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!

aLbAnIa AnD cOrFu

Not this past weekend, but the weekend before that, I had to leave the country with the rest of my class for a Visa exit. Since I attend the Greek Bible Institute and we are in an Orthodox country, our school is kind of not recognized by the government so I am not really able to get a Student visa...Because of that, we have to leave the country every 90 days, which is what we did! There were about 12 of us that went with a couple of our teachers. We had a 7 hour drive to Igoumenitsa, which is where we were going to catch a ferry to Corfu, a beautiful island off of mainland Greece. After a beautiful and very long drive, we found out that we would have to stay at a motel for the night because the weather was too bad for the ferries to leave. So we decided to get some dinner and get a good night sleep. When we woke up in the morning, we found out that we were not going to be able to get to Corfu because the weather was going to be bad over the next few days and we would get stuck on the island...Not a bad idea if you ask me...Getting stuck on an island?!? But my teachers did not think that was such a great idea so they decided to change up the plans. Instead of going to Corfu and then Albania, we were just going to drive to another closer city in Albania, get our passports stamped, and then drive all the way back to Athens. To say the least it was an adventure, we got lost like 10 times, when we finally got to the Albanian border, only a couple of us were able to make it all the way, including me. So we stopped at this lonely looking gas station to go to the bathroom where there was no toilet paper...Thank God, we were carrying some napkins...After we went to the bathroom, we decided to buy some coffee from the guy who owned the gas station since we just used his bathroom and were like the only people around for a few miles. The owner was so sweet and he got really excited when I said hello to him in Albanian but then neither of us knew any more of the others language so we just smiled! :)
We left Albania after a little bit trying not to look suspicious since we had only been there for a little bit but we got out fine and got our passports stamped. On our way back to Athens, we stopped in Ioannina, which is another popular city in Greece, and went to some caves and ate lunch. After that, we drove the long drive back to Athens, listening to the Gaither Vocal Band and trying to keep my 78 year old teacher who was driving awake....It was one adventure!


We made a pit stop at McDonalds...Sarah and I also gave "Ronald" a kiss on the cheek...haha


This is a picture of us and the gas station owner in Albania...He was really excited to take a picture with us!


The beautiful view on the way up there!


We stopped at one point on the road to take a picture!


This was after we got out of the cave!


Here's a fun video of us getting lost!


Welcome to Albania!