Time to start planning...

Arriving this morning at my school, I received another friendly hello (Ya su Jonathan!) from the receptionist. It has been fun to practice my Greek and learn some new vocabulary, although remembering this new vocabulary is another thing altogether! More tales of my Greek speaking adventures to come. I have now received all my class schedules for the school year! This looks quite daunting but my approach will be very much one week at a time. I have decided to plan all my week 1 lessons this week (that's about 15 lessons) so that I am as prepared as I can be going into this term. Please pray for me as I seek to do this. Also pray on for my relationships with colleagues. I would really like to get to know the teachers and staff at my school and hope that it will become clear soon that I am a Christian.

Time to start planning

This is also true for my neighbours who I am really enjoying getting to know. The lady from the flower shop who kindly taught me how to make Greek coffee yesterday offered to make me another this evening. As I sat there with my coffee and cake (and my phrasebook) I learnt a few more words. Occasionally she would spring a question on me -  what's that? - errrrrrr - it's a cake and a coffee (in Greek of course).

It's funny, I now know what it must have been like for all those English language students I met when helping with the Explore Bible study at Ebbe's. I remember thinking (no offense intended) that people learning a foreign language have an almost childlike demeanour, It might be due to the fact that having a limited grasp of the language means they have no choice but to converse in a very simple and slow manner. Not only this, but they are also far more dependent on the listener to help them as they desperately seek to construct a meaningful sentence. I can now see myself in this way. My attempts (often failed attempts) to speak the language has made me seriously consider getting lessons. I'm going to explore this a bit more and talk with some friends (English) who have been in Athens what they might recommend. Will undoubtedly have more Greek language stories to share in the coming week.

Another chapel on the way up
Lykavitos.

View over Athens. You can just
about see the Acropolis.

    



















Tomorrow evening I am God-willing going to attend the weekly Bible study at Glyfada Christian Centre. I am looking forward to seeing people who I met on Sunday again and it will also be a great opportunity to get to know the church better. Please pray that it is a good time both spiritually as I feed on God's word, but also relationally as I seek to make friends and find a church community to whom I can really serve and belong. I have been at St Ebbe's in Oxford now for just over 7 years and so as you can imagine joining a new church community feels like a strange process. Essentially we all know that God's church are the people of God (1 Peter 2:4-6)! Yet please pray that I do settle quickly into a local church and find a place where I can continue to grow in my faith.