kalo pascha...

"I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's Love.... Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus." Ro 8

For Easter this week we delivered a special Greek sweet bread called "Tsoureki" to the girls working in brothels. And in response to many requests by the Nigerian girls, we collected, wrapped and delivered 80 Bibles and bookmarks to the girls working on the streets.

It was 1:00 AM. The street was empty except for 90-ish Nigerian girls and a few drunk men. We showed up to pass out our Easter gifts. As soon as we handed out the first two Bibles the word spread all the way down the street and we were mobbed! SWARMED! They came running, sprinting and yelling, "Give me Bible!" 75% of our gifts went on the first corner and it took just half a block to empty our last bag.... all 80 Bibles were snatched out of our arms as fast as we could give them. Many girls took 2 and 3 Bibles (much to our chagrin) to take to their sisters and friends.

Then the part that only God could design....the girls started singing! Praise songs. All the same songs I know. Probably 30 girls danced in the middle of the street and bust out with "Let Everything that has Breath Praise the Lord" ...a familiar song but sung with harmony that only people from Africa can do. I asked one girl standing on the fringes why they were singing and she said, "They are giving thanks to God for the Bibles."

With our gift stock exhausted but still more of the street to cover, we walked further down the block. We met a few more who had heard the commotion down the street and were disappointed to learn we were out of Bibles. But excited that we might bring some more another time, they started singing and dancing! Then they asked us to sing them some Easter songs. (hmmm, hmm clear throat) A couple of us did our rendition of "Up from the Grave" ....this group knew the words and started singing too.

There we were... in the middle of a smelly, dirty, sketchy street. Way past my bedtime. I have this job, she has that job. I sing like this, she sings like that. My skin is this color, her skin is that color. Together singing praise to God.

I'm humbled by the opportunity to be there that night....

We understand that the Bibles are often a cultural "good luck talisman" for the girls. They put them under their pillows at night to ward off spirits. Please pray that they'll crack them open...and that the Word would jump off the pages and saturate their hearts and transform their lives.

age-old questions...

I spent the day at a beach north of the city with my friends from Greek class.

Since they're nice people, I helped them build this British sandcastle.

I didn't have my stars and stripes with me or I would have staged an invasion, take-over and flag replacement! I'm not afraid of this Englishman...

In ministry news, our conversations during outreach this wk were ....sparse. The few girls we saw were sprinting by us at top speeds to outrun the loads of police that were around. We poured a few futile cups of tea only to have them thrown to the ground when they saw the flashing lights.

This raises an age-old question for me. How do you "solve" the problem of prostitution? Athens has decided of late to crack down on it in the city center. So they have more police paroles. Seems positive, right? From a 'clean-up-the-city' standpoint it IS positive. But the girls are expected by their pimp/trafficker/owner/madam to bring home a certain quota and there are really scary repercussions for them if they don't. So police raids just scatter the girls to other streets where they'll continue to do business. Hmmmm, back to square 1 for the city police.

From my simpleton soapbox, I say start with young boys & girls long before they reach the streets....at home, in church and in schools!! In my perfect world, the demand would dwindle as young boys learn to honor God with their bodies and see women as equals worthy of respect. And every little girl would find her value as a daughter of the King! "You wove me in my mother's womb, I will give thanks to you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made... How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand." Ps 139

This side of heaven, thank you for your prayers for these girls who live in a fearful reality and the men that propagate it.

cyprus sojourn...

I just returned from a Cyprus excursion. I have to exit every 3 mos to keep the EU happy and Kelsey was doing a conference on trafficking so I decided to join her. We were encouraged by the 50-ish people that came each day to hear about human trafficking in general and about the happenings on Cyprus specifically. Although Cyprus is a very small country, it is a major destination for trafficking because of its location. The girls seem to be sourced from Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Philippines. Sophisticated maf. crime rings bring them in on artiste visas or bar-maid work permits.

Most of the 50 that came to our conference didn't know much about the problem on their island and were shocked to learn the gritty details. They just had no idea it was going on in their quiet backyard. But there is a grass-roots group of 4 ladies that hit the streets each Wednesday hoping to build meaningful relationships with girls. Please pray for them! And please pray for the others that networked and dreamed up new ideas during the wkend. Pray they'd get involved as the Lord leads.


Meanwhile, back in Athens the protests and strikes continue! This is what I walked through today...


Strike, Strike, Strike! The Greeks love to strike! They often close the airport and all public forms of transportation to STRIKE! Can't imagine these strikes are super helpful to the suffering economy....but they didn't ask my opinion....

I'm leaving in a few hours for our late night Thurs outreach. Thank you for your prayers for safety and for good conversations!! With the nicer weather we seem to be encountering more curious 'customers' and with the bad economy the girls are willing to do more dangerous things for $$. We'll be out from 11p.m. - 2a.m. (that's 1:00pm in Seattle, 2:00pm in Idaho! )