So the title has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this blog, but the team is feeling the heat (mentally and physically) from the onset of July. As it gets warmer, so our time here gets shorter. The last month was a strange combination of time caught between a sense of "flying by" and another sense of "remember whens...". We feel as though we have been here forever, yet each week is starting to pass quicker than the one before. With this said, last night was our LAST festival we would throw downtown for the kids.
We have grown to love these kids over the past 4 weeks (especially the last two). Each team member has settled into their niche amongst the crowd of children, and each child has their most favorite team member. And by child, sometimes I mean old men (i.e. Caroline's crew). We have seen Mallory and Rachel in the face painting corner. We have seen Thomas and Chelsea blowing balloon dogs, swords, hats, flowers, you name it. We have seen Emily engaging young children like she gets paid to do it at home (wait?). We have seen Ron being patient and talking to our friend, Hasad, throughout the week (hooray, seed planting!). I have settled into the older kids crowd around the basketball courts, even adopting several nicknames haha.
We have grown to love these kids over the past 4 weeks (especially the last two). Each team member has settled into their niche amongst the crowd of children, and each child has their most favorite team member. And by child, sometimes I mean old men (i.e. Caroline's crew). We have seen Mallory and Rachel in the face painting corner. We have seen Thomas and Chelsea blowing balloon dogs, swords, hats, flowers, you name it. We have seen Emily engaging young children like she gets paid to do it at home (wait?). We have seen Ron being patient and talking to our friend, Hasad, throughout the week (hooray, seed planting!). I have settled into the older kids crowd around the basketball courts, even adopting several nicknames haha.
(Mallory and Maria - Festival 6/24)
(Ron talking with Hassad - 6/24)I have been intensely amused by the way my boys work socially. It truly is a scene from the movie "Hook", and I am Robin Williams. It took me a while for the neverland boys to induct me into their club, but once I was in you could see friendships that were there to the end. You have your leader of the packs, the dominant personalities if you will. All the kids will get around these kids and chant their nicknames (recall the scene for "Rufio, Rufio, RU-FI-OOOO"). However wild these kids are, there is a sense of organization about them. There are no adults supervising usually, there are no referees, but they all just know how their own system works. They pick teams that are extremely fair, knowing the good futbol players and the bad, and are extremely supportive about waiting for the next game before playing. It's almost a sort of Rounds Robbins approach to games, with a title game at the end. The boys sitting around watching will scream cheers and taunts, the sudden death shoot-offs at the end leave you hanging on the edge of your seat, and the team that wins usually does a celebratory dance at the center of the court. It is actually pretty amusing!
My role has been that of throwing the American football (they call it rugby?) around the fringes with whoever is not involved in the futbol games. There was a small sort of cult generated by this, and needless to say my arm was blown several days this week. Every kid marvels at a well-thrown spiral, and want to be taught the correct way. I had a small little following on the fringes, and I was excited to see them excited (if that makes sense?). I also played the role of basketball player (they call me Lebron, Kobe, you name it haha). In Greece, if you are even slightly good at basketball....you are a star. It felt nice being the guy everyone wanted on the team. I even heard extremely flattering words like "You will go home and be extremely successful in the NBA my friend, I will watch for you on tv"....laughing to myself knowing that I wouldn't have even started on my high school basketball team. We had great times though, and I really am going to miss those kids. I have alot of emails and facebooks, so hopefully I can keep in touch with some of those guys.
Finally, today we are heading to Volos (actually in 45 minutes so I must run and pack). Please keep us in your prayers as we do servant ministry up there cleaning up the city. I hear there is a unique coalition between the Evangelical and Orthodox churches in Volos, and excited to see the seeds planted up there already. It is in the mountains by the sea, so I hear it is extremely gorgeous! Thank you for the prayer support thus far, and we are trying to pace ourselves to finish this summer out leaving nothing behind. God bless you guys! Εφηασιτοωε!
In Him,
Austen Weatherly
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