CHURCHES THAT PRAY TOGETHER MIGHT STAY TOGETHER

The most meaningful part of our trip to Greece was Sunday morning. We found the Baptist Church of Athens only a block from our hotel. We walked over just to see if anything was going on. We attend a local Baptist Church in North Carolina. We were lucky and got there just as the main Pastor was showing up. He was Greek and he explained his son-in-law was going to be preaching today who was from Winston-Salem North Carolina. What a coincidence, we being from NC also. We spoke with him, his name was James, at some length. We stayed for their service. Their main mission had evolved to taking in Christians who had been persecuted from Iran, Syria and the Philippines. They gave their service in three languages: Farsi, Greek and English. They presented us with a Greek New Testament which of course we can't read but we will look for someone to give it to that might have need. The place was packed to capacity of about 35 people. It was a very small Church in a very small run-down building. They had been run out of another location. A local Greek Orthodox Church and people who didn't like the immigrants had filled a complaint and they were raided by the police. Some did not have the proper papers. The chips will fall as they may. It was a death sentence to be deported back to their country of origin. Half of the congregation were Filipinos and the rest were comprised of Iranians, Syrians and a few Greeks. It was a humbling experience. This is a very complicated situation. We had been largely opposed to illegal immigration and our daughter-in-law is a legal immigrant in our country. We lover her much. The pastor has to come back and stay 6 months every several years in order to maintain his Social Security through the United States. He will be coming back in May and doing a series of missions around our area. We are going to stay in touch with him and hope we might be able to host him at our Church. It was a perfect way to end our trip. However, it was also a perfect way for us to start a new trip to question our beliefs.