December 1, 2013

THANK YOU!

First, let me thank all of you who have given to help the project here continue. Our support does not cover the church expenses here so we were in great prayer for the financial needs as the money was to run out in November. The Lord came through with a week to spare as God’s people gave to help it. It was a blessing to share the blessings with the church people here. Please know that they (and us!) are extremely grateful for you following the Lord’s leading!

Church
The church here is really doing well. For a time now, we have about 18-19 in attendance on Sunday morning. Since the last report, we have seen a couple of new people that have begun to attend regularly and have been a blessing. One of them is a college student from another country that has a great desire for the things of God and witnesses to people regularly.

I have been able to get together with many of the people during the week (outside of service) to have studies and find out where they are at spiritually. It is encouraging to be one-on-one with people and learn more about them as we look to be a blessing and pray for them with knowledge.

Evangelism
The evangelism has been carrying on as normal. The schedule is that typically Elia, Kayode, and myself will go out letter boxing a couple of days a week (normally) while Kayode and I will go out in the city center (sometimes with Tasos – another man who has been coming for a couple of months) and pass out tracts and search for people to witness to. On other days, I go out by myself and walk the route from church to the square as there are many college students (and some of them speak English) along the way. Then, on one or two nights a week, Kayode, Dan (another man at church), and myself will go out at night in Aristotle or near the old palace (down the street from the arch) and we will evangelize some more. Bro. Dan does sketch board preaching and Kayode and I have begun to play our instruments (guitar and trumpet) to gather the people before the preaching starts. After that, we will pass out tracts and Gospels of John to those who walk by the sketch board. Lately, we have seen many great witnesses come through this – some nights, all three of us will be engaged with people at once. The square near the palace is filled with college students and drug addicts at night. We see a lot of college students that stand to listen or come up to us. Please continue to pray for all of these outreach efforts that souls will be saved and the Gospel will continue to go out with free course.

Upcoming
When we were here last year, we noticed that they convert the square into a huge festival area of sorts for Christmas. We are planning to really take advantage of that this month as we saw the area filled with hundreds of families last year. We are not allowed to give tracts to children (of which there are many of at this time) but our children can! We plan on going down at nights as a family to reach as many people as possible while they are the most open of any time of the year. Also, one of the main streets that intersects near the square is the large shopping street. It is PACKED with people and has proven to be a very receptive place to pass out tracts at night. Please pray that we will be able to reach many people during this time!

Visitors
Since our last letter, we were blessed to have my in-laws (Evangelist Jim Walker and his wife Linda) come for a couple of weeks. I was gone for half of it to another country for evangelism so it was a blessing to have my father in-law and mother in-law here with my wife and kids. My father in-law was able to help replace and upgrade some things at the church as we look to make some improvements on it.

Last week, we were very blessed to have Bro. and Sister (Bernard) Courtney here for the week (they are from Bro. Knox’s church). They had volunteered to come to teach us as much Greek in a week as we could hold. It was an intense week! My wife and I picked up a lot from Bro. Bernard (Friday alone was 10 hours of Greek) and now we are going back through to match the hundreds of Greek words in our heads with the English translations 🙂 We will be continuing this to be able to better minister with the people around us. Thank you, Courtney family!

Thank you for your prayers and continued interest! My family is doing very well here and enjoying life in Greece. The kids enjoy passing out tracts (they always make sure they have tracts on them whenever we are going anywhere) – even our little 1 year old who thinks they are called “Yassis” (hello) because that is what he says when he gives them out. 🙂