Krogsblog: January 2019

Potty training in ancient Greece

An interesting archaeological find

2nd week in Athens

We are bonding with our sweet students! We can't share photos of our students on social media....so we won't. Sharing could endanger the student's parents back in the home countries....

Richard and Amber are teaching a,b,c's to 18 adults a day. Alphabet, vowels, word families, capital and lower case letters, simple sentences.....over and over...and over. Besides learning English I'm learning many also source out Greek language schools. My class averages around 10 and this week we had fun practicing "Everyday Routines" and "geography" vocabulary and simple concepts. They had SO much fun drawing their own fictional country. My two young girls, aged 13 and 16 created the country of GIRL, capital city of Love, national anthem is done to RAP music and the national food is coffee! oh yes, Dance is the National Sport. A couple of my male students created the country of PEACE with Safety as the capital. How fitting! The best place in the world for them is PEACE. Who doesn't want it?

One of my fellows was a policeman back in his former home. His 13 month old baby boy sits quietly beside him on a big person's chair and never causes a fuss! Baby Raad is good at handing out kisses! My police friend says the family was 5 minutes from death while crossing the boat across the sea. They are safe here - but with new challenges.

My 10 students are from 5 different countries and speak about that many languages!

Twice a week a great lunch is prepared for all of us - around 100 people - we help hold babies while mom's eat!

Serving alongside us has been the YWAM group from Jerusalem. YWAM Abigail from Michigan helped me for the past 2 weeks. Also the Operation Mobilization group has been a huge help and leave at the end of next week along with us.

Eleini, Ana, Jackson and Laura and some of the new immigrant Christians head up all the work. They are busy - lining up volunteers, visiting in immigrant homes, visiting them in the hospital...lining up groceries, welcoming newcomers, ....They've just decided that they are going to each take every 3rd Friday off! Perfect.....I'm so glad to see sensible work environments, especially those involved in this kind of work. Take care of yourself....otherwise you won't be able to care for others.

Today, Friday was our day "off" so we went to see the Athens Archeological Museum. It was crowded, perhaps because it was a VERY rainy day and because it is SO unique. Our legs wore out before we were done.....there is so much there and we've already walked over 80 km since we arrived and all on cement and marble!

Sight-seeing is interesting, but spending time with our new friends is much more rewarding. and my preference!

A hospital in Greece!

Heading back to Zambia - after Athens, Greece

Greetings Everyone - from Richard written January last week!)
We are enjoying our time in Athens - meeting new people and learning new things. Athens is certainly a big city, more than 3 million people. In addition to normal big city challenges, it also has the refugee situation. Our experience with refugees has only been at Omonia Church but there is a camp of refugees in Athens, and camps around Athens and on the islands. These are the people that we have seen on our TV's in the past few years. They are real people with real families and difficult recent stories.

Omonia, Greece

The small congregation is certainly providing a lot of loving service. Most importantly, they desire to provide an atmosphere of family and community to the refugees who come through the doors. They call it the Agape Project, and people are experiencing the love of God. (https://www.the-agape-project.com/single-post/2018/07/09/Omonia-Refugee-Ministry-Update)
We have learned that English classes, clothing, meals, child care, lawyer services, and health care are offered. More than 750 people from many parts of the world have volunteered at the Omonia Church of Christ in the last 3 1/2 years. More than 3,000 refugees have rec'd some kind of help. The church building is open Sunday through Thursday and the place is full of people. The atmosphere is wonderful - people feel comfortable, safe, and welcome. We enjoy our time with the people.

Sue and I have completed 3 days of teaching classes of mixed ages, genders, and nationalities. All are grateful for the opportunity and eager to learn. The majority of the people we have taught are Kurdish from Syria, but there are also people from Iraq and Afghanistan in our classes. Mom has taken up the top level class, and I and Amber, from Alabama are teaching the beginners. It is interesting to teach the English alphabet to people who understand few English instructions.

We have a nice, one-room apartment in a quiet neighbourhood. Each morning we walk about 15 minutes to the Metro and take the subway train to the Omonia district. It is interesting figuring out subway routes, purchasing tickets, and standing face to face with strangers in a very cramped metro. The first morning we had difficulty finding the location of the church and walked an extra 20 blocks on our journey.