Our Trip to Greece

Things are falling into place nicely and God is blessing mightily and, in many cases, miraculously.

Let me get you caught up on what's happening.

For me, I'm in uncharted waters. I've never, at any point since I started working at 15 years old, had a break this long. At first, In some ways, it was great. In others, it was not so great. I realized, shortly into the break, that I didn't really like being disengaged. There was something about being in town and not being with our family at WBF that was a little frustrating. All that...and the summer loomed ahead looking sooooo looonnnngggg!

Then, our vacation in Florida with the family was wonderful. I realized the purpose of the break was to rest and restore. I immediately shifted into "full vacation" mode and thing shave been fantastic! After we got back from Orlando, I made a few stops by the church (trying not to get in the way or interfere with the excellent job Bob and the staff are doing) and that helped me get my bearings too. I realized I needed some time to slow down and relax and the last few days have been, in spite of all the activity to prepare for the trip, really great as far as relaxation is concerned. Still..we miss everyone!

We heard from our new friend and short term landlord, Julian Genov of Bellevue Apartments (pic right)earlier this week. He may have a car we can use from time to time, saving us the price of a rental. He's been extremely helpful in making our plans. We're looking forward to meeting him and his family.

We had the great and generous blessing of having a small group of people buy our airplane tickets to Rome. Needles to say, this took a lot of the financial pressure off. We leave on Wednesday, June 30 at 5:25 from Dulles, fly to Amsterdam for a short layover and then arrive in Rome early the next day. I've been accumulating American Express Reward points for over 20 years now. We're using some to get a hotel room right in the middle of Rome at the Bettoja Nord Nuova Roma for four days, allowing us to see the sites (Coliseum, Sistine Chapel, etc) before moving on to Keramoti, Greece for the bulk of our stay. We're hoping to do much the same thing at the end of our trip by spending a week or so in Athens and visiting Corinth while we're in that part of the country.

We're both excited. We have been resisting the urge to over-plan and allow God to usher us through the next two months. We so deeply appreciate the prayers of our brothers and sisters at church. Obviously, they have had an amazing impact. We've been praying for all of you as well. Please keep us updated via email and allow us the honor of praying for each of you while we're away.

I've put together an interactive map on Google Maps. I'll be updating it as we travel and sending links out to the group. Here's the latest version. If all you see is blue, zoom out using the + and - boxes near the upper left. You can also see the entire map if you click on "View Greece On A Larger Map" in the lower left or you can simply click here.


View Greece in a larger map