This past Sunday, August 14th, I visited along with our Macedonian Outreach co-worker Pandelis and a few others, a sweet little congregation in the town of Sevasti near Katerini, Greece. This church was built by Greek refugees from Turkey in 1924. The congregation is rather small since many of its people moved to the city or left the country for economic reasons. Sweet memories flooded my mind as I thought back as a little child coming with my uncle Paul, the evangelist when he would come to this town to teach, preach and encourage fellow refugees who had come from Turkey and who had lost many family members in the early 1920s in Turkey. How blessed I feel seeing these precious believers who stayed firm in their faith having gone through so much in Turkey and then again during the civil war in Greece in the 40s. After church Pandelis and I visited their retired pastor who in his 90s, having lost his wife only a couple of months ago and a recent accident, can still praise God and give us encouragement when we went to encourage him. Experiences like this make me want to work even harder to the glory of God!
On the weekend of August the 6th, unexpectedly, I visited Sarande, Albania. There the new believers since the fall of communism, had purchased an old building right at the port front and after many years they were able to renovate it. The beauty of the location is that when locals or visitors arrive at the port, the first thing they see is the beautiful view of the new church. I enjoyed so much visiting and worshipping with them. Their young pastor Sotir with his wife Bona work tirelessly proclaiming the truths of the gospel! God is so good and we praise Him that in the land that declared “atheism” as their national religion for so many years, now God’s truth reigns loud and clear!
Yesterday, August 4, 2016 a few of us visited a new Roma church in the town of Mavrika, Karditsa, Greece. We praise the Lord that there are now at least five Roma churches in N. Greece. Our prayer request is that there will be enough funds to finish the church and enough support will come in to hire a pastor and his wife to minister to this precious congregation. The work if plentiful but the workers are few! God is doing marvelous work among these precious people! I truly believe this is their time for harvesting. We have seen miracles among the Roma of Bulgaria and I pray the same for Greece! God is still on the throne and He can do it!
I’m Roza…from Syria (Aleppo) A mother of two boys.. Amr (7) and Muraf (4). We fled Syria because of the violence, bombardment, and shelling.. We were trying to find a safe place to live in.. My husband is in Germany and I am trying my best to follow him and live like we used to in the past..a happy and loving family. We entered Turkey and traveled to Izmir which is a coastal city in Turkey.. Then arranged with one of smugglers transporting us from Turkey crossing the sea to Greece via a dinghy!! We arrived safely to an island named Chios.. There were around 70 to 80 people on that dinghy including Syrians and Afghans.. Because of the huge number… I was struggling to keep my boys alive because it was so sooo crowded..my boys are small and couldn’t breathe because of the large number of people, so I had to lift them up in order to take a breath!!! It took us 4 hours to reach Greece.. I prayed and prayed the whole time for God to keep us alive, and at the same time, I never forgot to check on my boys and help them keep breathing and make sure they were alive. Then suddenly we saw a light..we were all confused…is it coming from a Turkish boat or a Greek one!? For me, I didn’t care…I thanked God we finally found someone to rescue us… At the end, it turned out that it was coming from a Greek policeship which was heading towards us in order to save us all and take us to their land.. I still remember when they told us: you are safe now..don’t worry.. Thank you God …thank you … I kept praying for hours.. We arrived in Athens two days later and then Edomini which was the second worst place I have ever lived in since I fled Syria… We tried to cross the borders for a week.. but all was in vain…. The Macedonian police prevented us.. I couldn’ believe that we had to stay outdoors in tents for a long time.. My boys were sick..cold..dirty… We stayed there for 3 weeks, I cried everyday throughout those 3 weeks praying for something to happen to leave that place…. It was windy and rainy all the time.. I remember that time when I woke up and saw the water all around us with all my boys’ clothes wet because of the rain… we didn’t have any other clothes… I tried to take some clothes from other families till we got suitable ones from the Red Cross or another NGO… One day, an angel named Dimitris appeared.. He was looking for me.. He works for AGAPE organization.. and who, once, gave me some bread for my children.. He told me…it would be a pleasure to have you and your boys in my house until you manage to leave and meet with your husband again… I was shocked and surprised!!! Didn’t know whether I could trust him or not.. But I always prayed for God to save us… I was sure that God heard all my prayers…. On that day I felt like I had a new family to love and take care of us… And now we are waiting for the family reunification procedures to finish… So I can meet my husband again and live as one happy family like we used to be in our country…
