Athens Newsletter

Four months have passed since moving to Athens and we are starting to get our feet wet and feeling like we belong here. We have found a church to belong to for this year that has a great youth group with many girls of all ages and most of the kids have grown up here in Greece and can relate to our girls. We have enjoyed getting to know the families and have spent Thanksgiving and New Years with some of them. This ex-pat community has helped us develop some friends in a short amount of time which has helped our transition here.

Athens is very different than Thessaloniki, both in size and in the diversity of foreigners living in the city that include: Afghans, Iranians, Philippinos, Chinese, Romanian, Russian, Korean, various African nationals, Albanian, etc. Most of the refugee ministries here are reaching out to the Afghan and Iranian communities because the need is so great! This has been a great opportunity to reach Muslims for Christ and many are turning to Him. Our family is volunteering once a month at a refugee center to serve hot tea, talk with the women and the men and to play with the children. There are many opportunities, just not enough workers!

Alan has been making appointments and meeting with leaders and pastors of migrant churches and refugee ministries as well as missionaries to learn what is going on in the city and to get a feel for the atmosphere here towards minorities and refugees. We have been amazed to learn how many foreign churches have been established here in Athens and how many more foreign believers there are in the city than Greek believers, approximately three to one. The goal is to have an accurate picture of all the foreign churches and ministries in Athens and begin to find ways to encourage and strengthen them, as well promote a spirit of love and unity between them. He is continuing to work with the Greek pastors as well, hoping to see more participation and using Natural Church Development to help their churches grow spiritually.

Whitney has decided to help New Life part-time, a ministry that reaches out to women in prostitution as well as trafficking. She will be helping two days a week, with the Wednesday morning outreach to the brothels and helping in the office with administrative responsibilities. She is also looking for various ways to get involved with non-believing women in the community where we live.

The girls have done great at school so far! We thank God for helping our niece transition into our family as well. Amber is doing well at the Greek Bible College and is seeking God’s direction for where she will study next year in the US, much is dependent on scholarships and cost!

BIG NEWS!! We are moving to ATHENS!!
For some time now Alan has felt like he would be able to be more effective in launching "Natural Church Developement" in Athens where there are more churches and the pastors are more open. His greek co-worker and he have been back and forth many times to Athens to meet and talk with the pastors. However, that alone wasn't enough to make us uproot ourselves. Alan was offered a position to work with the Greek Evangelical Alliance to develope unity between the churches in Greece and the missionary community, as well as networking. Alan is very excited about this position as he feels that he will be using his gifts more and will be able to influence the churches in Greece in a greater capacity.
I will be sad to be leaving Thessaloniki and working in the shelter, but I am excited about this move and feel that the timing is right. There are so many ministries in Athens to be a part of and I want to take some time to check them out and see where God wants me, including a ministry to trafficked women.
Nadia and Sierra will be attending a Christian academy this year. Sierra is willing to stay home this year but will be returning to Dakar for her Junior and Senior years. Nadia asked to leave the Greek public school and so we found this Christain school (the only one in Greece) which is in English and has grown to 150 students. Many of the students are from other countries but have come to the Christian school for its excellence in education and to improve their English. The girls will be in a multi-cultural setting as many of the students are from the Phillipines, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Poland, Greek-American, and others. They are nervous and excited at the same time.
Amber will be attending a year at the Greek Bible College in Athens called the "Alpha" course which is all in English and accredited by Liberty University. She is taking a "Gap" year to study Bible and to take some time to search out what God has planned for her. Right now she is in China with her grandmother, a graduation gift, teaching Chinese students English using "The Lion, Witch, and the Wordrobe" as their theme. She will return the end of July.
We have already found a place and closed on it and our moving date is set for the end of Aug./ first of Sept.

Please pray for our family during this transition time and for the finances needed to make such a big move. Thank you so much for your prayers!!! We couldn't be here without them!

We have returned from Africa where Amber graduated from Dakar Academy in Dakar, Senegal. We hope that you enjoy the photos below of the Graduation ceremony and the Junior Senior Banquet. Sierra is also finished with her freshman year and will move on to her sophmore year. Nadia is still in the process of exams and will finish her school year next week. She will be in 8th grade next Fall.

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Χριστός Ανέστης! Αληθώς Ανέστη!
The Lord is risen, He is risen indeed!

We hope you had a great celebration remembering why Jesus came and what that does for everyone who believes in Him! We had a great celebration with our Gypsy friends who are following Jesus. This was the first Easter that they did not get drunk, but really celebrated with the joy and love of Jesus!

God started a small “fire” in the Gypsy camp with a handful of people when an evangelist from Nepal came and shared his testimony about how God brought his mother back from the dead.. Since the end of September, I have been going to their community to teach them the Word of God, pray with them and fellowship with them. The size of the group has been anywhere from three to fifteen. We meet every Friday evening and have a team that serves both with the adults and with the children of the adults that attend. We believe God is starting a church there. The growth has been slow, but we thank God for the growth at all! There are many cultural strongholds and superstitions that have to be broken by the Truth and Spirit of God. For the past month, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been pressuring our friends when we are not there, taking them to their meetings and telling them that we are lying to them. It has caused confusion, but we are trusting that God’s Truth and the power of prayer will bring victory. We know this is a spiritual battle and we will fight it spiritually!

Please pray with us that we will be faithful to what God has called us to do, have wisdom to do it and that God will be glorified there as His kingdom is spread there. Pray also for musicians!

Wow, sorry it has been so long since our last post! However, only a few things have changed since I last wrote. Amber and Sierra are doing well at Dakar Academy and we enjoyed having them home over Christmas break. Today is the start of their Spring Break and they are staying in Africa with some school friends. Both girls will be traveling to Mali and living in rural Africa for the next two weeks, just a step up from camping we are told. Sierra will be on the move the most as she will be visiting three different families in three different parts of Mali. Please pray for her protection as she travels. Graduation is coming up in June for Amber and she has been accepted to two good colleges: Cornerstone in Grand Rapids, MI and Baker College in Muskegan, MI. Pray for her as she needs to make a decision soon as to which one she wants to go to.
Nadia has been doing well in her first year of Jr. High at the Greek athletic school and she just had a competition In which she competed in the Long Jump. She came in 7th amoung 20 athletes. She was pleased with her score and we are very proud of her. She is looking forward to her Spring break Which will start the week before Easter.

Alan has been very busy working to Establish a church amoung the Gypsy population in Thessaloniki. One group that he meets with regularly has several families who have trusted in Christ and they want to start a church in their camp. However, they can not read or write at this time and so are easily confused when others come into the camp teaching a different doctrine. Recently, the Jehovah's Witness have infiltrated and we are having to explain to them the diffences between JW's and Christianity. Please pray for the Holy Spirit to show them what is the truth and to guard their hearts and minds from Satan's deceptions. Pray for Alan that God will give him wisdom in this church building and training in the Gypsy men, first in discipleship and then next in leadership.
Alan is also working with local pastors here in Thess. and in Athens with Natural Church Development (NCD). The book by Christian Swartz is translated into Greek and is now printed. This Spring Alan and his co-worker will start meeting with pastors to present NCD and to ask them to participate in taking a survey in Which they will use to reveal what areas in the church need to be strengthened and where their areas of strength are. This is the first step of the process. Please pray that the pastors will be receptive and that God will use this to begin a revival in the church body of Greece.

I (Whitney) am now working with a group called A21 (Abolishing Injustice in the 21st Century), at a shelter for girls who have come out of trafficking. It has been a blessing to me to see the fruit of so many years of prayer and fasting to be in a position where I can help these girls see that they can have a different life. Please pray for volunteers and for workers to help us in preparing these girls to reintergrate into life. If you would like to know more about A21 check out their web site at the link provided on the right side of this blog.

Thanks for your prayers. God is listening!

What's Up in Greece

Sorry that it has been so long since I have written anything on the blog. Since our last post two of our girls had birthdays. Sierra is now 15 and Nadia is 13. We officially have all teenagers in the "house". Actually we only have one in the house and "Uncle John" and "Aunt Jenny" (the dorm parents) have the other two:)

My parents (Whitney's) came for a visit during Nadia's birthday and we had a great time with them. They were able to help out with projects around the house as well be involved with some of the ministries that we are helping.

One of those ministries is with the Gypsies. Alan has been talking with some of the adults at the airport camp and they have been interested in meeting once a week to talk about the Bible. Alan and our friend have been praying for some time to start a church there and now they are seeing the beginning of a small group forming. Please pray for these Gypsies that God will make Himself known to them.
Alan also had the opportunity to attend an Albanian Gypsy wedding. The wedding spanned over a 4 day period and Alan helped out with taking video of the events. When he gets it all put together, we'll post it hear on our blog.

I have been volunteering with an organization called A21 reaching out to women who are trafficked. I have been helping in the safe house. See the "Door of Life" section of the Blog to read more.

Below are a few pictures of our girls. Amber and Sierra have been doing well and the passed their first grading period with flying colors. However, homesickness is setting in as they had a Harvest Fest at the school this past week-end and many of the parents of their fellow students came to participate in the activities. Guess whose parents were missing? This caused some homesickness. The Dorm parents call November the graveyard month because this is when everything starts to pile up school wise and emotion wise. It's the most difficult month to get through before Christmas break. Please pray for the girls that God will give them added strength to complete the first sem. strong.
Nadia is hanging in there without her sister's but is constantly planning for when they will return. December will be a month of a lot of tears and laughter. We will definitely cherish those days!!

Thank you for praying for us. We couldn't be hear without them!