May 23

Well, we have been waiting for a day like this one. We reached the square around 10 and within a quarter of an hour we were in the thick of things with four J.W.s, the battle was joined by a vicious defender of the G.O. religion, he attracted a number of like-minded men, next came a wave of those who love their country, then the annoying Theodore showed up, and it was all topped off by a communist. Vehement debate lasted a couple of hours as the word of God clashed with tradition, cult and ideology. It was soul-stirring.

The seemingly ever-present J.W.s have never had to deal with people who know the Bible, for there are none that we have found in this land. Verse after verse is shown them from the scriptures and their reply every time is “that is not what that means.” They all boast of working their way into an earthly kingdom but none can offer any answer as to what good works they are doing. They have won many converts here by offering people who know nothing about the Bible a chance to know something, so not a few souls have gone from bad to worse.

The G.O. man seemed to be very well known in the city, as many came by to cheer him on. Here is the argument, “Our church has unbroken succession back to the Apostle Paul. We were baptized into the church. Therefore we are Christians. How dare you come here and say we are not.” He made these points repeatedly and with fervor. The advantage of these conflicts was that many gather round to listen and some end up telling us that we are right but all get to hear the word of the Lord. (The G.O. like to tell you their church rests on Paul while yours did not start until 1540 with Martin Luther. We gladly tell them Jesus Christ is the corner stone and head of our church, that it was He who died for our sins not Paul and not a church, and that Jesus was saving souls when Paul was still persecuting Christians.)

Then came the nationalists. They are outraged by our scripture sign which quotes Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Infuriated they shout “how dare you put the Jew before the Greek.” These people have been to a church their entire life and do not know that Romans is part of the Bible. One said, “I am a descendant of Alexander the Great. You are nothing. Go back to where you came from.” They harshly tell Angelo he is not a true Greek.

Theodore is a pest. He knows some scripture, a lot of Greek philosophy, thinks himself quite important, and somehow manages to get in the middle of our activities day after day. Do pray that he will drift off to other quarters as we fear people will think he is with us.

Next was a poor, deluded communist (they got 20% of the vote in the last Greek election) who took things in yet another direction.

The afternoon hours were calmer and more fruitful. We had several good witnesses with hungry souls. The man who broke in on our lunch time a day or so ago was back and spoke with Bro Brent for half an hour. One dear lady said sadly that she was such an awful sinner God could never forgive her. With joy Bro Angelo told her of the marvelous grace of Jesus. A real highlight of the day was when Sister Cindy Logan spotted someone reading the scripture signs aloud in Romanian and Bro Brent rushed to witness to the family in their native tongue.

Late afternoon we spent more hours looking at rental properties, that tale will be told separately.

Oh, as we were loading up to head into the city this morning a woman with bag on shoulder came by and put something in our mailbox. Seeing she had no uniform she was asked what she was doing. In Greece anyone can place something in a mailbox. She works for a company of private couriers that is paid to deliver adverts from house to house at a much lower rate than it costs to mail them. Five minutes out of our day we spend loading the car and in that time she came by so we could know of a better avenue to reach the homes in the city and surrounding villages.