corfu, greece

we left waco on friday, march 5th, beginning our journey. we flew from the dallas/fort worth airport to amsterdam to athens to corfu, arriving saturday night around 9pm, their time. we were greeted by the pastor and his family and driven to their just-finished youth center for dinner--a wonderful beef stew. after dinner we quickly called it a night, and went to where we'd be staying for the week.


sunday morning we joined the Greek Evangelical Church for worship. the service was in greek, so we were thankful for the translation devices (headphones with a member of the congregation translating in the back). we sang hymns together, both in greek and english at the same time, to the same tune. one student commented that they thought it would be weird at first, but instead that it sounded like something we might hear in heaven--a multitude of languages singing praises to God. since i studied ancient greek at baylor, i attempted to join in singing in greek--a difficult task as the modern pronunciation of the vowels and some consonants has changed : ) but i tried and began to catch on, a little. i enjoyed listening to the greek during the service (my headset wasn't working) there were a few words every now and then that i recognized, but it was beautiful to just listen. a couple of our students (a pianist and Alex playing viola) assisted in some of the hymns and during the offertory. they enjoyed being able to be a part of the service and the church really appreciated their willingness to play.



as we left church, it was raining, so we were given a driving tour of the town, instead of exploring it on foot--which would be left for the next day. we went back to the center, which i have yet to mention that it's above a bakery--smelled and tasted delicious, to have lunch with real greek pastries (pictured to the right). after lunch, we were able to rest, as we were still recovering from jetlag.

sunday night we went back to the church for an evening service. it was a unique service in that it was the women's national day of prayer, so churches/denominations from all over corfu came together at the greek evangelical church. there were people from the greek orthodox church, the anglican church, the catholic church, and a phillippine church. it was a time of coming together to pray for the injustice in the world and to praise God.

by the end, we were ready for a bit more of much needed rest.