Acts 19:22, Romans 16:23, 2 Timothy 4:20. There's a guy named Erastus in there. He was the treasurer for Corinth. Pretty big deal. Yesterday we walked down an old beaten path in ancient Corinth and saw an inscription with his name on it. The inscription says (basically), "Erastus, the dude in charge of money around here" OR "Erastus, the dude who gaveea lot or money" or both. Anyway, probably the same dude in the Bible. Afterwards we hiked up a nearby mountain that was the site of one of the old temples.  Then back to Athens and back to Center...

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  Well not really. It's still there of course.  But the thinkers and debaters have relocated to Exratia, the neighborhood where Alex and Tim live and labor for the Gospel.  We went there yesterday- tons of bookstores and printing shops. A lot of people want to see a lot of things change- new ideas, new government policies (or no government at all).  We believe the gospel transforms and changes things so that's where the Church goes as well.After a little shopping and some great gyros for lunch, we headed to Mars Hill and picked up trash. One guy walked by...

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 The church here has an outreach ministry to neighborhood kids called Center 68. It's a little office type corner building. 68 is the street number. They have all sorts of games and educational things plus a game room in the the basement.  We spent several hours yesterday cleaning and organizing it. We had three teams- Admin, in charge of organizing the program that we will do today and thursday- Art/creative team, who painted the tables with games like backgammon  and several others- and the Maintenance team who cleaned the whole building inside and out, washing windows, mopping, etc. Alex told...

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  This morning Pastor Giotis preached from Isaiah 41 when God tells his people to "Fear not, for I am with you (v.10)." He said there are two lies that often believe to cope with the fallen things of this world- self confidence and naïveté. But God tells us to fear not, not by believing more in ourselves nor by ignoring the reality of hard things, but by believing in his presence with us.  We serve a God who has pledged himself to us and is with us.  The reality of his presence ameliorates the reality of fallen ness-gives it...

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 Worship is the coolest part of the week.  We have the privilege of hearing our God speak to us through His word, reminding us that his take on things  is the real take, causing us to question and questions again our natural understanding of what is going on around us.  Worship is also cool because we there's a bunch of us experiencing this at the same time. Last night we brought in the new year with our brothers and sisters at First Evangelical Athens Greece. We ate together, then worshipped together at about 11 p.m.  We were asked to sing a...

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