“Let the Peoples Praise Him”

Today our team was in several different churches in Athens join in worship.  I and three others went to a Romanian Baptist church about 15 minutes across town (by car) for a 9:00 a.m. service.  It was my privilege to preach and to have Daniel, a Romanian brother who flew in yesterday to join our team, translate for me. 

I preached on John 11 about the sickness, death, and resurrection of Jesus’ friend Lazarus, and how this episode speaks to our sometimes-feeble faith:  like the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, we’re prone to scold the Lord for not comforting us on our terms and our timetable—but he often has better things in mind for us than to do just what we say.  How thankful we can be for his ongoing mercies.

The worship service lasted almost two hours, and it included many songs (which the people sang with “radical vigor”), several Scripture readings and prayers, and a worship song by the church choir—and their choir was outstanding!

Afterward we were invited to the pastor’s home for Sunday dinner (he and his wife and three-year-old daughter live just two blocks away from the church), where we were fed with bountiful blessings—a meal that “just kept coming”—and enjoyed great conversation on everything from immigrant churches in Athens to European Cup soccer to Romanian traditions and more.  The food and the company were wonderful.

Later in the afternoon I met with two missionaries, Bob and Andrew, who coordinate ministries among Albanians living in Athens.  We drove (about 10 min.) to the community center where my class will meet Monday thru Friday nights—a newly-renovated and very attractive building that's well set up for these gatherings.  (More info next time on how it actually goes the first night of class.  Please pray for great connections with all students in tomorrow’s first session.  Thanks!)

Then in the early evening we joined a Farsi-speaking fellowship of believers nearby for worship (with singing that was also highly exuberant), followed by Iranian rice, pita bread and hot sweet tea for everyone.  Several of these brothers and sisters in Christ can speak some English (zero of us speak some Farsi), so we got acquainted a bit and heard many fascinating life-stories.  For the most part, these are refugees who are in Greece now but desire to relocate to other countries, especially in Western Europe.  There are many prayer needs.

By the time we got back to the hotel, the sun was going down, and from our seventh-story balcony there were some great views of the city skyline (including a few bizarre contrasts of architecture and rooftop clutter, plus a certain Parthenon in the distance)—see photos in the previous post.

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