the good news with the bad...

Thank you so much for your prayers. This time God didn't intervene in the way we had hoped. Not being able to envision a way to manage a 9-month pregnancy without the $$ prostitution provides, Michelle found a doctor to do the sad deed last night. But I am trusting the Lord intervened in less obvious ways....hopefully the conversations, the kindness and love she experienced during the last few wks will serve as seeds of hope in her broken life.

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer..." Ro 12:12

But let me cheer you with some good news. We had an escapee this wkend! My teammate, Dee, met her in a brothel between customers...she was cold to us....didn't want to chat. She wasn't interested in what Dee had to say.

But then Dee said, "Why do you believe all the lies they tell you?" That's all it took! 180 degree turn. Just like that. With those 10 words her frosty exterior melted, her heart softened and she had ears to hear options. Long story short - she ran away without any of her possessions, hid with us for 2 nights while her captors looked for her and finally our team delivered her to a shelter far from those that take advantage of her!

The good stories give us encouragement to fight another day! Thank you, again, for your prayers last week....please pray for this escaped girl to find meaning in her new life.

baby #21...

I spent yesterday with a visiting team of college kids from Indiana sticking stickers. We plastered them all up and down the street that we go to on Thursday nights. It's a thriving, bustling vegetable market by day and a popular place to find a prostitute by night. Hopefully girls will recognize our logo and be able to find our tele number if they need it. Please pray that they won't all get taken down and that God will make them visible to the right eyes.


We hope a girl like Michelle might see the stickers. We met Michelle in a brothel. She's 23. Her story is tragic....she was raped by her father at 12 then raised in a Romanian orphanage and only received some elementary education.

Now she's living with a man 20 yrs older that she calls her boyfriend. Her job in the brothel supports them. She's now 2 months pregnant and called us to get help with an abortion. She's had 20 other abortions with no anesthesia and wants to do it differently this time. (wow)

We're definitely not the 'abortion people' but it is an opportunity for us to be in her life...to have some conversations with her. So my co-worker, Vicki, has met with her a couple of times to discuss other options for her pregnancy but also for her whole life! As she listened she said she can't begin to even dream of the other life Vicki talked about. Where would she start? How would she pay for an apartment with no education and no other skills? Her boyfriend cleverly tells her that all the Eastern European men here want to sell her to someone else. So she is jumpy and constantly suspicious of everyone around....and the fear conveniently keeps her locked away from civilization. She didn't even know how to ride on the escalator because she never gets out in the city...she's either working or at home.

Vicki put her in contact with a doctor we know and trust but didn't go with her to the appointment. The doctor couldn't commit to what Michelle had hoped for because she is so far along in her pregnancy.

This is the latest email from Vicki, "We had many long phone conversations today during her breaks in the brothel. She has asked again and again for me to go to the doctor and help and I had to explain to her again how I feel and what I believe. To make the story short, she and her boyfriend want to meet with us and discuss the adoption solution. So please, please pray God will change their hearts and that they will make the right decision. Pray for us as well, for peace, wisdom and guidance from our Lord. We have a meeting on Friday to meet them both and talk things through."

We're on the cusp! Of a miracle for baby #21 or of yet another horrible decision in a life of 1,000,000 tragedies.
Please pray with us today!

blooper reel....

So I was supposed to bring the refreshments for an annual Nea Zoi meeting for Greek supporters. I went to the store to buy all my ingredients. Should be pretty straight forward, yea? Well, I made banana bread out of BISQUICK, tried to put INSTANT coffee through the filter coffee maker, and set out SALT and CONDENSED MILK for them to use in their coffee and tea!! Sheeeesh, I'm making culinary vocabulary flashcards RIGHT NOW! (and I've probably been dismissed from the refreshment committee....)

In other news....spent Saturday at Corinth with some of the kids from the Greek Bible College and their professor who happens to teach Corinthians. He was a great guide (obviously)...it was really fun to be there with someone who can explain the pile of old stones from a Biblical perspective. So much of the old city is still there...the main street, the shop walls, even a public latrine! Here's me strolling on main street...

Here's the college students on the ancient starting blocks. Paul used so many race references in his letters because athletics was a real part of the Greek life.

Paul stayed in Corinth for 18 months and worked as a tent maker in one of these shops. (These are different NW shops than the shops I miss in the Pacific Northwest!)

This is the Bema judgement seat from Acts 18 where Paul was brought before Gallio, the Proconsul, accused of "persuading men to worship God"...

Just a few miles away is Cenchrea, where Paul had his hair cut before jumping on a boat to Ephesus. (Acts 18:18) This is me at the barbershop... (well, maybe...)

And finally, here's a more modern wonder. The Corinth Canal - built in 1881 to connect the Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean Sea.

wreaking havoc....

Athens had a bad day yesterday. As you probably saw on your TV, somehow this favorite Greek pastime....

turned to sheer madness! My roommate and I had been warned by the US Embassy to stay inside and away from the typical protest spots. We didn't know that would be up the block from our house!! We knew it had to be close when we could hear the crowds yelling and the tear gas "bombs" going off right down the street. We had to close our doors when we started coughing and had itchy eyes. Luckily my Dad delivered these handy masks all the way from Idaho just in case... here we are enjoying Greece from the balcony...

and here from inside ....trying to avoid the smoke from the bank & fire truck that were on fire just a couple blocks away....

This media van was totally destroyed....

Before...

After... poor dumpster...

All this expensive destruction because the EU bailout requires reductions in salaries. As wages are low here in comparison with other EU countries, the people are protesting these cuts. But I do feel bad for all "the little guys"...all the shop owners who now have to replace all their windows...

The chaos seems to have settled down today. I still hear some sirens but things have scaled down a bit. We have our late night Outreach tonight at midnight. I'd appreciate your prayers tonight for our safety. And that we could have some good conversations. Lately there have been so many police out that it's been hard to engage. It's nearly comical trying to have a meaningful conversation when they are running away with their shoes flying off! Also, I've been feeling convicted lately about not doing enough with the Nigerian girls. We're out there 2x a wk...they know us...they like our tea. One girl even called the office asking for a Bible this week. But why doesn't more happen??? Is it a cultural thing that we aren't picking up on?? Should we be reaching out to them in a different way? If I call them more during the day each wk, will they respond?? Please pray that the Lord will lend me/us wisdom and that He'll do some miracles in our surfacey relationships! I'm constantly reminded that my ideas and skills are contained in a mere, leaky "earthen vessel" and that any power is of God and not from me (2 Cor 4).

It was so great to have my family here in Athens with me for Easter week! It makes it feel more like home when your people are able to see where you live and work. Along with much fun in the sun, we also toured the brothel area I frequent. They got to see the rows of white lights and we spied on a 60-ish, businessman-looking, customer leaving....that was exciting for the Horsches.

A helpful team from North Carolina was able to sponsor these stickers in 3 different languages. We will be putting them up around the city. The hope is that girls will recognize our red squares logo from other things we've given them and be able to find our number if they need it. Please pray that God will sovereignly use these stickers to help girls and protect Nea Zoi's info from dangerous, wrong eyes!

A couple of us set up a Sunday afternoon walk with Nicki from Nigeria. It's more than typical to be stood up for these daytime meetings. So we staked out the street near her church hoping to minimize the excuses for her not to meet us!! About an hour later, following some women in traditional dress and head-gear, Nicki came down the street to meet us! She said she doesn't get to explore Athens at all because she just sleeps all day and then works all night.

As we walked around the old city and showed her Mars Hill (above) where Paul preached in Acts 17, Nicki opened up about how she ended up in Athens. Her parents have passed away and her trafficker has possession of the papers for the land her father owned. She is working in this job to earn back her family's land to provide for her 6 brothers and sisters. She's afraid to go to the police because she's afraid she'll be blamed for her predicament due to some of the choices she's made.

Please pray for freedom for Nicki! Pray that she can know God's complete grace! And please pray that we can continue relationship with her each week....

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.