Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Friday was supposed to be a half day for the workers, however, half of our crew were asked to volunteer to do childcare for the evening service. This was accompanied by the usual challenges of giving childcare to a group of children ages 4 and under... many of whom were from timezones up to 8 hours different, and many of whom had never been away from their parents for any length of time. It made the evening a little rough :)

Saturday was a full day. Because the resort wasn't really set up as a "conference center" with child care, the group has had to be creative in their locations for classes. One class is meeting in a breezeway, another in a newly painted storage room, and yet another outside under a tree. The baby nursery is two adjoining bedrooms. The furniture was removed, and on one side there are blankets spread on the floor as a "play area." The other room is a sleeping room, and has wall to wall mattresses on the floor for sleeping babies. Once again, I have some great pictures, but with the issues that I am currently having, I am writing these updates in a notepad, and will be copy/pasting and posting them when I can get proper access. Pictures may have to wait until we are back in the city.

Saturday evening after supper, our group took a taxi to town, and rode a ferry over to the island of Orobos (I'm uncertain of the spelling, but that's what it sounds like.) We walked around, looked at a few shops, got some icecream, and then some of us hit the sack, while the rest started a table tennis tournament.

Sunday morning found us eating another delicious breakfast on the veranda overlooking the Adriatic Sea, sharing a quick reading and chat with Father as a team before catching the buses back for another full day of childcare.

On a funny note, on Friday evening, some of the board members and their wives actually came up and helped with the baby nursery, as not all of the workers came back up (it was on a volunteer basis) and we had a room full of crying babies.

Several shepherds were rocking, bouncing, or walking screaming young'uns. The general consensus among them was that when they return to the States, they will be speaking for a much shorter time out of respect for the nursery workers :) One of them also reminded us of the sacrifice on BOTH sides of the ocean for the sake of Father. He was bouncing a beautiful, blue eyed, inconsolable puddle of tears on his knee and said... "I'll bet that there is a grandpa back in the States who is just aching to hold you." He is so right!

I have heard funny, sweet, and great stories from the rest of the group and the classes that they teach. I SO wish that I had more time to write down the things that I have heard. Honestly, we pretty much go non-stop from breakfast @ 7am until late evening. Buses run us back to our respective hotels after dinner. The buses run 8:15, 9, 10, 11. Whenever we make it back to our hotel we spend time in study/planning for the next day, or just decompressing a bit, before setting out our stuff for the next day, climbing in bed, and getting a little rest before starting over.

This evening is laundry night. We are working hard, and it's hot. We come back to the hotel hot, sticky, and often wearing somebody's snack, tears and other things that I won't mention :) We were given t-shirts at the beginning of the week that we were to wear the first and last day of the conference. This evening, my room is going to be a laundry room, and we will be washing our t-shirts by hand and hanging them out to dry overnight for our final day of childcare. It is hard to believe that our time of service is so close to over, but we are also really looking forward to our time of sight seeing before reentry to the US and our busy lives at home.

Once again, ephedisto (thank you) for your thoughts and for talking to Father about this trip.

Until next posting, Kalinichte (goodnight) or... Kalimera (good morning) (Of course, I do not know the proper spelling, but once again, this is how they sound. I'm making an effort to learn a few words of Greek while here.)