Project Thessalonica

Evangelism
The weather has been literally all over the place! We have had days of cold and snow (very unusual to have as much snow as we had) and then the temps have been up in the high 60s as well! For now, it seems that things are starting to even out with 50s and 60s and we are thankful for that!

The (slightly) warmer weather has made evening evangelism more productive in terms of people taking tracts and actually standing around to talk for a bit. We have been able to get a lot more tracts out on the streets over the last month than we were in the prior month so that is a blessing!

Yesterday was a big day here, basically known as the Thursday of the Smoked Grilled Meat. It is a holiday for them leading up to the Easter preparations and the whole city has a smell of grilled meat lingering over it – really quite amazing! This is one of my favorite days of evangelism in the city during February as people come out in droves and are normally quite accepting of the tracts. This year was no different so please pray for all of the tracts that went out to these crowds yesterday.

A couple of weeks ago, I arrived at church one morning to see a funeral procession taking place for a lady a couple of doors down from church. I do not know where she ended up but was glad that she has had many, many opportunities to read of the Gospel as we have covered this area multiple times. I went through the neighborhood again after this to once again to give out the Gospel as these people were reminded again about death.

Speaking of the church area, there is an older man who lives nearby who used to give us nasty looks every time he saw us at church. I have spoken with him a bit over time and he has seen and talked to our children and God has slowly melted his hard heart. Now, every time he passes church and we are in there for service, he smiles and waves and has even taken a gospel tract home with him. Please pray for this man that he would one day visit.

Just as things had slowed down a bit with those coming from a camp, we have a new batch of guys that started coming! There are 4 new men that started coming and they have been listening more intently in the services. We will be starting studies with them next week so please pray as I get to know each of them and see where they are with their spiritual condition. It is sometimes a delicate process, especially since our church is known there and there have been some that have come, feigning interest only to try and take advantage or cause trouble. Please pray for us as we try and minister to them. They have heard the Gospel message clearly several times now and now we will try to answer the questions that they have (which can be many!).

The 4 people from abroad that have been coming regularly continue to attend and be active. It is a blessing to see their growth and to be able to get closer with them. Please pray for each of these Christian brothers and sister that God would help them in their situation here. There have been some recent answers to prayer for their provision and papers so we are very thankful for that.

Church
We have been blessed to have a visiting professor (from Honduras) here for a few months. She is a daughter of a pastor and is here teaching at a local college for a time. She even brought one of her students this past Sunday so that was a blessing! She has been a great help and encouragement to the people in church so we praise the Lord for her!

We have also had some more visitors as of late which has been a blessing. Many of them are Christians just visiting the city but it is always great to have them here and it gives them a glimpse of the work here that they might pray for it.

This past Sunday, we were missing a couple of regular attenders because they closed the other entrance area to the city to remove a WW II bomb that was discovered there! It was unexploded and weighed over 550lbs! It was found mistakenly when a gas station when digging to add new tanks. The digging equipment missed the bomb by only 4mm! Anyway, they had to evacuate over 60,000 people while they diffused it and then removed it. Thankfully, the whole process went well and no one was harmed!

Our family is doing great! Our youngest son, who was born here, will be turning 2 in just a couple of months. Hard to believe how fast time flies!

Thank you so very much for your continued support and prayer of the ministry and our family. We are truly humbled by it and very thankful for you being with us in our efforts to reach the people here for the Lord.

God bless!
Charlie, Rachel, and family

Evangelism
December is normally one of my favorite months for being out on the streets here. That is because people are generally in a better mood and more receptive to talking about the Gospel as well as the fact that there are more people on the streets for shopping.

This year was quite a bit different as it was one of the colder Decembers and sickness was rampant around the city. It caused the streets to be quite a bit more subdued and people to just hurry along to stay warm.

Still, I was able to speak with several people on the streets about the Gospel. I also hit thousands of doors again with Gospel tracts as well. Please pray for 2 young men who I was able to talk to for a while in one of the neighborhoods.

The people from the Middle East
We have been having a bit of a growing process with the people that have been coming to church from the camps. It is hard at times to deal with them in the best way because there are those that seek people out that will be kind to them to take advantage of what they have to offer and that ends up causing problems for everyone in the camp. I have been finding the balance of helping and teaching while maintaining some caution with the newer visitors. There are even those who had not been to church for months who came back for a visit and it is hard to tell what exactly is their reason for coming at times. I had thought they had already left the country and am always surprised when they show up!

I had asked for prayer for one of the older men from the camp. He is really not afraid of anyone or of what they think. He will put his Bible on a chair outside his tent to let people know that it is a Christian there. That did not go over well with the majority of people in the camp who are Muslim. They had already been angry with him for bringing people to church. He argues with them that people have a right in this country to attend wherever they wish and it is good for people to hear the truth from the Bible.
Unfortunately, after some of this had gone on, one young man (who I had met and talked to at length before) stirred everyone up and got him kicked out of the camp. We arranged someplace he could stay for a couple of days as everyone tried to find something else for him. Thankfully, he was able to move in with a friend in our village! So, we are now in a position to help him more and have him more involved with the fellowship with the other faithful Middle Easterners from church who live near us. Please pray for his health as his back pain continues but we are thankful he is safe from harm for now.

More Prayers
Please pray for the people from church who I meet with weekly to discuss the Bible and answer questions. Some of these people are not saved but are certainly open to the Gospel.

Those of you who were here before may remember Harula, the older Greek lady from around the corner. Please pray for her as she is to have eye surgery and her blood sugar has been giving her problems lately.

Please for a young man who had come for a while and then fallen away but keeps saying he will come back to church soon. He has had a lot of things going on in his life and he really needs to get back to the Lord.

We just came through an incredible period of very snowy/cold weather here. From what we were told, it has been decades since it has snowed this much. Over half of the city was without water and pretty immobile for a couple of days as the streets were not drivable. Being from NY, we were used to it but the conditions of the roads and vehicles did not make it easy to deal with. At least our kids were able to play in the snow – the first time for 2 of our children! The city is finally digging out from it and things should be back to normal next week.

Thank you for your prayers and support of our family and the ministry here. It is amazing how much has happened in the last year! This time last year, we had no idea that we would have many Middle Eastern friends and church attenders and that several of them would come to know the Lord as Savior while they were here. Only God could make such things happen and it is a joy and thrill to be in His service!

God bless!
Charlie, Rachel, and family

Update

The summer has officially ended and it is good to see it go! The weather can get quite hot here in the summer but the real issue is that the city empties quite frequently as people head to the beaches. It makes for some very quiet days on the streets at times!

Last week, I had the blessing of leading a young man to the Lord. He has been coming to church for a short while and had been one of a few people who said they wanted to be baptized. Like I do each time, I met with each person to hear their testimony if I had not heard it already. He had an account of how he had found a church in his home country (he is from there) and he had come to learn some things about Christ but never actually got saved.

We met together at church after that with Elia to translate. I went through the Gospel with him and he was so excited at the end as he said this was exactly what he had been looking for but had not had it so clear before. He always listens during church but it wasn’t until then that he connected everything. He had left his country out of fear of thinking he was a Christian and he became a Christian as a result of fleeing! Please pray for him that he would grow.

It is really excited to see how God works things out. A few years ago, I took a short trip to this young man’s country and prayed for opportunity to share the Gospel there. I actually spent two days in his city and God just gave me such a burden for the people there. Now, God has brought many of these people to our church here in Greece! We have seen some saved and many who were already Christians we have been able to baptize! The work continues with them as we have weekly studies with them so please keep them in prayer!

We had another baptism a couple of Sundays ago and it was a glorious time! It still is so sweet to me to see these people tearing up as they come out of the water as they had wanted to get baptized since they had gotten saved in their country but it was too dangerous and difficult for them to be baptized there. So, they are so excited to get to do it here and we are excited for them. You should see the looks on the Greek peoples’ faces as they pass by! 🙂

The Lord allowed me to meet a man from a nearby country and he wants to get together to talk about the Lord as does an atheist Greek I also met. Please pray for these men that God would open their eyes.

New Home for a Couple

There is a couple that has been coming here for a while and they have been a tremendous blessing. They are also from another country and you should hear their testimony! They had wanted to stay here but had been having some trouble because of the work situation. Fortunately, the Lord has provided an opportunity for them to try and earn some money and that should help but in the meantime, our family and another family were able to help get them settled in a small home not far from us. They are excited about it and are looking forward to really beginning their lives here. We have them and some other people from church over every week now and they really enjoy the fellowship.

Buses

The bus situation here in Thessaloniki has deteriorated quite a bit. They had a few day strike last month and now we are in the middle of another strike. The bus workers have not been paid since June and they are refusing to begin work again until they get their pay. It has been 5 days now with no buses and no end in sight right now. This has been disappointing to many of the people as they have to come by bus from their camp over an hour away. They have not been able to come for classes or church this week and they are really eager to come again. We have packed out our 7 seat van with 9 people over the last couple of services as well as running out to pick up some others as well so we would really like the buses to start again also!

Meals

Elia has taken it upon himself to start preparing food on Sunday mornings for a big lunch after so that the immigrants can leave with a full stomach – something they do not get to enjoy all the time at the camp.It is really exciting to see Elia taking steps like this as well as in his spiritual life as he and I have been spending more time together lately in the Bible and practical lessons.

Our family is doing great and our kids have started school. Please pray for Rachel as she teaches them and for us as we continue to work on our Greek (I am also working on another language to speak with the immigrants). We are very excited about what God is doing here and thrilled that He is allowing us to have a part in it!

Thank you all for your prayers! The summer here can be a little slower going since many people go on vacation outside of the city because of the heat. It is also the time of year that we have visitors from around Europe that want to attend church on Sunday. That part has not really happened this year and it has not been particularly slow either!

After many of the people from the Middle East moved on to different places in Europe, we had a downtime with only 3 remaining. However, the couple that has been here since the beginning of the group (March) came back from Athens unable to get out of Greece and they are trying to find some work and a place to live because they want to stay here for good now. Please pray for a couple that God would provide both work and a place to live. We were able to help them with a place for the month of August so they could leave the camp (very difficult conditions there and far from the city – makes for difficult times to get to the city to try and find work/home). They are a big blessing and we have enjoyed watching them grow. They both had to appear for asylum interviews with the police and those interviews typically have religious questions as the authorities try to see if Middle Eastern people are just claiming they are Christians to get into Europe (ironic that the Greek police are trying to see who is a “true” Christian!). The interviewer asked (the wife) if she could answer some questions about the Bible and she said “ I could talk about the Bible through tomorrow night!” and she proceeded to tell them all about the Lord and what she has learned in her short time here. A great blessing!

We had new Middle Eastern visitors over the last couple of weeks – 5 new men. We have started from square one again to get to know them and understand their backgrounds and stories. I always take it slowly and speak with each of them after a little while to understand what their relationships are with Christ. It is true that some people like to claim Christianity just to try and get preferential treatment so it is nice to see them coming to church, Bible study and the introduction Bible studies each week and get to know them. Please pray for these 5 men. One of them I am fairly certain is saved from his testimony but I am not sure about the others. However, they are getting the gospel all the time and Elia is doing a great job of speaking with them in their native tongue to get to know them better as well.

A couple of weeks ago, an orphanage that some anarchists had taken over and allowed immigrants to live in was raided. There are two teenage boys (brothers) who have been coming to church for a while that lived there and they were woken at 5am, pulled out of bed, taken to the police station and searched. No one was allowed to take anything with them (terror fears, the police said). Actually, the police ended up selling all the immigrants’ belongings on the sidewalk outside the building. That meant that the people from our church that had things in the building ended up losing everything they did not have with them. For the boys, it meant losing everything but the clothes on their back. These brothers left their home country earlier this year after their parents and sister were killed by people there and they had crossed Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey with whatever they could bring with them. It was such a blessing to see people from church, some of whom had little themselves, come together and supply clothes, bags, shoes, and some other things to help them out. They are waiting now to see if they can get some minor exemption to go to friends in northern Europe. Please pray for these boys (they are saved).

Last Sunday, we had a new visitor after church was over. This older man had found one of the tracts in the neighborhood in the street and picked it up and read it. He said it was very sweet and he loved the words. He came back Wednesday and will be in church tomorrow as well. He said he loves church and actually knows some of the hymns as well. He says he became a Christian some time ago (he said, not Orthodox) and wants to speak with me some more. Please pray for George.

Thank you for praying for the people that are not saved that have been coming to church. Also, please continue to pray as gospel tracts go out throughout the city.

Last night, the wife from the Middle East made a wonderful native feast for us. They were very happy to make a meal for us and show us some of the recipes from their homeland. It was really nice to enjoy that time and see how excited they were to do it for us. Having fellowship with these sweet people has been a great blessing.

We are very thankful that the Lord has allowed us to be here and we are also very thankful for your prayers and support. Our family is very content living in Greece and we know that much of that is due to the prayers of God’s people for our family and the work.

God bless,
Charlie and family

The wonderful Middle Eastern feast made for us by our friends from church.

Sister Sue witnessing to some people on the street

A celebration at a local Orthodox church

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support! We have had a good last month or so as well as having some sad times but we are still blessed to be here.
Speaking of being here, we officially received our 3 year residency permits last week so we are able to stay for another 3 years. This was something that took a long time to take care of last time and even though it took a bit of time and running around this time, it still seemed to go faster this time around. Not sure if it really did go faster or if we are just getting used to how the government is around here. 🙂

We have seen many of the people that we wrote about last move on over the last month. These brothers and sisters from the Middle East really had wanted to stay here but the prospect of no future in the area of employment left things very difficult for them. Bit by bit they moved away. We still have 4 of them left here with another couple moving back here this week. Please pray for each of these people as the way of passage is not always so easy. I spoke to one of the guys tonight when he called me from a jail here in Greece because he had not showed up for his asylum interview here (even though his paper is still valid for 10 days and he had been trying to move on, not stay in Greece). He said that they told him that he will have to stay there for 3 -6 months. Given the abundance of immigrants and the lack of resources to handle it all, there are some places where this is the response that they make with such situations. This is a reality of the immigrant situation here and it is something we have become familiar with as we try to deal with the immigrants around us.

While it has been sad to say goodbye to many of these people, it was also a reminder of how important it is to use the time we have. I only met them back in early March but already our family had grown close to them in this time. I met with them 1 (mostly 2) times each week to teach them English and the Bible as well as them coming to every church service. We have had baptisms, extra Bible studies, one on one study times, even a wedding. A lot has happened with them in the space of 4 months and we thank God for the time we had. We thank God that we will be able to also keep in touch with them as they move on and that many of them received a lot of Bible in a short amount of time.

We have had some people come to church that are not saved and I have had some very good studies and witnesses with them. Please pray for these Greek people that God would work in their hearts and they would see their need for Christ.

Every couple of months, I blanket our neighborhoods around the church with tracts and this past week was one of those times. Praise the Lord, we had a visitor at church this morning as a result of one of the tracts! His name is Vangelis and he is really searching. I and a man from church were able to talk with him for a while after church today and he knows he is unsaved but is really interested in coming back to hear more.

Our family has been blessed to have had my parents here for a while and to now have two ladies from the US – Sue and Aimée – here helping us with the move and with the work. Nothing in Greece moves fast and that includes paperwork for our move so we have been moving things bit by bit as we have time and they have been an incredible help in that as well as in our evangelism efforts.

We are approaching the hottest part of the year here which means the city will be shutting down for about a week as everyone heads to the beaches. It becomes very quiet around here! But, tourists continue to come and each summer, we have many tourists that come to church as they want someplace to worship at. We were blessed to have a sweet older couple last week from Sweden and it was an encouragement to us to spend sometime with them.

Thank you all again for your continued interest, prayers, and support of this work here in Thessaloniki. We have some ups and downs but it is always an encouragement to know there are so many praying for our family and the ministry. Please know that we are very grateful for all of you and that you are in our prayers as well.
God bless!
Charlie and family

Church

The church here has been going well. Now that the summer is past, people are not going to their villages/beaches as much anymore which means more steady attendance in church. Even Wednesday evening Bible studies have seen a few regular attenders. Even on nights when there are bus strikes or pouring rain, people still come out and that has been a tremendous blessing! The church is currently made up of people from many different places – Holland, Sweden, Afghanistan, and Greece. Yet, even though some do not speak Greek and some do not speak English, the unity in service and fellowship has been a real blessing. The family from Holland recently brought a visitor to church that was visiting from Holland to work with the Syrian refugees and they had been witnessing to him at home and the sermon the Lord had given to me for that Sunday was exactly in line with what they had been talking to him about. Please pray that God would continue to work in his heart!

During one of the recent services, one of our men, Elia, gave testimony to how he was recently with a couple of refugees that were coming through here on their way from Syria to Germany and that he and a friend kept them with them for the night. They stayed up talking most of the night as Elia talked to them about Islam and how he got saved and gave them the Gospel and what the true Word of God is. He had translated a couple of my father-in-law’s tracts for Muslims a couple of years ago and he had remembered and used all of that material as he dealt with these two Syrian men. While they did not get saved, he was really excited about doing this on his own. Praise the Lord for his desire and boldness!

Evangelism

Again, now that summer is over, things have gotten back to normal in the city as well. The crowds have returned once again and the tract distribution has been going well. Of course there are some that are upset and do not want to have anything to do with it, but that still works out for good. An example is this one older lady who insisted that I am not a Christian and she would take nothing less than my making the sign of the cross as “proof” of my Christianity. As I tried to reason with her, she continue to interrupt and proceeded to take a tract from my hand and tear it up before throwing it back at me and walking away, condemning me.

When I bent down to pick up the pieces, a young lady who had been standing nearby bent down to help me and asked if she could have one. At the same time, two young men who had also been standing near asked for some as well and listened as I gave them all the Gospel. They did not get saved that moment but they thanked me and said they would read the tracts as they caught their bus. All three of those young people stopped to listen as a result of one other person’s rejection.

Another incident was with an older man who approached me with a tract in his hand. He told me he had read it and it was very good. He said it had “great spiritual truths” within it and asked if he could have more to pass out to his friends. We started to talk and he said he is orthodox (which is what everyone here claims to be) but said he wants to talk about this some more and said he will come to church. We exchanged phone numbers and are going to meet to talk again soon. Please pray for Constantinos.

Another area we have been trying out is the refugee camp up near the border with Macedonia. This is a place where tens of thousands of refugees come through in a week, sometimes in a single day, from Syria (and other countries in the Middle East) on their way to Germany and the rest of Europe. It is a UN-run camp but there is really no organization of any kind. The other day there were at least 5,000 people there at one time and the UN people only came out of their trailer when it was time to take a group over the border. The food and clothing areas are all managed by different volunteer groups. While I do not have the liberty to stand in a single place and pass out tracts, I have complete liberty to walk around and talk to people. This includes refugees and volunteers alike. I have been up there a few times now and have had many witnesses with some of the people that are there. Elia and I just started walking around to talk to people as they waited for their chance to cross the border. Elia speaks Arabic, Farsi, and Dari (the language spoken in Afghanistan) so it is a real blessing having him there! Even though these people are refugees, they are still Muslims with many of them still hating anything about Christianity. Being able to start talking to them one-on-one in their own tongue is a wonderful avenue.

Thanks to a brother from church, we have access to some of the clothes that are being donated to this and other camps. We have ordered more Arabic tracts to begin putting in these clothes before they get dropped off. This will allow us to reach many more of these people as they make their way through various points of Europe. Please pray for these efforts!

It is truly heartbreaking to see the condition of these people and to know what they have gone through to escape their country. There are many families with children as young as a few weeks old that have gone across Turkey before getting on rubber boats to cross to a Greek island, put on ferries to Athens, and then on buses to where we meet them. There are volunteers from all over Europe that come to help here. While the physical needs need to be met and it is a blessing to see them get what they need, their spiritual condition is of far greater importance. These are people that are coming from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran and that may never have had opportunity to receive the Gospel message like we have with them now.

Please pray for Constaninos, Ahmeed, Petros, and Mike.

Family

Our family is doing very well! We enjoyed the company of my father-in-law a few weeks ago and he preached a couple of the services while he was here. It was a blessing to get to go out with him during his time here. The children are back at school (at home) and doing well. Rachel is working with them on Greek as well and they are doing really well with their understanding of it. Our newest, Timmy, is growing and the joy of everyone who sees him!

Our family is blessed to be here and we thank God for you all every day. We do not take lightly the time, prayer, and finances given to help us be here to support this church and share the Gospel with all of those around us.

Charlie & Family

Part of a group of Syrian refugees leaving the camp for the nearby border

One of the many children that come through the camp from Syria on their way to Germany

A view of the field that many of the refugees wait in & where we talk to some of them

Elia helping out at the clothing tent

A shot of a recent church service

My father-in-law Jim Walker preaching at one of the services

A couple of young men reading Chick tracts downtown

Things have gotten much more difficult here over the course of the week. I have been out until very late at night many times this week to meet the crowds as much as I can and am constantly seeing lines at the ATMs no matter the time of the day or night as well as seeing the effect of what this situation is doing to so many people.

Along with the drain on people from the financial crisis (in case some did not know, Greeks can only withdraw a maximum of about $66 per day and the banks have been closed since last Friday, June 26) comes a mental drain as well. People just look exhausted. They are not out nearly as much anymore (more towards the end of the week than the beginning) and the cafes and restaurants have been practically empty. That is big because that was one part of the economy that never shifted, even in the worst of times. People always like to go out to eat or drink coffee and talk and they have not been doing that.

Shelves at many stores have emptied and are no longer being filled as they are not able to make payments outside of the country which prevents them from receiving imports, of which much of their inventories are.

Next week, we will begin helping people at church with foodstuffs and water as it is expected to get worse. The money will be gone from the banks by Monday morning and many places are no longer taking Greek credit cards – some are not even taking my US credit card.

During the middle of the week, people were taking Gospel tracts in droves and many coming over to talk about the Bible. That is a true blessing! As the week went on, however, people began to just take the tracts and move on quickly because they were receiving an onslaught of pamphlets relating to the vote tomorrow. The good part was that the ground was very littered with papers as people just threw them down – but the Gospel tracts were the one piece of literature that only went to the ground a couple of times!

Our family is doing well. We have stocked up on fuel, cash, and food so we should be all set in those areas (at least for a couple of weeks). Please pray for the people at church that we would be able to help them as much as possible during this time but that they would also be faithful to church in spite of this turmoil. Many people are choosing to not go out at all because of all this and I know that being in church would be a blessing and uplift their souls.

Please also pray for the conditions here. We do not know what is going to happen but we ultimately are asking that God would use this and whatever conditions follow as a way to turn people from the false gospels to the true Gospel. Please pray for that with us.

Thank you all for your continued prayer and support! It certainly means a lot knowing that there are so many praying for our family and the ministry, especially during this time.

Charlie & family

Thanks so much to you and the church for handling so much for us and the ministry here! It has been a relief that you are there for us as you are.

Evangelism
We are finally into the summer months here! This is honestly one of the best times of the year for evangelism in Thessaloniki as people come out (normally later in the morning) until very late at night. The afternoons get a little slow again but the evening hours have been a great time to get the Gospel out and witness to people and it has been going very well.

Not only do many of the Greeks hit the outdoors now but there are many tourists that are coming here as well. This has allowed me to give the Gospel to many people from around the world while being right here. This has also been true about Americans visiting the city, and they have seemed more open to hearing about God while here in Greece than they seemed to be when I was in the US!

During our nighttime evangelism, there are times that I will be in crowds so thick that I cannot even get tracts to all those around. Some of them will wait their turn to get them and one or two will stay behind to talk about it.

Please continue to pray for Cristos. We are still having some wall issues at the church and we have not been able to get it attended to lately because of scheduling issues, etc. That has actually been a good thing because Cristos (the son of the man working on the wall) has been out of town but will be back in time for the work next week. He has been very open before so please pray for him.

I was able to sit down with an Iranian man names Mohammed for several hours a couple of weeks ago. We had a mutual friend and he wanted to meet while he was visiting from Athens. He admits that he is not very religious but he did listen as I gave him the Gospel and spoke to him of the Bible for about 2 hours. He will be returning again to Thessaloniki later this year so please keep him in your prayers.

There is another man, Tsarkis, that I have been dealing with more lately. He is a very pleasant man and open to the things of God but still dealing with some confusion because of the Orthodox church.

Last month, I wrote about the Syrian refugees. We have seen a few of them lately but not the bulk of them as of yet. The good part is that Elia, a man in our church, speaks fluent Arabic and he has agreed to go with me to where they are this summer so we can speak to them in Arabic. This is a big step on Elia’s part and it is good to see him kind of excited about using his language ability for God.

Church
Church has been going well. We are continuing to receive visitors from around Europe and we even had a honeymooning couple from the US come last Sunday! It has been really good to see how many of these Christians from all over seek out a church to attend on Sundays during their visit here and we have been blessed to have them.

We have one couple who has been coming regularly since they have moved to Thessaloniki and they are always bringing family and friends when they visit the city. They will be returning home for the summer but are already looking forward to coming back to church.

The fellowship with people at church has been very good as we learn more and more about the people and get closer to them. These are dear people that we are so privileged to minister to and we thank the Lord for each person that attends here.

It has been a joy as well to see how they have acted with our little Timmy. They see him as the “church” baby!

Someone that had been helping here in the ministry, Kayode (the man from London) has felt that it was time for him to move on so he has returned to London for a while before seeing where he believes God would have him go next. Please keep him in your prayers.

Family
Our family is doing very well. The children have so enjoyed having the newest child around here and they are doing very well with him. My parents are currently visiting and it has been good to have them here and have my Dad go out in the city with me.

Thank You!
Thank you all for your continued prayer and support of this ministry here. It is always such a joy knowing that there are so many people who have a deep interest in this city and the Word of God going throughout it. We count it a privilege and joy to be your extension of ministry here and we very much enjoy the work that the Lord has allowed us to take part in. Thank you very much!

Charlie and Family

Evangelism

It is so good to finally be out of one of the rainiest winters in a long time (that is what the locals said). It was cold enough that people did not go out that much and certainly never wanted to stop and talk or even pull their hands out to take a tract. It was kind of a sobering thought to realize that people’s desire to stay warm was preventing them from taking something that would tell them how they could avoid hell itself.

I still was able to get a lot of tracts out and have several good witnesses during this timeframe but it is much nicer to have people hitting the streets in force once again. The Easter season softened people up a bit more so that they were much more wiling to take tracts and even stop to talk for a little while. We had so many people say they would visit church that if 1/10 of the people that said that actually showed up, we would have totally packed out the building every service. That has not been the case!

We have been doing more evangelism at night again also. The people are much more receptive then and we have more opportunity to witness with college students. They are pretty open-minded and also enjoy talking in English. Please pray for these younger people as they are more disenchanted with the current state of affairs than the older folks and are searching for something real

Church

Leading up to the Greek Easter, I made invites for our service since this is a huge church day for them. Most of the people go to church Saturday night at midnight with some going in the morning. With our service being later in the morning, it does not take place at the same time as any other services so were hoping that some might come out of curiosity.

We passed out over 3,000 invites in the neighborhood. One of my sons was asking about all of the invites and I told him that I was passing out 3,000 letters asking people to come to church that Sunday. With the faith of a child he asked, “But where will they sit? We do not have 3,000 chairs?” 🙂

It turned out that we had a very low turnout with no visitors. A lot of people take off to their villages for that weekend and the weekend after so the city was pretty dead. We still had a wonderful service with those in attendance.

We have been getting visitors every month with some of them coming from other countries around Europe. They will visit Greece and search for a Baptist church and we are it! It has been a blessing to fellowship with other believers from around Europe. We also had one visitor who had to stay over because of a broken vehicle. He is saved but his boss was not. He invited his boss to come with him but he was not feeling well. He did tell the employee that they would make sure they would stop by again because he does want to come. Please pray for these men.

One man who comes fairly regularly as been bringing friends with him, even on Wednesdays. One man in particular loves coming and is not saved. He always has a lot of questions and is becoming more interested in learning about God. His name is George so please pray for him. The blessing has been seeing our man actually using the Bible to back up some of the things I am saying as he asked the questions.

Thank you for your prayers for those who come to church. Please pray that they would remain faithful in attendance. There was one Sunday when no one came and some Sundays where attendance was very low. Part of it is the colder weather but part is the culture of not being faithful to church in the first place, even to the Orthodox church.

Family

Last Wednesday, we welcomed our 4th child into the world – Timothy Joel. Everything went very smoothly and Rachel is doing very well. We had a couple of language problems at various points where the doctor said something in English that was not correct, but other than that, everything went very well! My mother-in-law and a sister-in-law are spending some time here with us and have been a big help. The kids love little Timmy and we are so grateful to God for giving us this blessing. Thank you for your prayers for our family!

New Fronts Of Evangelism

We have something new and exciting to ask you to pray for. There are thousands of Syrian refugees that are being taken into Greece as of late. The government is passing them around the country and they are beginning to convert old military bases as places of living for them. Many of these refugees speak English and they are coming from a place that has been ripped apart with war and hatred. Please pray as we start to interact with these people more. The Greek Orthodox do not care about them and they are really in a place where we may be able to reach them with the Gospel. It is an amazing thing – God has allowed them to be transplanted from a place where it is very difficult to openly declare the Gospel to a place where it can have free course. Please pray for these families.

Thank you all so much for your prayer, continued interest, and giving to help the work here in Thessaloniki. We are blessed of God to be able to serve Him here and we are always thankful for your part in this ministry. The devil does not like it but we know that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.

December is a slower month around here for people in Thessaloniki. The universities emptied and many businesses closed on many days. For about a 8 or 9 day stretch, the streets were relatively empty. Things began to pick up again after their day of the epiphany, when they think they are celebrating the baptism of Christ. Actually, it is a big Orthodox holiday that sees thousands of the most religious line the streets near the main church and head down to the water’s edge where they have a time of blessing the waters and the throwing in of a cross to be rescued by “chosen” men. It is easily the one day of the year that I am met with the most negativity. But, the Word of God went out!

We also found out that we must have been pushing some buttons with the religious because they put out a large brochure to the people in the area of the church detailing who were are, what we are doing, and even giving our “talking points” – asking if they know where they are going to go when they die, do they know what must be done to get to Heaven, etc. They put our address in there and also their responses to our “heresies.” In fact, that is what they called us, the heretics from America. It was put out by the anti-heresy arm of the Orthodox church. Please pray that even this would make people curious enough to come for a visit to see what this “new-found heresy” is that is being preached. In a way, we were just thankful to see that the Word of the Lord is having some affect, even when we do not see an increase in numbers as a result of our labor.

We do have a blessing and answer to prayer – the Lord provided just the right amount of money for our family to obtain a small van for our growing family! The Lord knew what we needed and we were able to get the money for that. We just took possession last week and we are so thankful for the Lord’s provision and your prayers.

Since our last letter, we had an election that was called for and then the actual election. I am sure you must have seen some of the news about this election as the socialist party came to power. For us as a ministry, this was a very good thing because they want to break some of the bond between the church and the state. However, it remains to be seen what affect the new government will have on the people of Greece. Please pray that God has His way with all of this that people might be more receptive to the Gospel. We found that was the case leading up to the election and we pray it continues.

Rachel is doing well with her pregnancy and we are now just a couple of months away from the birth of our next child! Please pray for health for mommy and baby during this last period of time.

Our whole family thanks you for your support of us that enables us to serve the Lord on this side of the world. We are greatly humbled and blessed by it. You are in our prayers! Thank you for your prayers on our behalf as well.Thank you all for your prayers and support! It is greatly appreciated!

Looking for His Return,
Charlie, Rachel, Chloe, Charlie, and Daniel