mama mia.

I came back to Athens last Tuesday night from Larissa...I took the train back myself. That was an adventure in itself...got a couple marriage proposals, got to witness to this guy, became best friends with a 13 yr. old girl who tried to teach me more Greek, etc...It was fun though! You definitely meet interesting people on trains! That night, I went straight to my ministry with the refugee kids because I missed them so much! I can honestly say that I love those kids and I think Tuesdays might be my favorite day of the week because of them. I start crying when I even start to think about leaving them! The next few days, I got to spend at a beach house with my friend and his family! It was absolutely beautiful. It was a quick walk to the sea, which was surrounded by mountains. We went up to visit a nunnery one day...It was seriously the most peaceful and quiet place I had ever been to! Then the next day, we climbed up this one hill and when we got to the top, we could see everything....I screamed and jumped up and down that I felt like I was on the Mama Mia movie set. After climbing and hiking around for a bit, my friend and I jumped in the sea and swam for a while...Let's just say, it's warm out but the water felt like I had jumped into a tub full of ice cubes! Bbbuuuuurrrrr!!!! It was a fun couple of days though and now my spring break is over! :(


The nunnery!


I saw this on the side of the road...It was just this huge rock in the water!


Aaahhhhh...Dont hurt me! hahah...Funny thing is that the beaches in Greece are all rocky instead of sandy...


Frolicking and rolling down the hill...My friend made me take this picture...haha..but the scenery behind me is beautiful!


Here are the friends that I went with!


Gorgeous!

Ministry in Larissa...

My time up in Larissa was fabulous and the family we stayed with was more than hospitable, they were great! Larissa is a happening little town, kind of a college town. It was quite clean and a change of pace from Athens. We also were able to do some really cool ministry the first couple days we were there. The first night I got there, a couple girls and I went to a popular square and laid out a table with free bibles and Jesus DVDs...All of the Bibles got taken! Praise the Lord! It is is Easter season, so that definitely helped! The next day, the group of friends I was with and some people from the church we were staying with went to clinics and sang worship songs. These clinics are for mentally disabled people and the elderly. The clinics let the church we were staying with come and sing twice a year for Christmas and Easter. It was more than awesome! We sang all the songs in Greek and the patients were trying to sing with us and were really happy to see us; we also passed out cake to them afterward. The first clinic we went to was in great condition-very clean, patients taken care of and cared for, etc. The second clinic was another sight to behold. It was in sickening condition. I felt like I had walked into one of those horror movies about mental institutions...The building was dirty, the room was so smoky that you could barely breathe. The patients were not cared for at all, they were dirty, etc. It pretty much made me cry and want to scream at the nurses and want to do something. I literally tried to walk to every single room to give each patient cake and say a few words in Greek to them. After the experience, it made me miss my own grandpa a ton, who is in a nursing home back in Chicago, and I decided that when I get back to Chicago, I would love to get a group of friends going to a nursing home once a month and talk and pray with the patients. If you think about, say a quick prayer for the patients at these clinics we visited because a lot of people would say there is no point in going to these people and telling them about Jesus, but they need him as much as we do. Also, I was able at the second clinic, to get in front of everyone and give a 2 minute version of my testimony so I thanked the Lord that I got that opportunity because I was able to just encourage these patients with the promise from God that though people in our lives may leave and forsake us, God will NEVER leave or forsake us and we can always count on him because He is always there for us.

Xristos Anesti!

Think: My Big Fat Greek Wedding...That was a bit of my Easter experience :)

The night before Easter, my friends and I actually went to an Orthodox church to see the traditional candle lighting ceremony at midnight. It was super crowded and every single Greek comes out because it's "tradition." It was a total cultural experience! Unfortunately, it was sad to see that the meaning behind this ceremony is really great but it does not mean anything to the Greeks because it is something they just go to because they are supposed to. It starts off with one candle being lit and then the light being passed on until everyone's candle is lit...It's supposed to show that Christ's Resurrection should be shared with everyone and should lead us to tell people about what Christ has done. Just like the movie, everyone says, "Xristos Anesti!" Which means, "Christ is Risen!" Then, you say back, "Alithos, Anesti!" Which means, "Indeed, He is Risen!" Watch the movie and you'll see this being said! On Easter, we went to church and I actually got to share my testimony with the small congregation so that was really cool! Afterwards, the whole church had our HUGE meal together and of course we had lamb...typical Greek food on Easter! It was really great and a blessing to be able to spend Easter with a family since my friends and I were away from our own. I would encourage you to not let Easter just become another holiday you celebrate but to let Christ's resurrection live in your hearts and remember the sacrifice that Christ paid for us and without Him being raised from the dead, we would not be able to spend eternity with God. So share Christ's resurrection with others because He has done a great thing!


Some of my friends holding their candles!


Here is Julie and I holding our candles!


Becky and I on Easter morning!

Meteora

One word and that is: indescribable! That is how I would try to describe Meteora. It was one of the places that before I even got to Greece, that I said I had to visit before I left so I was extremely happy that I got to go! After I left the Children's Camp, I went down to Central Greece to a town called, Larissa. I stayed with a friend's family while I was there and the one day a bunch of us got up and took an early train to go and see Meteora. Meteora is this area of amazing cliffs with monasteries and nunneries built on the top of them and visitors are able to go up and visit them. You are able to drive up the monasteries but you can also rough it and hike up through the forests and get up to these cliffs, which of course my friends wanted to be adventurous and hike! Might I say, that it was the most intense thing I think I have ever done...I think we hiked for like 3 hours...I was sweating, my legs were hurting...haha...but I was trying not to complain...Let's just say, it was my workout for the month! :) It was totally worth it once we got up there because the view was amazing and the monasteries were beautiful. The girls had to put on skirts before we went in, and there were some little museums inside the monasteries that we got to go into. The whole trip was amazing (look up pictures online, because mine won't do it justice!)...and it really made me look at how awesome God's creation is! He created all of this by the touch of His fingers and by the words from His mouth. You feel so small when you are up on these cliffs but all of a sudden I felt this overwhelming sense of God's love for His children. We are so small, minuscule, etc...but He cares and knows each one of us by name. He knows the hairs on our head...What an awesome God we have...Be encouraged, He loves you so much and knows all your cares, problems, and concerns...He has it all in control!


Here is most of the group that went!


One of the monasteries!


Some more cool scenery!


Boys are too difficult...I'm joining a nunnery..hahaha!

children's camp...

After the sports tournament, I went up to Filirou (a town near Thessaloniki) and helped out with Child Evangelism Fellowship (a very famous organization that works with children). They had a camp for kids from 8 to about 14 years old. I was blessed to have a cabin of mostly english speaking girls. One girl was from a missionary family so she was fluent in Greek and English, 3 other girls spoke english pretty well, and then 2 girls did not know english but we just translated to them. It was a fun couple of days with the girls and I got to have some really good talks with them about their faith and got to tell them a little bit about my own story. A lot of the other kids thought it was really fun to go around and teach me greek vocabulary so I learned a bunch of new words!


Here is my cabin of wonderful girls!


One of the girls and I!




I climbed the rock wall and made it to the top! Wahoo!



Here is a video of the cheer that my cabin came up with...If you listen, you will even hear me speak Greek....Amazing! :)

Leptokaria

At the start of my spring break, I spent the weekend up at Leptokaria, which is a town up north towards Thessaloniki. There is an annual Christian sports tournament that everyone comes out to play and watch. I played volleyball in it...It was definitely a fun experience playing and then having Greek being yelled out onto the court. My team unfortunately lost all but one of our games but we did play quite well if I may say so myself. A lot of people were there from the ministry that I help out with...So it was great to see them and having then cheer, "Bravo Asli!" on the side of the court. The camp was beautiful...It was on the sea and then on the other side of the camp was Mt. Olympus (the tallest mountain in Greece)...Definitely a breath-taking view!


Here's my volleyball team!


Becky and I playing pothosforos (a.k.a. soccer in Greek) right next to Mt. Olympus!

peace.

it does not mean to be in a place
where there is no noise, trouble
or hard work. it means to be in
the midst of those things and still
BE CALM IN YOUR HEART.
(unknown)

"Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

kala pasca-happy easter!

I am in Larissa, Greece staying with a few friends at one of our Greek friend's houses for our Spring break and Easter...We celebrate Easter this Sunday in Greece. I have lots to update you on(sports tournament, children's camp, Meteora, and just what the Lord's been teaching me)so I'll try to get on again soon...so stay posted! Love you all! The Lord's doing some awesome stuff around the world-keep praying!

to kosovo and back.

Last Wednesday, I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Kosovo with my school for a long weekend. Our teachers prepared us for the worst...Expect war torn towns, no toilet paper, no electricity, really cold weather, etc...So we prepared ourselves for battle! To our surprise, it was nothing like that. Kosovo was absolutely beautiful, it has become a really developed little country since the war, the electricity does shut off during the day but it's not that big of a deal, there is running water, the food was really good, and the weather was not that bad...Overall, I would totally go to Kosovo again. There were some funny things I learned about Kosovo though while I was there...
1. The country is technically called Kosova.
2. People that come from Kosova are called Kosovars.
3. They love love love Americans.
4. They love Americans so much that they have streets named after Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, etc.
5. The country is 97% Muslim and 3% Catholic.

We were there for really only one full day but that day was jam-packed with ministry. In the morning, I got to help out with a Christian daycare that takes in kids a couple days a week. The parents of these kids don't really care about their kids and considering the conditions that some of these kids are living in, if they were in any other country, they would probably be taken away from their parents. So we played with the kids and just loved on them. In the afternoon, we went to a poor village to work with the kids. I had the awesome opportunity to talk to them for a few minutes and share a bible story. Most of the kids from the village had never known their father because they had probably been killed by the Serbians when they were trying to take over the country. It was very sad. It will be a memory I have forever. I also got a few marriage proposals from the 12 year old boys...haha! After Kosovo, we went back down to Thessaloniki for a day and sang at some churches to raise money for our school. The weekend was awesome and such a blessing!


We found snow at one of our pit-stops and tried to make a mini snowman!


In Kosovo, there were horses just walking around right next to us!


The kids playing at the daycare.


Say Cheese!


One of the little girls from the village we went to.


Here I am teaching the story to the kids in the village.


Here is a picture I took while on the bus...It's rubble left over from a church that got bombed or burned down in the war.


We had to drive through Macedonia to get in and out of Kosovo...Funny story: We actually left one of the students accidentally while they were in the bathroom and they had to catch a ride with a truck driver and get to the border while we were waiting.


The whole gang that went on the trip!