Since last Monday, we have been busy.  We now have 12 readers and 2 potential readers.  Please pray that these two new readers begin classes soon.

Marcia and I have done a little shopping at Montastiraki.  That has given us more experiences on the metro.  We have now ridden all three lines - the red, the blue and the green.  After three weeks, we can figure out how to get to any of the stops.

On Wednesday, Alex and Eleni were out of town to take care of business, so we cooked a meal for the group.  They eat together each Sunday and Wednesday.  One of my readers, Vasilis, led the Bible study.
 

Thursday, we were blessed to spend the day with Mary.  She is a precious Christian lady who has many difficulties in her life, but has remained strong and secure in her faith.  She is the lady who is studying with our friend, Petros.  As I mentioned before, Petros has been coming to the church for about 6 weeks and is struggling with addictions.  He has felt God's love in this place and he is very close to being converted to Christ.  We are thankful for Mary's committment and example.  Mary has a home near the shores of the sea.  We had a wonderful relaxing day in her beautiful home, she prepared a delicious meal, and she taught us a Greek folk dance. 

On Saturday morning we rode a bus to a mountain village of Aghio.  Eleni's aunt lives there and has suffered a stroke.  She is bedridden at this time.  Aunt Eleni is a precious Christian who has spent her life serving in this small town.  While we were there, a number of her friends came to visit.  We saw beautiful country areas while there. Eleni prepared a delicious meal for us.  She cooked lamb and potatoes on the stone oven outside her aunt's home.

Sunday was the Greek Independence Day.  The metro was closed until after noon, so we did not go to church until about 1:00.  We had the Fourth of July Party with our readers.  Several of the Bulgarians came to the party.  After it was over, we went to the home of Svetana, one of Marcia's readers.  She had prepared a feast.  We had 3 meat dishes, potato salad, stuffed peppers, and a pastry dish.  Her house was very nice, but tiny.  Her kitchen was about 8 X 8, and her bedroom/office/livingroom was about 8 X 12.  The bathroom had a shower, potty and washer.  There was beautiful marble in the apartment.  Svetana was such a sweet hostess.  She has been a widow for about 12 years.

After our meal, we caught the metro and went to another part of town where Nora, from Nigeria is beginning a group called "Integrity Sisters."  Nora wants to offer a place for women to come for help in any area of their lives.  Eleni spoke to the ladies and it seems to have been a very good beginning for the group.  It was scheduled to begin about 5:00, but it started about 8:00.  Women gathered for about 2-3 hours and just sat and visited.   We even had about 4 men who showed up - 2 photographers and 2 other men.  Marcia and I arrived home about 10:30.  We went to bed about 11:30 and began our day about 8:30 this morning.  It is now 7:00 and we will head home soon. 

Please pray for our current and our new prospective readers.

I love y'all.

 . 

So much has been happening that I have had little time to blog when I was at the church building.  That is the only time I have internet.  My readers are consistent and all have shown growth over this month. 

I wrote a blog last night and had 3 pictures in it.  But I lost the blog.  I will try to add a little tonight while Marcia reads with her last student. 
                                   

We visited the little island of Poros on our 1 day cruise.  It is a very pretty little village.

This is a view of little villages built along the sides of islands. 

This is the Temple of Athia on the island of Aegius.  This island is famous for their pistachios.




I know this is not very informative, but at least you know I am still here. I will try again tomorrow.  It is time to head to the house. 

I love y'all.

This evening, still Sunday, tears are still falling.  This time it is thanksgiving.  One of the men I talked about at the end of my entry on March 14,  was with us all day at church.  He studied with Mary, a wonderful Christian woman here in Greece.  For about an hour after they talked, Petros stayed and studied his worksheet and Bible all by himself.  I just watched for a little while as he was in the Word.   I tried to encourage him, but he knows very little English. He hit his chest and said “no good man, woman problems, drugs, hashish, police arrest.  Walk better road.”  If I interpret that correctly, Petros was telling me he wants a better life with Christ.  I talked to Mary and she said they have been studying, and she believes he will become a Christian.  She is talking to him about ways his life will need to change then.  



  
We had a good meal together after morning worship.  Natalia’s birthday was this week, so she came early to prepare Russian food.  She made Russian salad, which seemed to be a much larger version of our potato salad.  However, everything must be chopped very, very small.  Natalia had me chop and chop and chop.  For those of you who may not know, I do not like raw onions.  I had to chop about 4 onions very, very “ti-i-i-ny” as Natalia says.  She said they only make this for special occasions because it takes so long to chop.  I understand.  She also prepared a delicious dish of onions and mushrooms sauteed in olive oil and added sour cream. She also stayed up until 2 am making a chocolate nut ball dipped in chocolate.




Pictured here are the two birthday girls from this last week - Natalia and Slava.  Natalia was so excited to be able to share real Russian Salad with all of us.










Marcia had a party for Tennessee.  We had only a few attend, and you can see Natalia and Mary attempting to do part of the Virginia Reel (do-si-do and curtsie.) They also learned some facts about the state of Tennessee.












It is now 5:15 on Monday evening and my four readers have finished for the day.  Marcia is reading with her last one and we will head home.

Keep praying.  I love y'all.

       

Today is Sunday.  My heart feels broken.  As we left the apartment this morning and got to Evangelismos hospital, a young woman was sitting on the curb crying.  We walked past her, but could not go on.  I thought maybe her child was in the hospital.  We went back to see if we could talk to her.  She spoke no English, but made us understand that she was crying about a child.  She showed us a picture of a little boy, but after we left I realized it was probably an old postcard - not even a photograph.  She showed us a transportation ticket.  She acted like she needed money to travel.  Because we could not communicate, we did not know what was truly going on.  Marcia gave her money, and we went toward the church.  As I walked down the sidewalk, I felt so helpless.  I am so blessed, and I cannot even talk to this lady to see what she needs. 

After arriving at the metro that is close to the church, we began our walk to the church.  About three blocks along our walk, we saw a man fallen on the curb.  He was moaning and rolling around.  One person was trying to help him up, but was not able to.  That man walked away and tried to hail a policeman across the street.  That policeman did not respond.  I stayed to watch the man, and Marcia went to get help from the church. Many people walked past the man fallen on the street and stared, but no one seemed to know exactly what to do.  I didn't know if he fell, was hit by a car, or was knocked down by someone.  Finally two motorcycle policemen came, but they told him to get up and did not do very much to help.  Another passerby tried to help the man up and move him from the curb.  A bottle fell out of his bag and it was wine.  I realized that he was probably too drunk to stand.  There are so many people here who need help.  My heart breaks.  I want to do more, but I do not know what to do.

The last two evenings as we arrived at the metro at Evangelismos, a young lady was standing on the stairs begging.  Her face was badly scarred, and looks like pictures we saw on the news of people in the Chernoble disaster.  A few euro will not help her.  She needs medical help, but I cannot help with that.  My heart breaks. 

This country is so poor and wages are so bad.  Even people willing to work cannot make wages that are enough to care for themselves.  Please continue to pray for these people and the economic situation in Greece.

I love all of you.

We began this day with the fruit and vegetable market at our front door.  We bought food for us, but also for the group that meets on Wednesday.  They always eat together before Bible study.  Eleni and Alex will be gone for a few days, and Marcia and I will prepare potato soup. This is my teammate, Marcia with some of our wares.
The market is several blocks.


Yesterday three new students showed up at the same time.  One of them, another Vasilis, owns a store very near here.  The girl, Yanna, works for him.  And her boyfriend is attending.  We have stopped at their store several times and they have spoken English.  Marcia is having a class with them every other day.  Normally each classtime has only one student, but these three are reading together for 2 hours.

My class with Lana continues well.  Today we read from Luke 4:1-14.  Lana looked at me and said, "Janiece, this is just for me!"  It is so wonderful to see the word convict hearts.

Vasilis has almost completed Luke.  We will begin John later next week and we will also study I and II Peter.  He is thirsting for more and more knowledge.

Tomorrow will be our day off.  We are planning to go on a "cruise" to three small islands.  We will leave about 7:15 am and return about 7:00 that evening.  I will let you know about them in a few days. 

I will give you a little preview of our home.  The kitchen has a stove, a small refrigerator, a small dishwasher on the cabinet, a microwave, and a small table.  Sometimes it has our clothes hanging in front of the  radiator to dry.

The living room is also my bedroom.  It has the largest radiator to dry our clothes.  There is a desk area for us to try to lay maps, etc. out to make plans.  There is a TV, but we cannot understand the Greek stations.  Some of you please let us know if interesting things are happening elsewhere in the world.

The bedroom is Marcia's.  It has a balcony about 2'X 3'.  She enjoys the fresh air at night.  Sometimes it gets a little chilly.



Our bathroom has a washing machine in it also.  We have hot water for showers, so it is very nice. 



This is a very nice apartment and it is in a nice neighborhood.  We have 2 little grocery stores very near us.  I think each one is about 45 seconds from our home, just in different directions on the street.

Marcia is with her last reader now.  We will be heading home in about 45 minutes.  Thank you for the messages, e-mails and prayers.

I love y'all.

Our number of readers is growing.  We received a call from Joann who works in a store down the street.  Marcia visited her when we were buying warm leggins because it has been so cold here.  She will come tomorrow at noon.  A new reader, Marianna, began today.  We are so blessed each day here. 

Please continue to pray for Sviatlana that she can begin to understand that God forgives.  I will give "Lana" a list of scriptures about God's love and forgiveness tomorrow and I will give her a Bible to take home.  She has such a loving and sincere heart.  Lana is 55 years old, is from Belarussia, and has been in Greece about 12 years.  She had an interview today for a job as a nanny.  Pray that she will get this job.  She would be a blessing to these two little girls.  You can read more about her on my blog last Monday.

Vasilis continues to amaze me with his knowledge.  He will be a leader in this church as he continues to grow.  He thirsts and wants to learn more.  He does two lessons each day so that he can go on to more books.






Natalia is doing very well with her English.  She does not have confidence and is emberassed if anyone hears her trying to speak, but she is doing well.  Her Bible knowledge is good and she wants to learn more.



Darin is doing better.  I was able to stay on the lesson much more today.  He did ask me to help him with his resume.  He is trying to get a job as a librarian.  With today's lesson he was moe serious with the reading and the questions.  Your prayers are being answered.  Please continue.

Tonight we ate together with the Christians before they had their Bible study.  There are two men who meet with the group that are struggling with addictions, and they are loved and accepted and worked with by these brothers and sisters.

I love y'all.

Today I will try to post some pictures to show you where we are.  It is abnormally cold here, and we did not come prepared for cold.  But we are doing fine.  My layers do not match, but warmth is more important than fashion.  Right?

This is the street we walk down each morning and walk up each evening.  Our apartment is five blocks from the metro.  We have finally conquered riding the metro.



I have already posted the picture in the metro of September 3 Street.  There is another sign that shows me Danny is here with me.  This picture is painted on the building one block from the church building.  This is one of Danny's favorite paintings.  He did a pencil of it when he was in school at Preston Road.  We have had this piece at our house for years. 

On last Saturday we visited the Acropolis Museum. One morning before classes begin, I hope to be able to walk up to the Parthenon. The Greeks are doing repairs, trying to restore some of this beautiful structure.

My first reader comes in 30 minutes, so I need to prepare for Sviatlana.

I love y'all.  Keep praying.

Janiece

What a wonderful Monday morning.  It is very cold outside.  It felt like a little sleet as we walked to the metro.  The weather is not supposed to be like this in March.  People were busy everywhere, and we are able to find our way very easily now.  

My first reader this morning is Sviatlana.  She is from Belarussia.  When she was a child her family did not believe in God.  However, her first job required that she be baptized before she could become a "godmother."  (I think that is a nanny.)  When she had to be baptized she began to study the Bible.  She became a very strong believer in God, but a few years ago had some difficulties by being with a crowd that "did not have good faces."  Last month she read about our practice lessons in English.  She waited for the classes to go for a few weeks and came to the church yesterday to check things out.  We had a great beginning of our study today.  She has been teaching school for a number of years, but was so busy she never had time for anything except work.  She taught classes from 10 am to 10 pm.  One night while walking home, she saw a chair sitting alone on the sidewalk.  A little farther along she saw another chair sitting alone on the sidewalk.  She felt this was a way God was showing her to slow down.  She eventually quit the job she had.  She said that she believed that God did that so that she would have this opportunity to study with us now.  WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE SERVE. Please pray every day for "Lana" that as we study God's Word she will have a clearer understanding of God's will for her, and that she will find the pieces she is searching for. 

Darin is my other new reader today.  He speaks very fast English with a strong Bulgarian accent.  He is a very educated man with a number of degrees.  At this time, he does not have a job. One of his degrees is in advertising, so Marcia has asked him if he can help us get the information out to the people.  

Today is Natalia's birthday.  She brought cookies for us. We read about the rich man in Luke 12.  Natalia said that "If God lives in our hearts, we are rich."  Natalia showed me her book that we read from.  Over the weekend, she studied four lessons.  She studies the Word!  I thank God for the wonderful people here who strive daily to please our God. 

Vasilis and I read today from Luke 11.  At the close of our hour, Vasilis said "Give God your heart - then He will put it in your heart to love and help and to serve others.  This love is given from above.  My sister and I are closing 7 years in the Lord.  I was baptized May 22, 2005 and Sophia was baptized June 19, 2005.  I am happy because I am hoping in the Lord for His coming."

We should all pray to have the trust and assurance that our brothers and sisters in Greece have.   

I love y'all and thank y'all for your continued prayers,
Janiece

Today is Sunday, March 11.  This has been a marvelous day.  We worshipped with a group this morning, had lunch together, and then began to get ready for our Texas party.  While we were setting up for the party, a lady came in to ask about our English classes.  She had seen a flyer and had come to see what we were doing.  She will come tomorrow at noon to read with me.  Her name is Lana.  Please pray for her.  We were so excited to have a response from the flyers we passed out. 

Our Texas party started about 1 hour late and I thought we were going to have only three students, but Eleni (the preacher's wife) went in to the Bulgarian worship and asked some of them to come to our party.  We had a room full of sweet Christians.  I taught them to say "Yee Haw!"  We twirled a rope, ate sunflower seeds and spit them into a can, played marbles, ate beef jerky, lassoed our friends, and shot candles out with our "six-shooter" waterguns.  We also ate cowboy cookies and drank sweet iced tea.  The group laughed and laughed and had a good time.  I noticed a young man in his twenties sitting in the corner.  He watched but did not participate.  I thought he was thinking how silly I was acting.  (Sometimes I do act a little goofy, but it's fun.  I think it used to drive Danny nuts at times.  Oh, well.  He loved me anyway.)  After the party, that young man came to me and asked if he could come to class beginning tomorrow.  I was very excited.  We will begin reading Luke 1 at 2:30 tomorrow.  That was two new students for me, and Marcia also had a new student sign up. 

More praise to God came a little later when I found out from Eleni that my new young reader is visiting his Mother who is a member here.  The young man is having some difficulties and his Mother asked Eleni to pray for something to touch him today, for him to see something good here.  GOD ANSWERED THAT PRAYER TODAY!   God is so good to us, and He has blessed us with three new students. 

My eyes have been "leaking" today because God's blessings are so overwhelming.  He continues to bless me abundantly more than I can ask or imagine.  Keep us in your prayers.  I love y'all.

Wow.  Today Marcia and I had a new experience.  Eleni sure has a lot of confidence in us.  She gave us directions and sent us out into the city to find two colleges.  She said call if we got lost !  I wrote the street names in English on my notes and the street names we could find on our journey were in Greek.  Many streets had no names.  We went from Pireas to Panepanistimos to Marasilis to Vasililis Amalias and back in only 2 hours. .  . 

Today is another beautiful day.  We are praying that we will have more readers interested in practicing with us.  Marcia and I begin each morning with a devotional.  This morning I also opened a note from friends in Abilene.  They sent a journal and notes with me to open on certain days for encouragement, and to remind me that others back home are praying for God to use us here and for us to see his wishes for us.  Before I left Abilene, one friend told me that Danny would be here with me.  She did not know how, but I would know.  Each day as we ride the metro to get to the meeting place for our readers, I read a street sign that says Danny is with me as I head up to the streets.  Danny's birthday is September 3.  I have seen this sign posted everyday since I arrived. 


Today I will read again with Natalia and with Vasilis.  Both are very sweet and eager to learn more of God's will for them.  They are such happy people and are so grateful for God's gudance in their lives.  Natalia's husband is a physicist and he studied for a short time in Alabama.  He attended the church while he was in the US.  She said she was stubborn - she did not become a Christian for five years.  Vasilis came back from the army in November 2004.  His father had him attend church and Vasilis was baptized May 22, 2005.  He is very proud of that day.  He is looking for a job and had an interview Monday.  Please pray he will be called to work.

Last night about 12-15 of us met for Bible study.  They love to sing, and their study of the Word was very intense.  God continues to bless us and we thank you for your prayers. 

Today is a rainy day, but we were blessed with no rain falling as we walked to the metro station  (five blocks down, which means five blocks UP lots of stairs when we come home.)  When we got to Omonia station down in the metro station, we did have a litle trouble finding the right street to come up to.  But we finally were successful, so, here we are at the church building.

What blessings God is giving me.  Today I had my first reading with Natale.  She knows the names of so many American actresses - Natalie Wood, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn- and smiles so big when she says the names.  Natale comes each day, Monday through Friday to improve her English.  She studies her Bible lesson before class and has the lesson for the day translated into Russian when she arrives.  Her workbook pages are filled with writing because she studies so much each day.  She understands God's word, and she understands some English.  She desires to learn more.  Natale teaches piano from 6am to 1pm. 

My next reader is Vasilis.  His Bible knowledge is very good.  He is able to talk about his faith in English as well as Greek.    Please pray for his continued growth, that he be able to get a new job, and that his family, especially his Dad matures spiritually.  (His birthday is September 3, the same as Danny's.  He was proud to share the birthday and told me that only Danny's fleshly body is dead.  Danny's spirit in alive with Christ.  How wonderful to share a faith like this so far from my home, and to have friendships like these develop in my faith family.)

Tsetvana was not able to come today because of the rain.  She would have to run in the rain to get to the study site, and she might get sick if that happened.  We pray for sunshine tomorrow so that she will be able to continue her study.

Pray that we will have more readers in the near future.  We will go to the square and pass out flyers to invite people to come for free one-on-one English lessons.

On a funny note, Alex, the preacher, took us to a metro closer to our home so that it would be easier and faster for us to get home in the rain.  Well . . . we were in a different terminal and took a train the wrong direction, had to get off and try to find the right one.  Aghio Antonios (north) and Aghio Demitrius (south) is very confusing, especially when we want to go east.  Oh, well, wonderful experiences.  We sure would never be able to do this around Cherokee or Abilene.

I love you all.

After leaving Abilene on Thursday, we arrived safely in Athens on Friday evening.  Alexander and Eleni met us at the airport and brought us to our new home for the month of March.  It is a very nice little one bedroom apartment. Then we ate at a little restaurant right around the corner.  We had sautéed mushrooms, rice, and eggplant.  They were great.

We had quite an experience after Eleni left.  We walked back around to our apartment, but we could not get the keys to unlock the door.  We rang for the manager several times, but he did not come down.  (We actually rang all the apartments to see if anyone would let us in, but no one did.  I hope they didn’t look out the window to see who was waking them up with that stupid bell.)  Marcia thought she had Eleni’s phone number, so she went back to the restaurant to see if the owner would call Eleni.  But the number Marcia had was a fax number.  So we tried several more times to unlock the door with no success.  We decided to go to the back door, but still could not open it.  We rang for the manager again and he answered this time, coming down in his robe to let us in.  (FYI-there are four keys to get in to our apartment and each one has to be turned just right and the door pushed at the right time.)

I was pretty lazy this morning.  When the jackhammer outside our window woke me, Marcia had been up quite a while.  We got ready to go to the Acropolis, Parthenon and Mars Hill. 

Before we left I had a little Danny Duggan time.  Can you believe I sat on the couch and thought about how to rearrange the furniture?  I am sure Danny would have moved the bed from the tiny bedroom to the living room so that we would be able to open the closet doors.

Back to our morning.  We walked downhill to the metro and found that we needed a picture to buy a month-long ticket.  We walked BACK UP 4 blocks to the apartment to get our driver’s license and went back down.  Identification was not enough – he wanted a photo he could use on our passes.  So we walked BACK UP 4 blocks to the apartment again to see if we could find a picture to use, and then walked back down. .  .  .  deep breaths, Janiece, deep breaths.  We finally got the tickets taken care of, and then we had to figure out how to read Greek to know which metro train to catch.

We finally made it to the Parthenon and it was great.  I stood on Mars Hill and looked around the countryside of Greece.  Looking up at the Parthenon and imagining all the people hustling around the area among all their gods and idols, - and then hearing Paul’s words as he spoke about the unknown God - was very touching.  We did enjoy our day very much.

Tomorrow morning, Sunday, we will go to the congregation at Omonia for worship.  They have 4 services – each in a different language.  We have our lists of the readers that began last week.  Please pray for those readers as we study with them, and pray for more people to come for this study.

As I tried to come up with a creative name for my blog (first ever, mind you!), I struggled to come up with something fun and creative that might have a calling similar to that of my friend, Pippo, or Captain Fussybuckets.  The best I could do was “Janiece in Greece” until I realized that it would be much easier to come up with one name to fit all rather than a separate name for each trip I go on.  “Me and You in Peru” makes me think that my ideas might tend to go downhill each time. 

So to settle on one name and make a continuous blog of my future mission trips seems the simplest and appears to be what would require the least creativity.  I’ll throw all my creativity into my Bible lessons; my packing for month- long trips in one small suitcase that I can manhandle alone; my strategies for overcoming jet lag; and according to my kids, appropriate souvenirs to bring back for them.

 Seriously, when I think about the opportunities I am enjoying right now, I do know and appreciate that the life and death of Danny is a huge part of why, how, and what I am experiencing.  So many of the things he and I shared will obviously be part of this new and different life I am living.  So back to the point of this writing—the name of my blog—I struggled to come up with the perfect name.  It came to mind that when Danny would lead singing, he would lead “Send the Light.”  However, when we sang the chorus, he always had us change the words to “take the light.”  And that is what I feel blessed to be doing with my life—“Taking the Light”.  So that was idea #1, and I really liked it.

After a little more thinking, studying, reading, planning, calling my creative daughter (she made me put that), I came across a selection from Psalm 96:2-4.

2 Sing to the Lord, Praise His name:

proclaim His salvation day after day.

3 Declare His glory among the nations,
   His marvelous deeds among all peoples.

4 For greatis the LORD and most worthy of praise.

 

Herein lies what I believe is the purpose of my new life:  letting others (even in faraway places) know how great God is and what He will do for them~and in turn what they should do for Him.  That verse is my purpose, my meaning, my ambition, my reason, my dream, and finally, my title for my blog!  So when you wonder what I am doing, feel free to check up on me through my blog.  I will be somewhere “Taking the Light among the nations to declare His deeds because He is great!”  (JNT-Janiece’s New Translation of Psalm 96:3-4)