It has begun

October 17, 2009

I have been at lessons now for two weeks, learning the intricacies of Greek grammar and making new friends. It’s exhausting, but great fun. Time is really flying by too.

Φιλοσοφικί

Φιλοσοφικί (where Greek lessons are held)

For those that follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll be aware that we also hosted our first international party on Thursday, which was great fun. There were sixteen of us in total, and a lot more of our friends said they would love to come if we hold anything again.

Party with friends

Party with some of our friends


Where I’ve been and why do I need to justify my lack of blogging?

October 11, 2009
Sunset in the Saronic Gulf

Sunset in the Saronic Gulf

I’m not sure why, but it’s customary for bloggers to explain their absence if they don’t write for a while. So here goes…

It was my brithday on October 4th (thanks for all the cards and birthday messages that you guys sent to me) We celebrated it as a team by going for a wonderful Greek meal after church and then for some fantastic ice cream in Psirri because it was so hot (27C). After that a few of us went back to the Clark’s and watched the Snowman and Father Christmas. It was a great day because it combined the best bits of the year – summer, birthday and Christmas.

Because Sunday 4th October was general election day, the schools and university were closed for good reason on Monday. I do not know the good reason, but I hear it was convincingly good. Anyway, as it was even hotter than the Sunday and our Greek lessons hadn’t started and the many Clark/Callow children were not in school, we we had a team outing to the beach. I’d never been to the beach after my birthday and actually felt like I needed to swim because it was so hot. I also got burnt much to the hilarity of unnamed team members. Apart from this, it was a fantastic day out!

Greek and coffee

Greek and coffee

But it meant I ended up going to my first Greek lesson feeling not only like an international student, but an English tourist who did not understand the concept of skin cancer. Greek lessons are going well. They’re incredibly tiring, but my classmates are a great bunch and our teachers are fun. My job out here is essentially to explain the good news about Jesus, so it’s great that they’re nice and up for drinking frappes after lessons discussing things to do with Jesus.

On Friday Nicky (fellow IFES team member) and I discovered it was going to be 30C on Saturday so decided to tag along with Nicky’s housemate’s trip to Egina. We invited Team America (the American guys and gals who work with Agape here who we’re good mates with) and all enjoyed a super relaxing day out to the Egina – an island in the Saronic Gulf about an hour away by boat from Athens.

We ate the most wonderful seafood feast for €5 in a tiny garden behind a fish market, which was everything you expect Greek island food to be like – and I ordered almost entirely in Greek. Almost everything we asked for came to the table and we had an awesome meal. After then we spent a lot of time doing some serious relaxing on the beach (we were all exhausted from the first week of ministry on campus) before coming back in the evening.

So I hope that’s a satisfactory explanation for why I’ve not had much time to blog… Will write again soon(er).

Egina

Egina


Where I live or a good example of how to avoid copyright fraud

September 28, 2009

It’s taken me two weeks to upload this, but here it is: a video of my appartment so you can all see where I live!

I did have some really cool music in the background, but apparently I was committing copyright fraud and Youtube forced me to remove it and choose something legal to have in the background instead…


Greek placement test or the tale of leaving an exam twenty five minutes in and feeling pleased about it

September 26, 2009

So at 9am yesterday morning I was walking into an exam almost fifteen months after I’d finished my last one having thought to myself how nice it will be to never have to do another one ever again.

As opposed to testing me on my knowledge of high energy astrophysics or something of that ilk, this test was all about finding out whether or not I had the language skills of a Greek three year old. I think it’s fair to say that I don’t really have the language skills of a Greek two year old.

But it doesn’t matter! As I left the hall, I thought to myself that I’ve never felt so carefree after leaving an exam twenty five minutes into the three allotted hours! As I suspected, I couldn’t do many of the questions on the paper, but that’s okay – it wasn’t about grilling me on how much Greek I’d picked up so far, but about determining where I’d be able to pick up the most Greek.

There we go: placement test out of the way. The actual lessons start properly on Tuesday 6th October and will be from 12noon – 3pm Monday to Friday. I’m quite excited about starting them and learning a bit more Greek – I still get stumped when people ask me if I want my coffee hot or cold (a really bizarre question in my opinion) and resort to a very English “I beg your pardon?!” or words to that effect.

Please be praying that I’d be able to learn Greek quickly and that I’d make lots of friends on my course!

This city needs to hear the good news about Jesus again

This city needs to hear the good news about Jesus again


Broken keys and jars of clay

September 25, 2009

The biggest problem I’ve had so far in Greece is that the door key I was given at the start was pretty bad. It opened the door, but only after at least five minutes of wiggling it and pushing the door in different directions. And on Tuesday it finally died and refused to unlock the door at all – very frustrating, because it decided to do it on the one day when I had invited my team mate over for lunch…

So at the next opportunity I borrowed a key off a house mate, memorised “I would like another key” (θέλω άλλο ένα χλειδί παρακαλώ) and found the nearest hardware store to regurgitate the phrase and buy a new key.

To my surprise, the guy understood me completely and I, for maybe only the second time, didn’t have to resort to asking if he spoke English. One downside to the trip was that he charged me €5 which I thought was a complete rip off. So I wandered back up to my place annoyed with myself for being so evidently foreign that I’d been tricked into paying too much. Anyway, at least I had a key that now worked.

Or so I thought. I got home, put it in the lock, and it worked even less than the old key did: it didn’t even go round once. To say that I was gutted doesn’t come close to describing how I felt. I was absolutely devastated. Small problems become problems of enormous magnitude when you’re not in your own country and don’t speak the language.

The offending piece of equipment

The offending piece of equipment

I used my housemate’s good key to get in and walked into my room grumbling, cursing and angry at the guy who sold me a dud key, and spent a few minutes complaining at God for not making it easier to be a missionary.

To make matters worse, I’d heard stories of how notoriously unhelpful Greek shop staff can sometimes be when customers have problems. I didn’t want to go back to the hardware store at all! But I had to. So I got out my dictionary and my old Greek notes and figured out “it doesn’t work”, doubled checked it with Jonathan and Dawn (my team leaders out here) and memorised it.

“Αυτό δεν δουλεύει” said I to the man who had served me, handing him the good key and the dud with a post-it note on with the same written on it.

“Greek words” said he in response before turning to the cutting machine and fixing it. More Greek words were said to me, none of which I particularly understood. I trundled back off home, praying like mad that the re-cut key would work.

Praise God that he answers prayer and works through even Greek hardware store men, and thanks to that hardware store man: the new key finally worked. I could at last enter my apartment. I must say I was also pretty impressed with myself at having communicated in Greek and having sorted out the biggest problem that had happened since my arrival.

But I guess I was more struck by the fact of how when even tiny things go wrong in a different culture, they suddenly become huge deals. I’d heard that before, but it finally struck home. Living out here is really hard. Make no mistake about it. I’ve not even started my proper work and I am already exhausted at just trying to live and exist in Greece. I’m having a wonderful time, but life in Athens is hard.

And I guess that brings me to my second point. God works through people who look weak and pathetic because then he gets the glory – we are like rubbish cracking jars of clay that hold the treasure of the good news about Jesus. (2 Cor 4:7-10) We’re deliberately made to look pathetic because then it shows that God is the one who is at work in Greece – not us. I think I’m beginning to see what that looks like in real life.


Friday was Spotifriday

September 20, 2009

This week’s Spotifriday playlist for your listening delection: http://is.gd/3uskG. You’ll need to download Spotify to be able to listen to the playlist. Apologies that it’s a little bit late, I don’t have internet in my appartment…

Seeing as I now live in sunny sunny Athens, this week’s playlist has got some stuff that I think is pretty summery. Or at least it makes me think of hot summer days. Say what you think in the comments box. And I make no apologies for my taste in music if you don’t like it!

There will be a new one coming next Friday… And if you’re inspired, why not make your own playlist and share it next Spotifriday?


Athens, baby!

September 15, 2009

So, I’m now in Athens – arrived late last night. Feels really surreal to finally be here but it’s very exciting!

Weather is currently hot-ish (I’m guessing about 25C) and a bit muggy. Last night there was a huuuuuge thunderstorm and lots of rain. The rain reminded me of Manchester. The storm reminded me of Lesotho. Unfortunately, all these memories, the noise, the time difference (12pm in Athens = 10pm in UK) and the general buzz of adrenaline and excitement at finally being here kept me up quite late…

…and the hustle and bustle of having an appartment opposite a high school and on a fairly busy road meant that I was woken up fairly early. So I’m kinda tired at the moment. Will try and get lots of sleep tonight.

My appartment is fine but currently a bit empty – my two housemates arrive tomorrow evening and I still need to unpack and put photos and other things on the walls to make it a bit more homely. Will post a video sometime soon with a bit of a guided tour of the place.

So thanks for all your prayers about this – things are going well so far! Will post again in a few days when team life has started, but until then I’m going to be practising a bit of my Greek in cafes and exploring a bit.


Friday is Spotifriday!

September 11, 2009

This week’s Spotifriday playlist for your listening delection: http://is.gd/36thG

Spotify, in my humble opinion, is the best way of listening to music on the internet. Why pay or break the law when you can legally listen to almost anything for free on Spotify? And why keep something good to yourself when you can share it? You’ll need to download Spotify to be able to listen to the playlist.

This week’s playlist has just got some stuff that I’ve been listening to over the summer break. Say what you think in the comments box. And I make no apologies for my taste in music if you don’t like it!

There will be a new one coming next Friday… And if you’re inspired, why not make your own playlist and share it next Spotifriday?


Formacion TV…

August 18, 2009

More Formacion stuff for you… This video is of one of the sessions in which we were discussing worldviews.

My group was discussing the worldviews that are put across in popular music. We listened to Eagle by Abba and 42 by Coldplay… We are on the video from 0mins16sec – 0mins26sec. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that my group looks a lot more awake than other groups!


Until Christ is formed in you

August 14, 2009
Coffee at Formacion

Coffee at Formacion

From 25th July to 8th August I was in Poland, as you will know if you’ve been keeping up to date with the blog/prayer letters. I have been helping at IFES’ Student Leadership Formacion which is a two week conference for student leaders in IFES movements across Europe.

To save you getting bored, I won’t write a massive essay. Instead, I’ve asked myself a few questions about the conference. If you want to find out more, ask me another question in the comments and I’ll answer it too!

Formacion’s a weird name for a conference, why’d they call it that?
Galatians 4:9 says “…until Christ is formed in you.” Formacion is the Spanish word for formation, and it refers to the many different ways we can grow into being like Jesus Christ: physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. The conference was about us (students, community group leaders and staff) becoming more like Jesus Christ in all these ways.

What sort of things did you get up to besides “leading a community group”? (As you so informatively wrote in the last blog post)
My main job was to lead the community group with my co leader, Zhenya. As a community group we met daily to discuss the teaching on Mark’s gospel, we also did activities together (bike riding, spider webbing and canoeing) and I met up individually with the group members to discuss how the conference was going and what they were learning.

Apart from that I co-led a group for students who were studying Science at uni, a group discussing worldviews in music, and generally tried to encourage students from across Europe. It wasn’t all hard work though: even though we had our first prayer meeting at 7.30am each day, there was quite a bit of space for chilling out and socialising.

So, how many people were there?
There were about 180 people there: about 140 students from about 40 (?) IFES movements across Europe and further afield; about 30 community group leaders (like me); and about 10 people on the planning committee.

We were pretty spread out – some people lived just 30 mins away and there were some students who travelled from the other side of the world. We had a good contingent from the Middle East too, which I thought was really great!

What was the most exciting thing that happened?
In my opinion, by far the most exciting thing was that there were 140 students who left the conference grounded in Mark’s gospel – they knew it, they understood it and they could even recite it! Andrew Page from Above Bar Church in Southampton (and of Mark Drama fame) taught it to us, explained it to us, and most excitingly of all, after showing us how it all fits together and how to remember it, got people to memorise the whole gospel. Having done this, we spent one evening acting it out to each other – letting the gospel punch with huge force, showing us how good the good news about Jesus really is.

The reason I think this is so exciting is that across Europe there are now 140 more students who are confident in using Mark’s gospel in evangelism – they know how it fits together, they know what comes next, they know what Mark is trying to say through each part. They could easily get a Bible out with a friend, and go to any point in Mark’s gospel, ask a couple of questions and discuss it with their friend. Or the students who come from countries where it’s illegal to open a Bible in university can now discuss Mark in their Christian Unions. Or they could tell their friends about Jesus in Mark’s gospel without having to open a book in front of them.

I think that’s so exciting because the Bible (God’s word) is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12) and the more people in Europe that wield it properly, the more we will see God at work in Europe again.

Chilling out in the afternoon

Chilling out in the afternoon

Sounds awesome. But what have you learnt?
I learnt a lot about identity. In a couple of activities (the ones I was not so good at) I was really aware that people knew that I was bad. It was not nice feeling like a failure. As I thought about it, I realised I do this all the time. I place my identity in what other people think about me: when people are impressed, I feel good; when people aren’t impressed, I feel bad.

But as Christians, this is so wrong! God doesn’t look on us and judge us on how we’ve done. As Christians, God puts Christ’s good works and righteousness on us as if it were a cloak. When he looks at us, he doesn’t see how good we are or how bad we are; he sees Christ and how good he is! Because Jesus doesn’t change, and because God says that he will always look on us in this way in the Bible, God’s opinion of me will never change. And when I think about it, the only opinion that really matters is his!

The biggest lesson I learnt was to remember that my identity is in Christ and to keep reminding myself of that.

What was the hardest thing?
The basketball tournament (when I realised about the identity thing) and the mosquitoes!

I am terrible at basketball – I can’t jump and I can’t throw.

And I’m also pretty allergic to mosquito bites, so I spent the first week with really swollen bites on my legs until one of my friends lent me some anti histamene tablets.

Niiiice. What was the most enjoyable part of the conference?
For me it was meeting so many people from all over Europe (and some from even further afield) and hearing their stories of what God’s doing in their lives. In so many ways Europe is the biggest mission field in the world: vast swathes of it have no established Christian groups to tell people of Christ and yet so few missionaries get sent there. So it was really encouraging to hear that God is still at work in Europe even if it sometimes looks like he’s completely forgotten us. I heard exciting stories of what God’s been doing in English camps in Bulgaria, through friends and in families in Portugal, amongst students in Siberia, Belgium, the list goes on…

Fun with my Community Group in canoes

Fun with my Community Group in canoes

Finally, I hear you are not the world’s best linguist. How on earth did you cope in a Euro conference?
God is a merciful God and I did not have to cope at all. Almost everyone at these conferences speaks English to a really high level, and all the teaching is in English but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to communicate with other people. Admittedly, it’s easier for me than for people from other countries, but I found I had to be really careful not to fall into the trap of saying things people wouldn’t understand. Can’t complain though – I will find out what everyone else felt like when I go to things in Athens.

One last thing: Did you meet any Greeks?!
Yes!!! And I realised I knew a lot less Greek than I thought I did… It was great to meet some Greek students, to get to know them and to hear of the good and bad points of what’s going on in the Greek Christian scene. Looking forward to seeing you guys in a few weeks!