People Always Ask About the Food Team dinner was always a special event. The team of teachers in Suly would share a meal together while Skyping with the SGI team in Nashville. It was not only a time of fellowship, but of relaying news, solving problems and just keeping in touch. I got to be [...]
IHOP Broke My Spirit There’s this thing called reverse culture shock, and man is it a real kick in the head when it hits you. I’m American, born and raised, and had my fair share of intercultural experience. I even have a degree in intercultural studies. Of all people in the world I should be [...]
Dolma or Yaprax A universally known and loved food in our area is dolma (also known as yaprax). It involves a mixture of uncooked rice, minced meat (often lamb), and spices stuffed into a variety of veggies (zucchini, green peppers, onions, eggplant, tomatoes, and more) or grape leaves. Then it is artfully crammed into a [...]
I’m a Chicago Cubs fan. Last week was a good week. I saw that over five million people attended the Cubs World Series victory parade. Someone told me it was the 7th largest gathering of people in world history. I have no idea if that’s true, but that IS a lot of people celebrating the [...]
Elizabeth was part of our team living in Athens for two months this summer. I have been back in America for a week now, and my thoughts are constantly returning to the friends I left in Athens. So many of these moments and relationships are cherished in my heart – many of them in a [...]
As humans we spend a lot of time on food. Our team in Greece is no different as they spend a lot of time on food for themselves and others. We've found a few recipes that our teams have really loved. Here's an easy Orzo Salad for you to add to your repertoire! 1. Start with 1lb of [...]
So often we feel helpless and unable to do anything in the face of so much suffering. But you can and do have a role. Prayer is powerful and effective. Pray for refugees to have patience in the slow process. Pray for protection in the camps that are overfull and under supervised. Pray for the [...]
Sometimes the tragedies of the world hit us like a tsunami and we feel so overwhelmed and completely helpless, drowning in the weight of it all. Even our greatest efforts, our most skillful attempts to keep our heads above water seem deeply, gloriously inadequate. It feels like the last scene of Schindler’s List, where Oskar [...]
Here's a first-hand account from one of our team members one what it's like to serve refugees in Athens. It's been a whirlwind this week. It's hard to reconcile the anxiety and hesitancy I had right before arriving to the joy that seems to course through my soul. It is not a sugar sweet happiness, [...]
The team did a bunch of different things their second day in Athens--shopping, cooking, teaching English lessons. But mostly they walked. Part of the team went out to a couple of squats to play with kids and blew bubbles and hand out stickers. As they were about to leave, one of the members of that squat [...]
