Man, you people sure can pray! As of yesterday evening, we are officially tangled in the World Wide Web again! OTE [”Oh-Tay” for all you Little Rascals] had our internet raring to go in under 20 days! After waiting 3 months for our last internet company [Boo, Vodafone!!!], we didn’t think it could be so easy.

We will be a little less cyber-scarce now. To prove it, we’ll give you the reader a little photo love. We’ve been hosting a summer team here from UT, TX State and UTSA for 10 days now, and we thought you’d like to see a few pictures from the summer so far. Enjoy!

You may have noticed that we have been slow to update our blog, and have been impossible to reach on our phone. Where have we been?

Were we captured by pirates? Have we switched to communicating in only in Greek, forgetting out all our English-speaking relationships?

The answer actually is quite simple. We’ve been forced into internet exile. Our home internet, which took months to set up, worked for two months, and at the beginning of February it went kaput. For months we’ve been working with our internet company to get back online, but to no avail. Without home internet, we have no VOIP internet telephone, and our internet use is limited to checking and answering email mostly.

Greece is still slow adapting to this new-fangled “internet”, and new connections can take months to be activated, so we were slow to switch companies. We figured, surely it couldn’t take longer than a month to fix our internet. We figured wrong. After three months with no solution, we are in the process of switching companies to the big, bad [formerly government-owned] monopoly, OTE [pronounced, “Oh-Tay”]. We are told by OTE that it will be twenty days until our internet connection is, well, connected. By all other accounts, however, we could still be waiting months.

We ask that you continue to be patient with us as we work out these communication issues. We really DO want to talk to you. We also ask that you pray for OTE to set our internet up within the 20 working days they promise. When dealing with the souls of Greek college students, we know that the internet is a small thing in light of eternity, but having this connection would allow us to stay better connected to you, our loved ones, so we appreciate your prayers.

We thought we would have internet in our apartment by this week, but we’re learning that nothing in Greece happens quite as fast as they tell you it will. Unfortunately, what this means is that the telephone number that we gave in our last mailing does not work yet. It’s an internet phone, so… no internet, no phone. We would love to hear your voices again, but we’ll have to wait a few more weeks! If you’ve sent emails or tried to call, we’re sorry for our slow response.

This week will actually be a pretty big one for us, as school has started at all of our campuses, and we will be busy meeting new friends. We hope to have twenty new friends each by the end of the week. On Friday, we get on a train to head to northern Greece for a student retreat of 15-20 evangelical Greek students from Thessaloniki. I will be teaching about how to connect with the hearts of people who don’t know Christ. Please pray for me!

Also pray for my friend Dimitris, who I met on Friday. He’s a friendly, fun 19 year old, who shares my love for music. He has already invited me out to see live music, although I haven’t been able to join him yet. He’s interested in spiritual things, but is not sure how God has anything to do with everyday life.

Last Thursday we received our shipment from the US. Having our stuff here and being able to hang pictures on the wall helps make our apartment feel more like home. We miss you all, and we thank you for your prayers and support!

Hello from Greece! We’ve almost been gone for a month now. Can you believe it? The time has flown by.

We’ve been busy setting up our apartment [after many trips to Ikea], meeting with our new team to plan for the year [pictured above], and trying our hand at Greek. Below is a link to a few pictures of our apartment.

Today we went on campus at the University of Athens to get to know what student life is like in Greece. The students are very friendly and helpful, but we have a lot to learn.  We’ll update you more later, but it seems very different from US campus life! Thank you so much for all your prayers.  We couldn’t do this without you!

Click here to go to our apartment pictures!

The day is almost here! Tomorrow at this time we’ll be at the airport, reading magazines, waiting for our plane to Greece! We fly out at 3:30 pm. We can’t wait!

This morning at Friendswood Community Church, we were invited to the front of the church with our families as the church prayed over us, commissioning us as missionaries. Last night we also had some friends over to pray for us at Catherine’s parents’ house. It means so much to have so many people praying for us and supporting us, in many ways serving as the foundation for all we do. We are so thankful for your prayers - We couldn’t do this without you, and we wouldn’t want to!

As you have probably seen, Greece has been in the news over the last week. Uncontrollable wildfires gripped much of the Greek countryside, destroying homes, villages and fields. We are happy to report to you that the fires are under control. As we watched the news, we couldn’t believe our eyes, and our hearts were stirred for the many Greeks who lost loved ones, belongings and homes.

We have heard from our team members in Athens that our neighborhood was untouched by the fires. They are hoping to find places for us to do relief work once we arrive. We are looking forward to getting there to help, once we get our apartment set up.

Please be praying for us as we travel, set up our apartment, and begin working with our team. We are excited for all of our preparations finally come to fruition. After months of praying, deciding to go to Greece, and raising support and going through training, we look forward with anticipation to the next chapter in this adventure through which God is leading us. Thanks for your prayers!

Let the adventure begin!

Yesterday was the big day, before the big departure day. We dropped all of our worldly belongings off at a warehouse near the port of Houston. I’ve never done anything quite like that, and it was very very evident that we are not their typical customers. All the other boxes were uniform and were marked with “Toshiba” and “Sony.” Now, due to the flights we’re taking through Europe we only have 30 lbs of our stuff to live out of for the next month and a half. We’re actually doing this! We’re moving! As we drove away from our pile of boxes that looked so big in our living room, and so small at the warehouse, the sense that we’re re-locating felt more real than ever.

For weeks we’ve been preparing for yesterday. And now that it’s over, I find myself thinking more and more about what daily life will be like in Athens. I read this article in the Continental magazine and found it easy to imagine sitting at a sidewalk café sipping a frappé with a new friend and “waiting for life to happen.” I’m getting really excited!

Well, we left Austin yesterday after a wonderful time seeing friends and family there, we hit the road for Friendswood - the last stop on our farewell tour!

This week will be a big one for Catherine and me. Wednesday we take all of our stuff [except for what we can fit into a suitcase] and put it on a boat bound for Greece! This means that from now until then, we’ll be packing and making decisions about what stays and what goes!

Once our things are on the boat, we’ll head over to the Greek consulate to apply for our visas! Please be praying for our visas to be approved. We’re applying for year-long student visas, and this is not a rubber stamp process.

To cap it all off, on Saturday and Sunday Catherine and I will be taking a motorcycle training course in Galveston, in case we need scooters in Greece. Can you picture us on motorcycles? Neither can we!

Our teammates Jeremy & Julie have found an apartment for us in their neighborhood in Athens, called Zografou. It’s a little funky, but we like it.

We’ve said yes to this apartment, and we are just waiting to get our deposit in to secure it until we arrive in September. Please pray that no one will rent it before we can get our deposit to them. We’re wiring the money tomorrow. Also, thank God with us for His provision!

This apartment is two blocks from campus, and across the street from the building where the rest of our team will be living. We love the wrap-around balcony, and it’s well within our budget! Enjoy the pictures, but keep in mind that we’ll be painting and adding our personal touch!

Click on the image above to be taken to the apartment photo gallery.

We have our tickets to fly out of Houston on September 3rd…and so the countdown officially has begun. We’ll be doing a lot of things in the next 5 weeks and covering a lot of ground…

7/28 My Birthday, the big 27. We’re in Tulsa, OK for our friends Amy & Doran’s wedding!

7/29 Our one-year anniversary! We’ll drive to Stillwater, OK, then on to OKC spending time with good friends before we leave.

7/31-8/4 Denton, TX

8/1 Paul’s Birthday, one year older than me.

8/5-8/10 the ATX

8/11-9/3 Friendswood, TX

8/14 We’ll drop off all the stuff we’re shipping to Greece at the port of Houston, it will ride for 5 weeks or so on a boat :o)

9/3 3:30 pm depart from Intercontinental Airport in Houston! and we’re off!

This weekend here in Fort Collins, CO we enjoyed the company of my mom Shirley and my sister Teresa. They were in town for the X-Track [that’s the name of the cross-cultural training we’re doing this summer, fyi] Family Weekend. We ate some great Colorado food, and learned more about how to handle family relationships between Texas and Athens. It’s not like you can just pop in for dinner whenever you happen to be in town, or anything.

We had some great conversations, and all-in-all it was a wonderful weekend.

Our training here is drawing to a close on Wednesday, and then we have a little break before our semi-annual staff conference begins on July 15.