Saturday morning, we had the opportunity to do a little manual labor at a youth camp an hour north of the Bible Institute. The village it was in was Kalamos, and it was a quaint little seaside community. The camp is the same camp we will be working at our last whole week of our stay (end of July), and we will be helping getting it ready every Saturday till the little tikes arrive. We accompanied a local denist who attends First Evangelical named Takis (Tah-kees) who has been volunteering at the camp every Saturday for the past 3 years.
The main problem with relational ministry, for us, is the issue surrounding "fruits of your labor". You primarily plant seeds, interact for moments, and all with the hope that they might just lose some sleep that night thinking about it. It is rare to see things such as last Monday morning, with a full blown start to finish converted soul in a matter of days. This is our hope and desire for every encounter we have, and it becomes easy to be let down when anything less occurs. This being said: it felt better than jumping in a cool pool after mowing the yard in July being able to get our hands on a tangible project.
The girls spent the entire morning cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing toilets and sinks spotless, and other various "girlie" projects (haha). Us men had the privilege of sanding down the amphitheater bleachers and applying a lacquer to stain. Talk about seeing something through to the end! After a momentary souvlaki break, Takis assumed we were tired and hinted for us to pack up and go. Not so fast my friend! We motioned to stay, and I think that took him slightly offguard.
He did not hesitate and put us to work loading all the mattresses onto the bunks. There will be 190 kids at camp the first week, to give you an idea of how many of these bunks there were. The girls did a fanastic job pulling together and using those muscles. It actually became a sort of joyous activity as the end came into sight. I was very excited that the group had such a positive attitude towards something that most people would have complained about, and we knocked those mattresses clear out of the water.
The next day, we saw Takis at church and he insisted that we come over to his house that afternoon for lunch and a swim (a pool is a rare luxury here in Greece!). IT WAS GORGEOUS. His home sat on the top of a mountain overlooking the Aegean Sea, one of the more picture-esque places we have been. He said it was all the Lord's, and even the blessing of digging into a water reserve (this is like striking oil in Greece, as it is extremely dry). It was moving seeing a believer who thanked God in every blessing, even the blades of grass in his yard. We enjoyed an incredible meal and great fellowship with Takis and a few other members of the church, and he said we will be welcome back any time and thanked us continually for our hard work. We are extremely thankful for him as well.
Our new word: "skoulimigomeretripa" (a worm & ant hole).
In Him,
Austen Weatherly
