Thursday morning, October 14, a group of 8 musicians from our church (and one local college student) headed off to Greece to help lead worship for a group of ABWE missionaries from Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Region. (Can you see the teary-eyes from the mothers in the group who just said good-bye to their kiddos??!)
The next day we found ourselves in Greece overlooking the Aegean Sea - absolutely gorgeous!
The missionaries, serving in countries such as Romania, Hungary, Slovokia, Ukraine, Israel, Poland, etc, gather every 2 years for a week of encouragement and edification. We had the amazing privilege of helping to lead them in worship throughout the week. Words cannot describe what it was like to listen to these servants of God sing - many of whom have not sung corporately in their native language in quite some time. 
One of the afternoons we were able to take a few hours to tour the city of Thessaloniki.
We sure enjoyed the times of fellowship with our teammates - often centered around some really good food!
And, yes, I really did eat the squid. . . including the tentacle things!
We became big fans of Nutella. We were SO excited about licking this plate clean. . .until the waiter came and took away our plate before we could accomplish our task!
The highlight of the week was interacting with so many different missionary families - each of whom have a unique story of how God brought them from the point of salvation to their present place of ministry. Here our team is with the Postema family - serving in Romania and supported by our local church.
What a joy it was for me to sit around a small table with 2 of my former nursing classmates from Cedarville and one of my nursing professors (serving in Togo) - 13 years after graduation!
Harry and Jan Gebert have been friends of my family for many years. It was a special highlight for me to reconnect with them and to hear of God's tangible goodness in their lives this past year as she recovered from a severe illness.
Scott and Lisa Carter live in the Ukraine - We enjoyed eating lunch with them and hearing of their expanded ministry in Eastern Europe.
Ken and Jinner Rudolph share a love for youth - We appreciate their enthusiasm for reaching the youth in Europe.
We continue to process all we witnessed and took part in. . . We are often speechless to put it all into words. . . "but to YOUR name be the glory. . . "
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