My Greek Adventure

I recently experienced the thrill of a lifetime as my BFF Cheryl and I flew/bussed/plodded/and climbed our way

across Greece, following in the “Footsteps of Paul” tour of his missionary journeys establishing brand new churches of Jesus Christ throughout Europe as recounted in the book of Acts.

Just. WOW. I learned so much. I walked so much. I ate so much. And I hope for you, my dearest BFF (Blessed Friend Forever), that if you ever get the chance to do so, you’ll jump at it and return as blessed I’ve been.

I’m going to break my Greek adventure up into four weekly posts – mostly because I have so many pictures I want to share – so today is the first. I welcome all comments or questions in the comment section below so have at it, sisters.

We flew into Thessaloniki (yes, you read that right!) – they don’t call it Thessalonica like we’re used to from the Bible, and if you erroneously mispronounce it, they’ll roll their eyes at you. The city today is pronounced “thess-o-lo-nee-kee.” Our local guide made us practice until we got it right.

Oh, and FYI, it’s no coincidence that the end of the city name is “niki” similalr to the modern sportswear giant “Nike.” Both were named after the Greek (mythological) goddess Nike, which means “victorious.”

(I wonder if the meaning of the bottom blue-sign city to your left is “many gyros” – makes me wish we’d gone there!) BTW, in Greece we heard “gyro” prounounced both “Year-o” and “jy-ro” but I think the vendors might have just been humoring the lazy tongue Americans and didn’t want to offend their customers. So I’m still not sure which is officially correct. Got any ideas?

After thoroughly touring the modern city of Thessaloniki (which, like any large American city had its share of graffiti-covered slums), we bussed through the beautiful countryside near small coastal towns surrounded by lovely blue-green water (not only the Agean Sea but numerous enormous lakes flanked by rocky mountains everywhere you look … apparently about 70% of the country is considered mountainous.

Our next destination was to Lydia’s stream, which was just outside of Phillipi, where (as described in the 16th chapter of Acts) Paul and Silas met Lydia, a successful businesswoman (means she had $), a godly woman who gathered with other Christ-seekers regularly for prayer. It was here that “the Lord opened her heart and she accepted all Paul was saying [about Jesus being the Messiah]. She was baptized along with all her household” (TLB) and then took Paul and Silas home for dinner and a short vacay in her home (before they landed in jail).

Our tour group had a wonderful, heart-melting worship service at the very location Lydia became the first Christian convert on European soil, and she and her friends begat the first Christian church. Before it was over, I was truly moved to tears.

One more story snippet before we move along … you must know this would only happen to  me. Back when we first arrived in Greece and were waiting for our luggage to roll by on the airport carosel, I was the only one left of the hundreds of people from our transAtlantic flight still waiting on my suitcase … which never showed up. Yep. Lost luggage. With everything but an extra pair of undies in it (thankfully I had thrown an extra pair in my carry-on at the last minute – a girl can’t be too careful, right?). So the next morning, which was supposed to be “free time to explore the sights,” Cheryl and I combed the hot streets (around 88 degrees F) of Thessaloniki on foot for something … anything … for me to wear besides the crumpled, nasty clothes I’d worn on the plane. I ended up with underwear that didn’t fit (I had a chronic wedgie for the next three days until my luggage finally caught up with us), a blue gauzy Greek shirt that floated around me like a puff cloud (see photo above) and skirt that made me feel like a gypsy on the run.

But – looking for the blessing amidst the yuck – we did discover the incomparable delight of gelato in the shade on an exhaustingly hot day. YUM! More Greek fun coming your way next week!