Church
Things are going very well at church. We have had a couple of new visitors – one came from an hour away to visit (but cannot come consistently). She is not saved and knows it. She will be moving out of the country soon but as promised to return before so she can talk with us more. We had another visitor a couple of weeks ago who has been a complete blessing. This brother got saved in Germany a few years ago and has not been in church for many months as he was trying to find one that would work for him. He listened to a lot of preaching online and finally figured that he was looking for a Baptist church. He ended up finding the only Baptist church in town and has been faithful ever since! We have been meeting once a week for Bible study and he is helping me with some Greek as well. He is very eager to help in church with anything and will be helping me with the layout and printing of some church invitations that we will start using door-to-door soon.
Last week, our regular translator was out of town and all of the options we had were not working out. Tasos (our new brother) was willing to try to translate and he did an excellent job! Praise the Lord for such willing church people!
The Wednesday evening Bible studies are going well also. The prayer meetings have been a blessing. A typical Wednesday evening starts at 7 with prayer, goes into the service and then we have about an hour or so of discussion afterwards. It is a real blessing to fellowship with everyone around the Word of God.
Evangelism
Elia has been faithful about going door-to-door with me lately. Every service, he eagerly asks when we are going to do it next. Kayode returned here after being in London for a while and went out with us as well. I had a portion of the map that we were going to work on and we ended up doing double the area while we were out. We went through several thousand that day.
We are starting to get feedback from people in the neighborhood around church as we continue. Many people are starting to ask friends/acquaintances about the church and I have had a chance to talk with some of them as well. My wife was witnessing to a woman in the city who was asking about the church only to have her daughter chime in by saying she knew where it was. It is a blessing!
As for street work, it is getting better as the people stop leaving town so much during the hot days. The days are beginning to get cooler which is bringing more people into the city. On one of my days home from the city, I stopped at the store to pick something up. (to preface, I had been praying lately for one of the police officers that had responded to the accident last month because he left before I was able to get him a Gospel tract. I really felt bad about that and had been praying that he might hear somehow). As I pulled into a parking spot, I recognized that the guy who pulled up next to me was the police officer I had been praying for (he was in plain clothes)! He remembered me as well from that day and I was able to give him a tract and tell him the Gospel. He listened and even said he would try to come to church some day! Please pray for this officer.
Yesterday was the start of the International Fair here in Thessaloniki. Our whole family went down to the city to pass out tracts. We got down there and noticed hundreds of police officers, many in riot gear, all around. It has been a while since there has been a big protest, but there were many that were beginning to assemble. We passed out many tracts to the people passing by – people were especially receptive with our children :). Our kids had a blast and can’t wait to go back down again. Getting out of there was a big problem as they shut down all the main roads in the center of the city. We didn’t realize, but as we were passing out tracks in the square, a couple of blocks up, the Prime Minister had come to give a speech. That was the reason for the huge crowds, protests, and police officers. Hey, whatever draws crowds is always a good thing for us, so a big thank you to the PM! 🙂
Thanks again for all of your prayers. We believe God is working here and we are very happy and thankful to be a part of it. We ask that you continue to pray for the work here that it would grow, spiritually and physically.
God bless,
Charlie, Rachel and family
Rachel and kids passing out tracts in the city
Little Charlie and Big Charlie passing out tracts
Tasos translating last Sunday
Three men in the square who asked us for tracts
Elia as we were going door-to-door