For the rest of the week, we will be briefing the students on life and ministry in Greece. I will be teaching about using questions to open the door for evangelism - really, just how to be a good listener, rather than pushing an agenda. Greek students are skeptical of anyone with an agenda, and I want to help set our students up to connect well with Greeks, listen well, learn the culture, and share not just the gospel, but their lives with their Greek friends.

Last year the summer project was the highlight of the year. I really enjoy teaching, and we will both have numerous opportunities to teach and equip the summer project students. It should be a great way to end our time here in Greece.

We’re officially 37 days away from our return to the States. We’re both excited and a little sad. There’s so much here that we’ll miss, but we are really looking forward to the next step in our lives. We would really appreciate your prayers during this time, as we juggle summer project, shipping things home, and transition out of Greece. Thanks!

In this newsletter, we have some pretty big news. This blog post could have been titled “Why Not Oxford, Paul?” Yes that’s right, we’ve had a pretty big change of plans. Read about it here.

I’ll talk about it more in a future blog post, but until then, enjoy our newsletter.

We’re thankful for you, and look forward to seeing you in the States!

[larger photos here]

Wycliffe Hall was founded in 1877 to be an evangelical voice in the diverse theological environment of Oxford University, existing to train evangelicals for pastoral ministry. Wycliffe has graduated many influential evangelical pastors and theologians over the years, including J.I. Packer, N.T. Wright, and hopefully P.D. Wheatley in a few years.

After spending some time here in Greece, we know that a few years really isn’t enough to see this nation changed for Christ. As we considered how long we would remain here, other long-term goals began to factor in our plans. I have always loved teaching the Bible, and during our time here, my calling to teach the Bible has further grown and clarified. Because of this, seminary study has always been something Catherine and I knew I would undertake at some point. This time in our life seems like the most opportune time to begin full-time seminary study, since we have no children, and we are able to move anywhere.

We heard about Wycliffe Hall from British friends here in Athens. We loved the opportunity to study full-time, while staying close to Greece. Of course studying at Oxford appealed to me, but more importantly I wanted to go somewhere where I could learn to teach the Bible well and grow personally in my relationship with Christ. When we visited Wycliffe, the quality teaching, intimate environment of only 125 students, and the school’s emphasis on students living and experiencing what they are learning ultimately won us over. We were also drawn to the large population of international students from China we saw there. Beyond this we think that remaining in Europe will allow us the opportunity to stay connected to friends and colleagues here in Athens in case the Lord would lead us to return. I will even be starting at Wycliffe alongside Tim, a colleague here currently serving Greek evangelical students, who hopes to return to Athens after graduation.

Beginning our transition, we feel sad to say goodbye to the friends we have made here, but we are excited for what lies ahead. We still have four months left in Greece, about 20% of our total time here still ahead of us, and we will be busy!  Next week we will host 11 students and staff from the University of Texas. The following week we will have training with staff from Thessaloniki, and the week after that we will need to take a visa exit. Then comes Easter, and a little over a month later we will have 40 students and staff here for the summer! On top of all of this, we will be working out our transition to international student outreach in Oxford, as well as visa, housing and funding issues related to our move.  I will remain on support while at Oxford, continuing student ministry while studying, and we will communicate more with you about this as we work out the details.

Catherine and I are thankful for all of you who have continued praying and giving to our ministry, and as always we welcome any questions you have about this next stage in our lives.

The protests in Athens haven’t completely died down, but they have for the most part turned peaceful.  We’ve been downtown to view some of the damage from the riots, and everything is mostly fine down there now.  Each evening [and some afternoons] the streets passing through some of the most popular areas for protestors are shut down, making travel a little more difficult.  Also, most of the universities have been closed ever since the riots and protests began.  Other than that, however, we’re not really very affected by the protests.  We thank you for your prayers and want to assure you of our safety again.

We also welcomed a group of Aggies here last week, visiting to see what our ministry is like.  It was fun having so many people around, even though students were mostly away from campus during all the protests.

During the week the Aggies were here, we took them to the refugee feeding program we work with to serve a Christmas meal to over 150 refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Algeria and Morocco.  What a great time!  At one point after the meal, people got up and began doing traditional dances to celebrate the good times.  Later a few young Moroccans got up on the stage to breakdance.  Who knew that was so big in Morocco!

While we were there, our Iraqi friend Mike told us that he would be leaving to find asylum in another European country, so he would be getting baptized before he left.  He told me that he wanted me to be there with him in the water with him when he was baptized.  I was so honored to be able to go with him to the refugee ministry’s camp north of Athens on Wednesday!  Catherine took photos while Mike was baptized by Bruce, the leader of the refugee program, and me.  This was the first time I have ever helped baptize anyone, and I was honored for Mike to be the first.

Enjoy some pictures from the day!

Finally on Sunday night we said goodbye to the Aggies, and Monday morning we welcomed my mother and sister for a Christmas visit.  We’re having a great time with them and are so happy to have them here.  What a week to be able to shake hands with an Iranian, baptize an Iraqi, have some Aggies over for dinner, and then walk the Acropolis with my mother and sister!

We seem to have arrived here at an interesting time in Greece’s history. We have seen our share of protests, and we have been affected by many strikes in our 15 months here. Through it all we have continued to see that Greece is in a state of transition, looking for hope somewhere. We find it tragic that the gospel seems so obscured here, despite the heavy-handed presence of the church here.

image via The New York Times

Tonight in our neighborhood, I [Paul] heard some shouts and decided to take off on my scooter to investigate. I was treated to a peaceful demonstration by leftist students marching from Polytechniou University in our neighborhood toward the center of Athens. They were peaceful, only chanting slogans of solidarity and statements of dissent. They passed the local police station peacefully, which was a concern of mine since the police are the object of their anger right now. There is tension in the air here in Athens, and we ask you to be praying for the nation of Greece.

Catherine and I took time today to pray that God would restore the hope of Greeks through Christ, that He would grant wisdom to the government in guiding their nation past this crisis, and that He would show His grace in public acts of forgiveness and peace - rather than anger and violence.

I want to reiterate to you our safety here.  We are being careful and watchful, but we sense no real danger here in our neighborhood.  Student protests are generally peaceful in our neighborhood.  Most violence occurs in the center, and is easy to avoid.  Thanks for praying with us.

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.

Inside, you’ll find exciting stories of reunions, friends showing interest in studying the Bible, and our list of things we’re thankful for this year [*spoiler alert*: you’re on the list].

Also, if you’re really into recent Wheatley history, you can check out our Archives page. We’ve got all of our newsletters back to around the time we got married, I think. Take a walk with us down memory lane.

Until then, enjoy your personal piece of Wheatley history!

While we’re at it, why don’t we give you the August letter too. We never posted it on this front page.

Sorry, but if you want more, you’re going to have to go to the Archives page, or our Newsletter page.

At the end of September, we headed to Ancient Corinth to show Andrew and Paige, our new stinters, the beauty of the Greek countryside. Afterward we visited a nearby winery right in the middle of their grape harvest. I’ve never seen so many grapes in my life.