontaneous decision when they had room on the last boat that left me barely able to speak from screaming and soaking wet. I definitely like water skiing better where I have control over when we jump the wake. Oh, but it was fun!
For the women's activity their did facials, make-up and their nails. One of the interns did face painting for the children. Everyone looked good. Every meal was an opportunity to hear someone's story. One family had been in Dubai for 3 years after the Taliban burned down their auto parts store in Afghanistan and beat them for owning it. In Dubai, work was good, but the cost of living was so high, he could not feed his family. Another family, had a mom who was a nurse in Afghanistan. They are hoping to move on to Canada or another western country who needs nurses.
If you sneak down towards the sea between 5 and 6 pm you can see the women washing their clothes by hand and singing. The village communities of Afghanistan are being slowly recreated here at camp as we live and work in community. I am also entertained by how enthusiastically the teenage boys are to wash dishes after meals. Some things transcend culture. The good looking female interns are assigned to wash dishes. Their "fan club" is eager to help.
There are good discussions in the evening about the scripture for the day. We took a camp picture today. Still not much sleep, temps in the days well over 100 degrees and not a lot cooler at night. This might be a perfect place if it were not for the heat and the bugs and if the facet had water every time you turned it on.
Devotions for Day 3 included a goat that was a substitute for the sheep that couldn't be caught (we had both grazing the hillside above us) for Jesus is the "Good Shepherd". The children got to pet it and then roared with laughter as it pooped on stage throughout the devotions.
The women are now much more comfortable in the water. In fact, 1 mom, nursed her baby in the sea as we played around her. They brought out the canoes on Day 3. After a brief orientation, the women got to take the canoe out by themselves to explore the bay within the marked area. We watched the children in the water while the moms zipped about.
For the women's activity time, they made jewelry. Some previous short-term team left beautiful stones, which we brought with us. At dinner time, I snuck back up and took a real shower and came late to dinner. It felt sooooo good to have my hair clean.
The childlren received glow in the dark bracelets which were a big hit and made it really easy to find those that wandered off in the dark. The evening discussion time ran really late this night. Many questions. No one seems to care anymore about who knows or hears their opinion once the written questions are read.
Another hot hot day. Another hot muggy night. More sleep, maybe 4 hours? Shab Bekhr (good night in Farsi)!
I heard the generator and AC kick back on a 7 am. A few minutes later Christy's alarm went off. Our staff meeting was at 7:30. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep in the cool air--so different from the stifling night before, but I got up. At the staff meeting they introduced the topic of the day, "Jesus is the Bread of Life" and we went off to have our time alone with God until 8 am. At 8 there was more orientation to the plan for the day (which seemed to change quite frequently). At 8:30 we had breakfast with the refugees. I couldn't quite figure out what to do with breakfast so I mixed the corn flakes, granola, milk, yogurt, canned fruit and plum jam all together in a bowl and ate it. It tasted OK, so that was my plan for the week. In Persian community everyone greets everyone, every time to see them, so breakfast was filled with "sobh, bekhr" (good morning) as I greeted and either kissed or shook hands with each of my 88 new friends. Add to this the nearly 70 of us that were on staff, it creates quite a hum of activity.
After breakfast there was a brief devotion about Jesus and the Bread of Life and then we had our morning activity...finally time for the women and children to swim. I had my 1 piece bathing suit, shorts and a tee shirt on, in an attempt to be culturally appropriate. I spent the next 2 hours in the water either holding a child or teaching an adult to float. We had 2 refugees who could swim out of the 60+ in the water. The water was clean and cool. The sun was hot. Suddenly I was no longer tired and sleepy. Some brilliant person had put tarps down under the water so that you could walk in your bare feet and not have sea urchins spines sticking in your feet. It made an easy way to identify where it was OK for the children to swim and where it was too deep and they should not go. The lifeguard had a canoe and patrolled the deeper water. No one wanted to leave, but by noon it was time to let the men swim, so we had to get out. They had big barrels of fresh water. You dipped a 2 liter soda bottle with the bottom cut out and holes drilled into the top into the barrel to make for a warm shower. We soaped up the children and rinsed everyone else. Water is precious in our camp as we don't have a well. All water is brought in by boat. There were 3 real showers for women, but with 60+ people, there was no way for everyone to use them after the sea. This really worked.
Next there was an activity time The women made small scrapbooks. The children made and decorated folders to keep their artwork for the week in. The babies again were in our circle or as close to the circle as we could keep them. Soon it was lunch time and then siesta. This day, I snuck into our air-conditioned room and slept for an hour. When I woke up, I could not find the women. I followed the laughter and found them in a circle under an olive tree dancing and singing. I sat down to watch, but soon got pulled into the circle and received persian dance lessons.
I don't remember what activity we did after the siesta time, but I remember that the children thought we were going to swim and at the last minute, the women wanted to do something else, so we didn't swim. Dinner. The evening session and then the discussion groups. The women were afraid to ask their questions for fear of who might tell the leaders at their mosque, so Sahar had them write them on cards. She made everyone write something even if they did not have a questions. 4 cards came back saying they already believed and had their questions answered (it was frustrating to not know who wrote these cards). The others were filled with questions, which over the week would get answered. Again, we struggled to keep the babies awake and happy away from their mums so that the discussion could happen in peace. Lights went out this night at 11:30. Another unbearably hot, humid night and very little sleep.
The call came around noon...we had 88 refugees on the bus who would be there in about 30 minutes..19 families. More families than we had cabins to put them in, so the scramble began to pitch tents to accomodate the extra families. We were also signing our names in the Bibles we planned to give, so that they would keep them as a momento. Soon we could see the barge coming across the water bring our guests to the camp which has no access by paved road. We checked them in and led them to their new "homes". The wooden cabins were about 10 x 10 foot square with 3 bunk beds inside and a small covered porch with a few chairs. The tents were roughly the same size and had air mattresses. I was staying the women's dorm. It was air conditioned until bedtime when the generator goes off for the night, then we sweated until 7 am. There were 11 of us in this room including Serena who had the crib on the floor.
After everyone was settled, lunch was served. We ate all our meals outside until a canvas tarp on a deck below the main building. After lunch and a short welcome, we had "siesta time" for 2 hours. It was over 100 degrees and very humid. I drifted towards the trampoline and used my Farsi and my watch to get the children to take turns and not fight over who was next. How they could jump in that heat was beyond me. Several of the short term team high school students were on the trampoline with the refugee children. I have no idea why we didn't have a swim time planned for the first day, but instead we had archery and a water balloon toss for the women and children. While the women did archery, I went back to the trampoline. Some of the older children were testing out the zip line. Later, I coaxed my friend, Aziza into tossing the water balloon with me. We almost made it to the end. Finally, it broke in her hand.
After dinner we had a group time below the dining area at the main assembly area (more tarps, more plastic chairs, but this one has a stage). The children sang "Jesus is the light of the world" in Farsi while Susie played the guitar. Then we split up into groups. The adults watched the new CCC film "Mary Magdalene", which the children had their first day of VBS. One older mom, watched the film with tears in her eyes through all the chaos around her, deeply moved by what she saw. During this time Susie and I watched the babies play (really, we spent most of our time chasing them back onto our circle, when they went off in search of their mom). Everything finished up around 10:30 pm and we went to bed.
I washed up with baby wipes and crawled into my bunk bed, to stare sweating at the ceiling, listening to mosquitoes for the entire night. I slept only a few hours. It was probably in the high 80s and humid outside but in our small room with 11 of us trying to sleep and only 1 window with a screen, it was stifling, dark and too quiet. Nights were the most difficult for me.
Today, April 6, 2010 is our last day of furlough. Furlough is a home service assignment. We live in Ano Glyfada, Greece, but since December 13, 2009, we have lived in Yorba Linda, California. We just finished our first term as missionaries in July 2009, but we delayed coming back to the US until December, so that we could be here for Christmas and our church's mission's conference.
We spent the first 3 weeks at my sister's house. It was a good place to be over the Christmas holiday...with family. We came very tired. Kenn was sick. Several rounds of antibiotics later, he was finally feeling better. We slept and adjusted to the 10 hour time change. We shopped and got ready for Christmas. I worked a few days for my former employer on a project and committed to working a total of 50 days while we are in the US. We were able to attend the Christmas party with our Sunday School class, which doesn't sound like a lot, but we have had Christmas with them every year for 30 years before we came to Greece. Our daughter, Jenni loaned us her husband, Kris' car so that we would have something to drive. He was at boot camp. We celebrated Christmas with family and New Year's with my sister's friends. The first two weeks felt mostly like vacation...even our teammates in Greece were on vacation.
Well, 3 weeks feels like a vacation, but at the end of 3 weeks, we didn't go back to Greece. That is when it started to feel weird. I was now working full time at my former employer, which felt the same, but wasn't the same. We moved out of my sister's house and into the Mission's house owned by our church. It was good to have our own space, it was like home, only it wasn't. Home is now a confusing subject. Where is home?
In January we drove to Visalia, we video taped a piece about our ministry that was used in Church while we were gone. In February we flew to Chicago, drove to Michigan (Holland, Hudsonville, Ada, Commerce Township) and drove back to Chicago. Then we flew to Austin Texas, drove to San Antonio and then back to Austin and flew to Dallas. Then we flew back to California. Two weeks later we spent a weekend in Seattle, Washington and parts as far north as Lopez Island and as far south as Vancouver. We saw family, friends, supporters, and our employer, International Teams in a whirlwind of standby travel. In March, we were "speakers". I spoke at staff meeting at ECCU. Kenn preached on Sunday at Rose Drive Friends Church all 4 services. I spoke at the RDFC Mission's banquet. We spoke in a different small group every week were home, some weeks more than one. We visited with 6 churches besides our own, recruiting short term teams and building relationships. We made new friends, saw old ones and tried to connect with as many people as we could who pray for us.
We got to see our granddaughter, Zoe take some of her first steps. We got to see our son-in-law graduate from boot camp. We got to bury our dear friend, Mindy, whose home is now in heaven.
Sad to say, this didn't all fit in 3 months, so our furlough drifted to almost 4 months. We updated all of our medical stuff, we saw the dentist, the eye doctor, had physicals. Kenn turned in a draft of his master's thesis and finished his preaching class. I finished my 200 page project at ECCU. Then we started the packing. It doesn't seem like a lot when people give you things to bring back with you, or you buy something to wear or you receive a gift...but when you attempt to fit it all in a 50 lb suitcase or your carryon...its a lot of stuff. Now we have 2 suitcases each, a bag for the Good Will, a bag of "work clothes" that I will leave here for the next time I have to work in California; and some books that will come later in the mail. It's all packed up now. In about 20 minutes we will leave for our daughter Betsy's house and "last supper" with family. Tomorrow we will clean the Mission's house so we can get our deposit back and then we fly and return "home". Home is definitely, for now, Greece.
