WEEK 21: Our Hype Adventure Day and a Prayer Walk/Insane History Lesson

3rd week ✔️🤪

       We had a HYPE adventure day on Monday. The team walked down 15 minutes to the bay to get gyros, then walked another 10 to the staple of Thessaloniki, the “White Tower.” There’s six levels of history of the tower and Thessaloniki in general, then the top has a beautiful view of the city. On our way over, we actually got to pray for a woman with a hurt leg and asked God for healing. There wasn’t immediate healing that we could tell, but He has good plans for her. After taking a bunch of pictures on the top of the tower, we went over to the bay where there was a pirate ship you could take a ride on for the price of an €8 drink. It was a clearer day, so we were able to see Mount Olympus from the water which was crazy. We were all super hungry by the time the pirate ship ride was over, so we got some pizza and went home. 🙂

 

Gyros by  the  bay

 

                                 The White Tower    

 

 

 

€8 Pirate ship ride

 

 

 

 

       Tuesday we went to the refugee care center. Today there was a party to celebrate the new year, so there were WAY more people than normal. They hired a magician for the kids and had gifts for them, and also provided vasilopita, which is a new year’s traditional bread-type-cake. At some points it was overwhelming with so many people in a small space, but I still really enjoy this part of ministry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       Wednesday, my group of four girls went to the women’s Bible study. Typically four to five women show up, and Antonis’s wife Viki leads it. Afterwards, Lexi and I had a mission from Antonis to get a tripod plate. It took a little while but thankfully the second shop had one more in stock. On our walk, we passed a pretty flower market 🙂

 

       Instead of going to the refugee care center on Thursday, another American who’s here for a while with his family named Justin took our team out on a prayer walk/history of the city tour. This was for sure my favorite part of the week: getting to hear more of the spiritual things that have happened in Thessaloniki and growing more of a heart for the people here. Even though there were things we had seen before, this was the first time we’d actually SEEN them. It was so cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        Friday morning was a prayer meeting like usual, then Ava, Naty, Jaylynn, Emery, and I went out for ATL. We got gyros for lunch, then gelato lol, THEN we split up and talked to a few people. JJ and I talked to a woman named Maria, then a few Muslim university students over Google Translate. Antonis told us that we would be the reason someone would either go to heaven or hell today so that was motivating 🥲. It was really encouraging though because this whole time I have NOT been straight up with the gospel, but this time for both people, we came up and immediately started talking about Jesus. In the evening, Jaylynn and I went out with Antonis’s daughter Peniotha and we went thrifting, then talked at a coffee shop. We came back and watched Hercules with the team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       Sunday I helped with the kids at church, and I talked about the Fruit of the Spirit with them. I hung out with Justin’s kids afterwards which was fun. The oldest boy who’s six is so smart and is actually so fun to talk to.

 

 

      So we cook all of our meals at home, and each of us are assigned a night to cook each week, so we’ve been eating some BUS home-cooked food. 

 

 

 

       Okay this week has been FUNKY spiritually. There’s a lot that I’ve been processing the last couple days, and for the most part I’ve been struggling with my pride. I’m trying to balance succeeding in my role, having a genuine relationship with God, serving people, NOT striving for people’s approval, and WOWOOW there’s actually so much. I was doing my quiet time this morning and I have a feeling God was telling to let go control. The more I thought about it the more I was like dude, I try so hard to control everything in my life and I don’t know what it’s like to fully rely on God one bit. I talked to the girls during ATL at lunch, and during it I was having a whole revelation. My whole life I’ve never really let anyone help me with anything. I wouldn’t ask my parents or best friend for advice and I wouldn’t ask teachers for help in school because I wanted to figure things out by myself/ I just didn’t want help. So how would I be able to let the Almighty God help me if I couldn’t even let some of the most important people in my life help me? That’s what He’s teaching me. That I’m not able to do things all by myself and especially not all at once. I’m a big achiever and recently I’ve been setting standards for how I want to grow, not focusing at all on where God wants me to be. So I’m giving control back to Him. I have no idea what that looks like, so please pray for me for humility and that I will trust Him so deeply.

LOVE YOU GUYS!!