Europe - Northern Ireland

Our final stop in Europe was a very short, 2-night Northern Ireland.

We have friends there that have been very involved in missions for the past 35 years, and when our friends read in one of our newsletters that our flight out of Europe was from Dublin, they offered to find housing for us to stay if we'd make the bus trip up from Dublin to their home in Belfast.

Due to a crazy development of circumstances in their life at the last minute, they realized that housing us in their home wasn't going to be ideal, but they have connections with a guesthouse along the coast outside of Belfast and they thought we might appreciate 2 days of R&R and not needing to be guests in someone's house.

Our little guesthouse flat was a bungalow off a larger home where another family was staying when we arrived. It had a backyard, overlooking a wheat field, and there was a little creek that ran along the back boarder of the yard. We were five minutes walk from the harbor of the little village, and 2 miles from a larger town with things Iike large grocery stores and photo developing shops so we could accomplish the last bit of our to-do list for Megan and Andrew before we left Europe.

Ireland is SO green! And that felt peaceful and soothing for our Pacific Northwest eyes! It was such a restful few days.

We slept one morning without setting our alarm clocks, and walked along the water front trails in the little fishing village. We joined the locals in the nearby pub for a pint and the Northern Ireland soccer match against Germany in the Euro Cup (they thought maybe we were Germans because we weren't part of the local crowd - we assured them that we were happy to cheer for Northern Ireland!). We made some interesting lentil and barley soup that we kept trying to improve the flavor of as we ate it for each meal, and we spent several hours one morning spending time reading our Bibles and seeking the Lord's leading on some questions that had come up during our time in Paris.

Our friend came and picked us up to take us to our bus back to Dublin and we had a nice coffee time with him as we caught him up on our travels and recapping some of the things we've learned over this trip so far.

It was a lovely conclusion to this travel-intensive stage in Europe, and we feel like, as we're leaving Europe, we have some clarity about at least a few things we've out before the Lord or that we've realized in hindsight as we process our experiences on this trip.

Now we're headed to the Solomon Islands, which is our last visiting-stop before we head to New Zealand for our DTS next month. We're excited to spend time with our family in the Solomons and be available to work on some projects with them and be a blessing to the Wycliffe base there.


- Dani

Europe - Paris

After a week in Marseille, we caught the train North to Paris. We had seats on the upper level of the very fast moving train, and we both enjoyed getting to see the French countryside pass by - from the Mediterranean, rocky, kind of scrubby vegetation around Marseille up through the Loire valley past farms and fields of brilliantly purple lavender and orchards to the green trees and grass as we got closer to Paris.

Our first task in Paris was lunch with our friend Alexis. Alexis had been part of our Bible Study group in Chiang Mai over last summer. He's from Normandy area and is now living and working north of Paris. We walked about 4 miles with our backpacks to get to the Alice-in-Wonderland themed cafe that he'd appointed as our meeting point. We had some delicious food and tea there with him before catching the metro to where Edouard, Gabe's friend from YWAM, and Ellie lived.

It had started to rain, which is what it did for most of the weekend, but Edouard came with his car and fetched us from the metro stop. It was a delight to meet Ellie and we both felt very at-home from the second we walked in the door.

Edouard and Ellie had hoped to get the keys to their new at we arrived, with the plan that we'd help them with moving over the weekend, but unfortunately, the apartment wasn't finished being cleaned. So instead, we were able to help them with some get-ready-to-move stuff - removing make-shift insulation from their toddler's room and then scrubbing the adhesive off the walls. Ellie and I went shopping, also, and got ingredients for making several dishes to freeze for when their little girl is born sometime in the next week or two.

Our weekend was busy with accomplishing the to-do lists and sneaking in some food adventures - a meal at a creperia absolutely bursting-with-flavor fruit ice cream, along with church on Sunday night and some watching of the Euro Cup football matches.

On Monday Edouard had to work and Ellie had some other things planned, so that was the day we headed out to see the sights of Paris, the rain mostly held off for the first few hours, but we got drenched in the afternoon. However, we still got to walk past the Louvre, walk around the base of the Eiffel Tower, walk around Notre Dame, see the Arch de Triumph and wander the old streets of Paris and admire the elegant iron work. We also stopped at a restaurant and splurged on escargot, French onion soup, and creme brûlée. And we found some macarons that were simply divine (olive oil with vanilla was my favorite!).

Our conversations with Edouard and Ellie were the best part of our time there, though. They, also, are pursuing heading to the mission field in the near future (Africa for them), and it is always so encouraging and inspiring to see other people trying to live out their faith - sometimes even struggling with things we've struggled with or conquering things we're still struggling with - and Gabe and I both felt that there were some things brought up in our conversations that we were challenged to seek the Lord about and pray about together regarding our future.

We are truly thankful to have friends like Edouard and Ellie, and we felt like our time with them was such a sweet blessing!


- Dani

Europe - Marseille, France

After Greece, we caught a flight to Marseille, France.

Those of you reading this that have been keeping up with our life over the past few years know that we had a teenager from France, Abigael, live with us for about 8 months just before we left for Thailand.

Abigael is the younger sister of Gabe's friend Edouard. They met when they were in Panama together on DTS in 2007.

Abigael's parents live in Marseille. Her father trained to be a pastor and has helped pastor the local church there for about 23 years. Her mom works to help cultures learn to understand each other and also as a mediator.

Abigael is interested in law and mediation, so she's one year into a very intensive 2-year program to prepare her for getting into one of France's to law programs.

We arrived just before the end of her term, so it wasn't ideal timing for her to have guests, but Abigael and her parents were great about giving us time when they could and letting us come and go when they needed to be doing their normal life.

Abigael lives in this awesome, ramshackle apartment in the middle of Marseille. We loved the apartment - it's got these awesome tucked away rooms, twisting hallways, clever little quirky storage spots, and extremely comfortable furniture. Like our apartment that Abigael came to live in, it hails from a different (and antique) era, but it is charming. And I personally loved the books! Abigael's parents have such a wonderful book collection for a book-lover like myself. I read a book on organization tactics while I was there, and I learned several really clever things!

While we were there we were able to do some walking/easy hiking around Marseille, drive out into the countryside and see birds and villages. We went and got some really fun flavors of ice cream one day (olive oil, lavender-honey, thyme, rosemary-honey, etc... So delicious!), and we ate such wonderful, in-season produce: eggplant, apricots, tomatoes, nectarines, peaches, melon, etc. Abigael and her moth had planned a list of foods for us and every meal was a French-family experience!

On our own, we also walked to some of the sights to see in Marseille - which was actually a port for the Greeks 3,000-ish years ago! We went to the church on top of a rock outcropping with fabulous views of the city, we walked through the old town, and popped into shops and wandered through markets and practiced our little bit of French one day, and each night we'd come home to conversations about cultural values, faith, missions, and family.

It was such a blessing to be with Abigael and her parents for a week. We are so proud of how our visiting teenager has continued to grow and seek the Lord's guidance and see Him at work in her life. It was hard to say goodbye, because we never seem to know when we'll see these wonderful people we spend time with again, but it's special to know that when we do meet again, we'll have all kinds of new things to share and new ways to marvel at God's goodness it us!


- Dani

Europe - Molyvos and Starfish

We're currently on our flight to the South Pacific, so it seems appropriate that I should try to catch up on the last month or so of our life and our travels throughout Europe. I'll start with this post about our time working with Starfish for a month on the island of Lesvos in Greece.

We jumped right into volunteer life the days father we arrived with orientation and getting our legal paperwork settled with the local authorities.

Starfish is a non-profit that was established by locals on the Northern Coast of Lesvos last year. However, the people who initially established the organization (locals living in and around the village of Molyvos on Lesvos) have been doing the work of Starfish for a while longer than just the past year.

When refugees came from Turkey and landed along the North Coast (at beaches or struggling up rocky coasts from coves), they often made their way to Molyvos or nearby. Initially, the locals would provide a meal - for Starfish, that was out of a local restaurant - and maybe some dry clothes before the refugees started their journey by foot to the south east part of the island where they had to register with the local authorities and they would then journey onward in Greece or Europe.

The arrivals were manageable - maybe one or two boats a week sometimes, or maybe weeks of nothing. But things began to pick up last year. More and more boats started to arrive, and the locals of the North Coast realized that they wanted to get organized to better be able to extend a welcome to Greece.

You see, Lesvos has been a refugee point for a long time. Situated ao lay about 6 miles from mainland Turkey, over the past 3,000 years, many people have arrived on Lesvos when they were seeking a new life. Some of the people who live on Lesvos have parents or grandparents or great grandparents who were refugees from Turkey to Lesvos in their time.

As more people came, people who were visiting Lesvos on holiday would help out if needed in the efforts to feed and clothe the arrivals, and what was happening on Lesvos began to get out in the media and news, tourist-volunteers began to show up wanting to help do the things the locals of Molyvos were doing already: helping direct boats landing on the coastline, helping people off the boats, handing out clothes, meals, tea, and other provisions.

Over last year, these events just picked up an incredible amount of momentum - during the midst of this, Starfish became an official NGO so it could receive funding to help provide for the needs of people - cars to transport goods, storage facilities to get clothing donations organized, counter space to put together simple cheese sandwiches and fruit. And the volunteers - they were coming in larger and larger numbers, sometimes to the point that Starfish would be running orientation meetings for 20 or 30 people and the would be up to 80 or even more people on shift at a time (Starfish organized the volunteers into shifts to provide around-the-clock coverage of needs). A camp was erected in a parking lot of a night club, buses were arranged to transport arrivals to the registration center - upward of 6,000 refugees were arriving sometimes per day.

Sometimes people died - of exposure to the elements, in the water, or from being crushed by their fellow passengers on the boat. Dead bodies washed up on shore. For different time periods, people were camping in the streets of this picturesque little village because they had no where to go (before the camp that Starfish built and maintained went into operation last fall).

The sheer mass of people coming to, working in, and passing through the small fishing village of Molyvos is almost impossible for me to wrap my mind around as I heard about these events of last year.

When we arrived on May 10th, the scene that greeted us was not this chaotic - refugee arrivals had slowed down considerably since the EU-Turkey deal. Starfish had transitioned to a role of providing supplies to camps on mainland Greece and helping at a camp for underage immigrant boys that had recently be established before we arrived.

Our day-to-day tasks involved working in the store facilities sorting clothes (by winter or summer use, size, gender, etc), or working in the clothing distribution center for the locals keeping everything tidy and organized, or teaching English at the camp, or working with the Starfish Administration staff to update the website and social media accounts.

We were on 8 hour shifts six days per week, and that allowed us time to build relationships with some of the local support staff, our fellow volunteers, as well as the boys at the camp.

We had arrived in Lesvos not sure of what we would be doing and essentially trusting that since we believed God had laid on our hearts to go to Lesvos, he was in control of the circumstances and he would allow us to be used in some way.

Our month there was perhaps the most ministry-oriented single month we've experienced so far since leaving the US! Starfish is not religiously affiliated, but we found that our fellow volunteers (hailing from the US, the U.K., and a few other European countries), as they got to know us and we shared openly about our faith as God provided opportunity, asked us questions and were very keen to listen to our answers. We, in turn, realized just how encouraging we could be by doing everything we could to just show love and acceptance in the name of Jesus.

It was also good for us to engage in some of the conversations we had - it is challenging and exciting to listen to other perspectives on truth and absolutes and moral right and wrong and be able to articulate where your perspective on these subjects align with someone else, as well as clearly explaining where our views differ - and most importantly, WHY they differ.

I had a conversation one day with one of the volunteers about communication styles and the use of apologies, and how (as he advocated) when there has been a break in a relationship, it is always good to ask someone the motive of why they did whatever action they did that hurt you (I agree!). He claimed he felt that apologizing was actually a waste of time because nobody wants to intentionally hurt other people, and when you ask someone to apologize for something, it's because you the they were wrong, but maybe they don't think they were wrong after all, so it's pointless. The better way, in his mind, was to seek motive so you could better understand.

I agreed with him about some of it - seeking motive and understanding is really helpful for a relationship to be restored, however, I explained that I differed from his perspective because I did believe in an absolute right and wrong that were established by someone outside of myself - namely, God's outline of wright and wrong provided for me to follow in the Bible. I explained that because I claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, I must do as he says and interpret my actions as right or wrong based on his definition provided in the Bible. So, for example, Jesus says to love your fellow Christians and to love your enemies - to love like he loves - and in 1 Corinthians 13 is tells us what that love looks like. Therefore, if I do something selfish or impatient or unkind, I have NOT acted in accord with Jesus's outline of right actions, and therefore I do need to apologize and admit that I was wrong and ask forgiveness.

Anyhow, that's just one example. We were also asked why we had so much peace and calm, and we were asked about our marriage and why we got along so well and how being married differed from dating for us, and also if we felt like our Christian Faith actually impacted our day-to-day life and choices. In responding to EACH of these questions, we felt God's presence giving us words and examples and sensitivity to how we responded to them as we tried to share our faith clearly and explain why our relationship with the Lord is the source of all that is good and beautiful in our lives.

All that to say, we really enjoyed our time on Lesvos. It was unlike anything else we've experienced as a couple in terms of the spiritual and physical setting, as well as the work, and we were so excited to witness how God used us to do things that were pretty vastly different than we'd originally thought we'd be doing but still so worth doing: serving and loving on the volunteers and the local staff.

We were so honored to be able to go and work on Lesvos!


- Dani

Europe - Athens and Getting to Lesvos

We'll soon be leaving Lesvos, but before we do, I thought I should record our "getting here" adventures.

We finished our time in Rome with a lovely dinner with Jason and Laura, packed up the rest of our stuff, and Jason graciously took us to the Ciampino airport. Our flight out was for 6AM, so we settled in (with about 100 other people) to spend the hours between 10pm and our departure getting a little sleep/watching a few movies/reading a book.

In hindsight, it was a very appropriate experience for us to have en route to coming to Lesvos with the goal of working with refugees - not that one night is ANYTHING like the rigors of the road and their journey, but being sleep-deprived and cold on the tile floors was a good reminder of how challenging such a simple thing as finding a comfortable place to rest at night can be for immigrants.

Our flight was uneventful, and we landed in Athens bleary eyed but ready to see what we could of the city during our day there. After using the airports free internet to take screen shots of maps and bus information, we caught a bus and landed in a large square of town, somewhat near the Acropolis according to our map.me app.

I was fading rapidly, so we spotted a cafe and made a beeline to get some food (technically, I think it was lunch, but it was our first meal of the day) and NOT have to navigate for a few minutes.

After being restored by chickpea salad (for me) and gyros (for Gabe), we found the travel agency we'd noted from our internet searching who could store our backpacks for us. He tossed the bags under his desk before he returned to smoking his cigarette while walking on his treadmill, and we headed out with plans to find the Acropolis!

We found it after some fun wandering, but were deterred from going up into the sight by the €26 per person entry ticket - we opted to walk around the base of the hill and see if there were any good vantage points. Sleep was crowding in, though, so we napped like bums on a marble bench along a walking path - a man with an accordion a little ways down provided a wonderful musical atmosphere!

After an hour or so of sleep, we woke up to take a group photo for a big group of tourists wearing hajabs, and we continued on our search.

We did find a nice little outcropping of rock to climb and get a better (albeit far-off) view of the Acropolis, snapped some photos, and went in search of "something tasty and refreshing," according to Gabe (after w brief stop in the Acropolis museum's foyer so we could use their toilets).

We found our afternoon refreshment in the form of a juice-bar shop, where the main feature for sale was fresh squeezed juices. We took the juicers recommendations and purchased two fabulous, flavor-bursting, nurturing-feeling jars of juice to drink sitting in their zen-like shop.

With not much energy and not much money left, off we went to collect our bags and catch our bus out to the port.

When we got to the port, we were dropped off a good mile or so from where we needed to be, so we had a hike (thank goodness for that juice fuel!), but that wasn't as discouraging as arriving at the ferry line office to pick up our prepaid tickets only to find out the ferries were on strike and our overnight ferry (and thus our housing for the night) were not in fact going to be sailing. She transferred our booking to the morning's 7AM ferry, and we walked outside to sit on the curb to laugh incredulously about it.

Spotting a few hotel signs, we decided to pray: "Lord, we have a €50 bill on us. Please let the hotel be no more than that - I don't think I can do another night of sleeping on the floor somewhere. And please, let us be able to see the room before we take it so we can make sure it's not frighteningly disgusting!"

We walked into the sketchiest hotel lobby I think I've ever been in (well, maybe it about matches the creepy $4 hostel room I stayed in in Cairo, but still - not pretty!), and we asked the man at the desk if there was an availability. He said, "I have one room. It is €50. I call my daughter to clean it, then you can look and see if it is OK, OK?" I was too tired to jump over the desk and hug him, so I just said "OK" and we sat down I the lobby for 20 minutes while our room was cleaned.

Fortunately, as I'd whispered to Gabe while we were waiting, the hotel got a little nicer after you went upstairs, and when we saw our room, it was perfectly adequate.

The next morning's ferry departed on time - and we we on it - and about 15 minutes out of the port, we sat down in the nearly-empty economy class airplane-style seats and fell asleep. I think we slept about 8 of the 11 hours on the ferry.

When we landed in Mytilene, we knew we were too late to catch the last bus to Molyvos for the day, so first we tried to rent a scooter, figuring we'd just load our bags on it (we've been living in Thailand and Burma - this is normal for us now!) and drive the 35 miles over the island to get to our rented studio before the sun set. The rental agent wouldn't let us rent a scooter, though, if we were planning to take our bags, and insisted that we put the bags on the bus in the morning and then drive the scooter.

We opted for a taxi, arrived very late at our housing, found the key the kind landlord had left for us, and let ourselves in - very much grateful to be in this beautiful place and see what God had in store for us.


- Dani

Europe - Lesvos: initial thoughts

I realize this blog post isn't exactly a first-impression post (nor, in fact, maybe "initial"), but at the moment, it feels like the best I can do. Two weeks in to our stay here, this is about as far as I've been able to process. [Note: it has now been 4 weeks since we got here - sorry for the delay, I was waiting for approval to post this entry from the NGOs media personnel]

- Our little town, Molyvos, smells very pleasant. Pine, thyme, sun-dried grass, hints of lavender, sea-water, roses, olive trees, and some kind of flower bush that looks like rhododendrons but isn't are the scents that swirl around on the breeze. In fact, I'd say it's the most consistently pleasant smelling place we've been since we left the evergreen forests of Washington. Chiang Mai smelled like exhaust fumes, Burma smelled like forest fires, Venice smelled like sea water - not stinky and unpleasant, just sea water - Rome smelled like dog turds, and Athens smelled like urine. Lesvos smells wonderful.

- The craft of cobblestone laying is still alive and well here. And my stabilizer muscles in my feet and ankles have developed their strength.

- It's still hard to wrap my head around the refugee situation. For some reason, I thought being here would help me get a better idea of what this journey is really like for people.

Here's what I've figured out:

Turkey is literally visible from this town. On a walk this evening at sunset, we could see half a dozen little clusters of light across the water from Lesvos which are little villages and communities in Turkey.

It costs these refugees €1200 paid to smugglers to travel by leaky, overcrowded boat the 6 miles of water to get here, according to one report I heard from a local volunteer. By comparison, I can purchase a ticket on a ferry back to Athens (11 hours away and on the other side of Agean) for €10.

The teenage boys I've met (working at camp where unaccompanied children are living after recently being removed from a detention center here on the island) are just like many teenage boys I've encountered - playing card games, hanging out with friends, video chatting or calling their family back in their home countries, trying to learn about something they're interested in, sleeping in late, and talking passionately about food are all daily occurrences.

The refugees literally are given the clothes on their back, the beds they sleep on, the blankets they sleep in, the shoes they wear, and the bags they carry their stuff in. When they come off the boats wet and cold, sometimes they are taken straight to the island's detention center, or (if they're lucky) they are given a change of clothes, their old clothes go into a recycle or throw-away bin, and they walk out of the changing tent at the camp in a stranger's hand-me-down clothes. They are housed in a camp sleeping in cots with wool blankets (when available - some refugees are not provided with even an "official" place to sleep) and they are eligible to go get more/new clothes if they trade in old clothes as needed.

The living situation for these boys (at least at this one camp whe we've been) is both better and worse than I imagined - the tents are large, bright, and clean. The toilets are pit squatties, but they don't stink too bad. They have access to wifi and a tv to watch movies and books and games. They are free to come and go from the camp, but some shop keepers in the town won't serve them. And they wash themselves and their clothes out of a facet outside - no private showers here.

Here's what I don't know:

How did these unaccompanied minors get enough money to take that boat ride? To survive all the way from their home me countries?
What must they have endured to get here?
What will they still have to endure?
What must their mothers and fathers feel - what was it like to send your teenage (or younger!) son to make this perilous, dangerous journey with the realization that you might realistically never seem them again?
What do they think of this new culture they find themselves in - a culture that is a temporary hodge-podge of migrants from the East and volunteers primarily from the West?
What do they hope their futures will look like?
Do they ever feel like they can let their guard down and be at peace?
What do the sibling pairs talk about when it's just the two of them?
What where they thinking on that boat crossing from Turkey to Greece?

For today, sometimes sitting down to play cards or drawing my family tree and teaching the English words for all the different family relationships in English class at the camp seem like about all I can do.

I only hope that the laughs with the boys, the friendly coaching they gave me on which cards to play, and the arm of a teenager slung over my shoulder as I walked toward the reception area to check out and say my goodbyes indicate that those actions somehow communicate what I wish I could say clearly: "I don't know what to do to make this a better experience for you - to make this life better for you - and I feel so inadequately capable of doing anything! But I want you to know that you are important to me, you are loved by me, and I'm trying to understand what this journey has been like for you so you don't have to feel alone."


- Dani