Finally Internet!

Hello family & Friends,
We arrived at Porta Astro on Monday, the camp is so beautiful. It is nestled in a mountain side and the only way to access the camp is through a short boat ride. Upon arrival we got situated and settled in, only to find out that the internet has been down and there is not a phone line at the camp. Many of the employees use cellular phones to communicate with the outside world. We wish we could have updated you before now, but the nearest town is around a half an hour away. So it looks like we have a lot to catch you up on. Before I share with you everything that has occurred to this point, thanks Efie for calling Jonathan and looking for an update, we greatly appreciate it.
It has been so long since we posted I am not even sure where to start. In the past five days we have all fallen in love with Greece and the vision and passion of the staff of the camp. We are working alongside people from all over the world in this ministry to bring the gospel to Greek teenagers. There are representatives from Canada, USA, South Africa, Romania, UK, Italy, Netherlands and Albania. The camp we are working at is the largest teen camp in history of Porta Astro. There are 92 teens and about 60 staff working alongside them. Our main role here at camp has been a number of different things. We have been preparing food, doing dishes, cleaning bathrooms, teaching rock climbing, archery, pick axing mountain sides, leveling roads, life guarding, serving meals and providing around the clock care to a young women with cerebral palsy. Along with our physical tasks we have been spending an ample amount of time in intercession and prayer for these teenagers, fifty percent of whom do not have a personal relationship with the Lord. We are trusting the Lord for their salvation and that this camp will be a spiritual marker in their lives. We have great expectation and anticipation to see the Lord work in the lives of our students and are trusting God for a specific word for each of them. God has been working in some neat ways, 3 Greek teens gave their lives to Christ two nights ago and several responded to God last night in our sessions which spoke on the attributes of God. Many of our team have been able to have significant conversation with the Greek teens and staff, which has been a really blessing. We are so grateful that the rest of the world speaks english so that we can communicate with them. Many of the Greek teens know 3 languages and it is not uncommon to find someone who knows more than 5.
We had the opportunity to eat with Jonathan Efie's brother last night who is the executive director of the Camp and Hellenic Ministries. It was powerful for the students to hear about the faith and vision of Efie's Dad who started the camp and mission. He shared story after story of God's faithfulness and provision. He shared about the depravity and spiritual devastation of the Greece, there is great spiritual oppression and darkness here. The evangelical church is very small with very few missionaries. It is unheard of in this country of a 11 million to have a church larger than 300 hundred. Greece has one of the highest abortion rates per capita in the world and sexual perversion is rampant among their young people. However, amongst these struggles and problems there is great hope in the Lord. They are ministering to more people and seeing lives changed by the gospel. One of the things they shared with us was they are in the process of starting a hope center for young women who are pregnant. There is nothing like that here. I could share many stories about what God is doing through this mission, but I think you get the point that God is very tangible here and is doing a great work.
Each student is doing extremely well and we are very proud of them. It is apparent that they love Jesus and their attitudes and work ethic have been a blessing to many.
What to continue to pray about.
Please pray that God would speak to our students as they spend time seeking the Lord.
* Pray for energy because we are all getting a little tired from the heat.
* Pray for Jordan he twisted his knee again and it is really swollen.
* Pray for this gal named Helen that the girls are caring for, she has a great spiritual and physical need. Pray that she would know Jesus' love through our girls.
*Pray for the Greek teens that they would open their lives to the Lord and never go back to their old way of life.
*There is a real spiritual battle taking place in the lives of many of these Greek students, pray that Christ would overcome the enemy and would place his seal on their hearts.



I think that is all for now. We should be posting some video later this week. Look forward to hearing from you. The team is having a blast and we look forward to sharing more about what God is doing.