September 24, 2006
September 24, 2006
Today was Sunday. We went to the International Christian Fellowship church this morning, the same church we went to last Sunday. I almost brought my laptop with me in case they needed my help, but at the last minute, I decided against it. As it turned out, they had it all working anyway, so everything was good.
During the service, I found it very refreshing to see that church “still happens” without all of the high-tech stuff I am used to. All of the words were done in PowerPoint with skipping back and forth, mess-ups, etc., but it didn’t distract from what we were trying to do—Worship God. Ok, yes, I was personally distracted because this is what I do for a living (not get distracted… ;)… but I work with visual stuff). But still, even without a lot of technology, they are still able to do a lot. I am still looking forward to getting back to Southside Fellowship though and running the tech stuff.
Anyway, enough about that. After church, we skipped the fellowship time to go on to other plans. We did not have any work scheduled for today, so with our free time, we made our way to the Acropolis, which turned out to be quite a hike. Especially for me, since I was wearing my nice church clothes and tie all day long. Skip and Jean Andersen did not join us on our trip to the Acropolis today. They had lunch and afternoon plans with some friends in Greece.
So, the rest of us (that would be Kerry, Cynthia, Karen, Jean Y, Erika, David, and me) went on to the Acropolis. We walked a bit of the way up there and stopped at the Agora. We then turned back around to go find a place to eat lunch really quick before making the entire hike. We all bought gyros and ate them while walking. I started singing, “We…went…walking…and…leaping…and…eating gyros….”, but no one else joined in.
When we got up to the Acropolis entrance, a tour guide found us and convinced us to hire her to give us a personal tour. Entrance was free today (normally about 12 euros), and her fee came out to be about 11 euros apiece, so we figured it was cheaper than we had expected (we did not know it was going to be free) so it would be worth it.
She was a local Greek woman who spoke great English, but she spoke very quickly, so it was often hard to understand her. She had an immense amount of knowledge (probably from doing tours her whole life would be my guess) about the entire country and all of the mythology. While she was talking and taking us through different areas, we all took many pictures of the scenery. I might post some of them to the photo album later. That might also be an empty promise. We will see. I wrote a great photo album engine before leaving but did not get a chance to write/program a good method of uploading the photos to the site.
After about an hour, our tour guide left (we had finished the tour). Jean Y, Cynthia, and I rested on a bench outside for a while, and everyone else in our group went inside the historical museum to look at the paintings.
When everyone came back outside, we headed to Mars Hill, just outside of the Acropolis area. This is the famous hill we read about in the Bible that Paul preached at. We all gathered together and Kerry read a passage from Acts 17. It was very interesting to just imagine Paul being there and the people of that time hearing God’s words through Paul.
So, more group photos, lots of pictures of the city, and then we were on our way back to the guest house to relax for a bit before going to the Persian Fellowship at 6pm. When we got back, I got something to drink and then David and I played some more backgammon before everyone got ready to leave for church.
The evening church service went very well. We saw all of our friends from the Men’s Retreat there. They were very happy to see us and even introduced us to some of their friends, so it was neat to see relationships building in that aspect.
Nadir asked our team to share some of our testimonies during the service, so Kerry and Skip shared their stories again. After that, Kerry came back up and shared some passages from Corinthians to all of the men. Then, Nadir gave a brief message. I have no idea what it was about. The entire service was in Farsi, including Skip and Kerry’s testimonies (they were translated). During the closing prayer, Nadir’s wife, Ella, asked me to help in the kitchen, preparing the dinner for everyone right after the service.
I was put on “bowl-holder” duty. Then, I quickly advanced to “bowl-holder” and “bowl-placer” duty. Then “bowl-holder”, “bowl-placer”, and “tray-mover” duty. And then I was moved outside of the kitchen to carry trays around and deliver the bowls of food to the guys. Erika helped me serve from the tray (it’s hard to hold the tray of food and serve at the same time since it takes both hands).
After everyone had food, we served ourselves and sat with some of the guys. David, Kerry, and I sat with Nadir and Shahab and talked about the retreat and just life in general too. After we were done eating, we had to clean up everything, wipe down the tables, sweep and mop the floors, the whole shebang.
When we were done with all of the cleaning, I went in to the office really quickly to update the blog (posted Friday/Saturday’s blog about the retreat), and then checked all of my email and all of that stuff. It has been difficult to keep up with all of the email I have been getting, both personally and with my two jobs, but somehow I have managed. I did not plan to have as much down-time from the computer as I have had on this trip, but that is ok. It gives me more time to spend on actual blog writing which I am sure you bountifully enjoy.
Good night! Tomorrow is another free day, and we are taking a trip to Corinth. Many pictures will no doubt be taken. We serve again on Tuesday. We have these free days because of the way the ministry is set up here and according to the schedule on which they operate. The free time is great for team-building though, and it has been enjoyable to see some sights mentioned in the Bible and it should yield more applicable reading, I think.
-Joe
Today was Sunday. We went to the International Christian Fellowship church this morning, the same church we went to last Sunday. I almost brought my laptop with me in case they needed my help, but at the last minute, I decided against it. As it turned out, they had it all working anyway, so everything was good.
During the service, I found it very refreshing to see that church “still happens” without all of the high-tech stuff I am used to. All of the words were done in PowerPoint with skipping back and forth, mess-ups, etc., but it didn’t distract from what we were trying to do—Worship God. Ok, yes, I was personally distracted because this is what I do for a living (not get distracted… ;)… but I work with visual stuff). But still, even without a lot of technology, they are still able to do a lot. I am still looking forward to getting back to Southside Fellowship though and running the tech stuff.
Anyway, enough about that. After church, we skipped the fellowship time to go on to other plans. We did not have any work scheduled for today, so with our free time, we made our way to the Acropolis, which turned out to be quite a hike. Especially for me, since I was wearing my nice church clothes and tie all day long. Skip and Jean Andersen did not join us on our trip to the Acropolis today. They had lunch and afternoon plans with some friends in Greece.
So, the rest of us (that would be Kerry, Cynthia, Karen, Jean Y, Erika, David, and me) went on to the Acropolis. We walked a bit of the way up there and stopped at the Agora. We then turned back around to go find a place to eat lunch really quick before making the entire hike. We all bought gyros and ate them while walking. I started singing, “We…went…walking…and…leaping…and…eating gyros….”, but no one else joined in.
When we got up to the Acropolis entrance, a tour guide found us and convinced us to hire her to give us a personal tour. Entrance was free today (normally about 12 euros), and her fee came out to be about 11 euros apiece, so we figured it was cheaper than we had expected (we did not know it was going to be free) so it would be worth it.
She was a local Greek woman who spoke great English, but she spoke very quickly, so it was often hard to understand her. She had an immense amount of knowledge (probably from doing tours her whole life would be my guess) about the entire country and all of the mythology. While she was talking and taking us through different areas, we all took many pictures of the scenery. I might post some of them to the photo album later. That might also be an empty promise. We will see. I wrote a great photo album engine before leaving but did not get a chance to write/program a good method of uploading the photos to the site.
After about an hour, our tour guide left (we had finished the tour). Jean Y, Cynthia, and I rested on a bench outside for a while, and everyone else in our group went inside the historical museum to look at the paintings.
When everyone came back outside, we headed to Mars Hill, just outside of the Acropolis area. This is the famous hill we read about in the Bible that Paul preached at. We all gathered together and Kerry read a passage from Acts 17. It was very interesting to just imagine Paul being there and the people of that time hearing God’s words through Paul.
So, more group photos, lots of pictures of the city, and then we were on our way back to the guest house to relax for a bit before going to the Persian Fellowship at 6pm. When we got back, I got something to drink and then David and I played some more backgammon before everyone got ready to leave for church.
The evening church service went very well. We saw all of our friends from the Men’s Retreat there. They were very happy to see us and even introduced us to some of their friends, so it was neat to see relationships building in that aspect.
Nadir asked our team to share some of our testimonies during the service, so Kerry and Skip shared their stories again. After that, Kerry came back up and shared some passages from Corinthians to all of the men. Then, Nadir gave a brief message. I have no idea what it was about. The entire service was in Farsi, including Skip and Kerry’s testimonies (they were translated). During the closing prayer, Nadir’s wife, Ella, asked me to help in the kitchen, preparing the dinner for everyone right after the service.
I was put on “bowl-holder” duty. Then, I quickly advanced to “bowl-holder” and “bowl-placer” duty. Then “bowl-holder”, “bowl-placer”, and “tray-mover” duty. And then I was moved outside of the kitchen to carry trays around and deliver the bowls of food to the guys. Erika helped me serve from the tray (it’s hard to hold the tray of food and serve at the same time since it takes both hands).
After everyone had food, we served ourselves and sat with some of the guys. David, Kerry, and I sat with Nadir and Shahab and talked about the retreat and just life in general too. After we were done eating, we had to clean up everything, wipe down the tables, sweep and mop the floors, the whole shebang.
When we were done with all of the cleaning, I went in to the office really quickly to update the blog (posted Friday/Saturday’s blog about the retreat), and then checked all of my email and all of that stuff. It has been difficult to keep up with all of the email I have been getting, both personally and with my two jobs, but somehow I have managed. I did not plan to have as much down-time from the computer as I have had on this trip, but that is ok. It gives me more time to spend on actual blog writing which I am sure you bountifully enjoy.
Good night! Tomorrow is another free day, and we are taking a trip to Corinth. Many pictures will no doubt be taken. We serve again on Tuesday. We have these free days because of the way the ministry is set up here and according to the schedule on which they operate. The free time is great for team-building though, and it has been enjoyable to see some sights mentioned in the Bible and it should yield more applicable reading, I think.
-Joe
posted by Joe at 11:47 PM
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