This weekend you may have seen on American news about riots in Athens following the killing of a 16 year old by police after an altercation.

We want to assure you that we and our team are safe, and are not near the action at this time.  We ask you to be praying for Greece, and students here in particular, as Anarchism and violence against police is not uncommon here amongst college students.

You can read about these events here [CNN], and here [BBC]. The articles are very insightful, and would give you a picture of what some of the situations on campuses here can be like. Students and police clash often, and Polytechniou - one of the campuses we work at - is the center of Anarchist activity in Greece.

The extent to which we’ve been effected by this is very small. The bus we normally take into the center has stopped running near downtown, so on the way to church this morning we had to hoof it a little. Our normal bus stop where we wait for our bus home from downtown is now completely charred and melted, having been set fire to last night in a riot. To reassure you of our safety, we can tell you that we were in downtown this afternoon taking Christmas pictures to send to you, and we had no idea any of this had happened until we got home and checked the news.

Again, I ask you to pray, as tensions could be high on campus, and students have the right according to law to barricade themselves on campus without police being able to come onto campus to find them. We know of nothing happening on the campuses in our neighborhood, but we will take care when going on campus. These situations are easy to avoid, and police are the only targets of aggression, so we are not an any danger. Please pray for the family of the boy who was killed. Pray for Greek students to find hope in Christ, and see Him as the answer to their frustrations and hopelessness. Please pray for Greece to know the peace that Christ can bring.

[image courtesy of www.greecetravel.com, a great guide for travel information in Greece]

Last Monday, March 10, was the first day of Orthodox Lent, or Σαρακοστή, called Clean Monday [Κάθαρα Δευτέρη]. On this day, Greeks go to open areas around Athens and fly kites. It’s really a beautiful thing to see. On Clean Monday Greeks clean their house of everything they will fast from for Lent, hence the name “Clean” Monday.

Ironically, Clean Monday was anything but clean. Beginning on Clean Monday, there have been numerous strikes: subways, buses, but most importantly trash pickup. For over a week now, trash has been accumulating in the streets of Athens as the trash workers refuse to pickup trash until their demands are met.

We braved the stench and documented this wonderful event for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy. [If you really want to get the effect, view the slide show below next to an open dumpster!]

Update: The smell made it all the way to England. BBC report on strikes.

We wish you a Merry Christmas from Greece! We have so many things to be thankful for this Christmas! We finally have internet set up in our home, so we have been able to talk to our families today, and we can update you here!

If you read our December newsletter, you heard a little about Christmas in Greece. I wanted to take a moment and let you know a little more about how they do Christmas here.

For example, rather than Santa Claus coming into the chimney, Saint Vasilis climbs onto your balcony, and (we presume) into your home to give gifts.

Saint Vasilis, the patron saint of sailors, whose feast day is celebrated on January 1, was known for helping the poor by giving out loaves of bread with money hidden inside. So every New Years Day, Greeks give one another a loaf of bread with a coin inside to celebrate the new year.

While Greeks celebrate Christmas on December 25 just like us, Christmas is a day for gathering with family and celebrating the birth of the Savior. However, they wait until Saint Vasilis day on Jan 1 to actually open presents. So Catherine and I got a jump on all the Greeks today by opening presents on Christmas!

We’ve been very thankful for the fact that Greeks hang lights for Christmas, as it has made it feel a little bit like home. In Syntagma square [a huge plaza across from the Greek Parliament building ], there has been a huge Christmas tree and winter carnival going on for the last few weeks. Beautiful!

So, from the bottom of our hearts, we wish you a Merry Christmas, or as they say in Greek, “Καλά Χριστούγεννα” [”Kala Christougenna”] and a “Χρόνια Πολλά” [”Chronia Polla”], or Merry Christmas and many more!

image from stratikis.gr

For the next three days, November 15-17, Greece will celebrate a time of remembrance for the Athens Polytechnic Uprising. On November 17, 1973 a tank rolled onto the campus of Athens Polytechnic University, one of the universities where we work, to quell an uprising of students protesting the military dictatorship ruling Greece at the time. These events contributed to the eventual fall of the dictatorship, and the establishment of the modern Greek governmental structure.

[Image from Athens Info Guide]

Students and others in Greece remember the November 17th uprising as a symbol of the triumph of freedom over oppression. Even now students at Athens Polytechnic who had not been born at the time of the uprising take pride in the fact that students from their campus played such a key role in the shaping of their country.

[Students reading a memorial of the uprising behind the fallen Polytechnic gate]

Please pray with us that in this time of remembrance, the Lord would stir Greek students to shape their nation once again - this time for the glory of God. We see the passion in Greek students as something the Lord can use to reach a campus, and even a nation for His glory. May students change Greece yet again!

You can read more about the Athens Polytechnic uprising here [Wikipedia article] or here [Athens Info Guide].

Welcome to our new webpage! We’re just getting started on this thing, so some of the links might not work yet, but keep checking back. We promise to keep it exciting.

Thanks for visiting!