Early Monday morning, December 10, 2012, my wife and I dropped off legal paperwork to be translated in Thessaloniki. From there, i dropped my wife off at the Thessaloniki police station to obtain information on how she could obtain her Greek passport and I met Nesti and Joseph at the downtown platea. My wife met us there a little while later, having taken two buses. We handed out 1,000 tracts on a very cold and windy morning. We then returned and folded more tracts.
Tuesday morning, December 11, 2012, I drove my wife to the local police station near Neo Risio to have my wife apply for her passport. She filled out the necessary paperwork and was told to return this coming to pick up her passport! From there, we went back to the translation company in Thessaloniki and picked up the legal documents stamped and certified by an attorney. We then went downtown to the platea and handed out another 1,000 tracts on a raining, blistering cold day. That evening, my wife and I picked up the Lee family (Warren, Rachel, four-year-old Katie, and one-year-old Ethan) from the airport, took them to the Smiley grocery store near the mission house, and took them home.
Wednesday, we all headed back downtown Thessaloniki and handed out over 1,600 tracts on a little warmer and sunny day for, approximately, four hours. This was, by far, our best day as far as conversing with Greeks. While Rachel was taking a break and sitting on a bench near the platea, two elderly ladies sat next to her and were trying to talk to her concerning the baby. She called my wife over and they asked if she was a foreigner visiting Greece. They then asked if she was working for a local company (in Greece, they pay people to hand out leaflets). My wife told them that she was passing out tracts for the church. They then asked which church. She told them the baptist church in Thessaloniki. She gave them a tract with the church name and address. She told them that we don’t get paid to do this, but we come to Thessaloniki in order to show people how to get to heaven. She gave them a variety of Greek tracts. They sat at the bench reading them.
As Warren was handing out tracts, he noticed a young man who took one and sat at a bench reading it. After a few minutes, a young man named Mihali (Michael) approached Warren to talk to him. Warren walked him over to me. For the next 20 minutes, after first answering his question on James saying that works save, I gave him every scripture the Holy Spirit was bringing to my mind. He was very open and very sincere as he kept asking questions and willingly wanting to read the scriptures with me. He was almost persuaded to trust Jesus Christ as his Saviour right there. Please pray for Mihali. I saw another man standing afar off just watching us. I approached and spoke with Socrates. I discovered that he was a Jehovah False Witness and with whom Angelo had previously witnessed to. I introduced him to my wife who was born in Greece. Agni (pronounce Ah-née, with a hard H sound) approached me and told me she was a saved Evangelical and was grateful we were out witnessing for Jesus. I conversed with another Jehovah False Witness and told him he’s on his way to a real Hell with real fire and that he does not believe Jesus is God. Four elderly men converged on me within the span of about 30 seconds and then they began conversing amongst themselves sharing their own views of theology. One Greek Orthodox man took a tract, and without reading it, ripped it up and said that he was an Orthodox Christian. As he walked away, I told him that he would meet the one Who wrote those verses. Some priests took tracts, others did not. Several ladies were upset with my wife because my wife had changed her former religion and said she was trying to proselytize. Others called us heretics. By and by, it was by far the best day we had in the platea meeting and talking with Greeks about Jesus Christ.
I will continue later about church Wednesday evening in my next email.
Your servants for Jesus’ sake,
John & Irene Koletas