A Pretty Decent Locale

We had a week-long conference in Greece during the last week of Ramadan, so I don’t have any amazing stories about the end of Ramadan because we were out of the country. 

It was a nice blessing to actually be able to get out of the country, since the airport had been closed from the end of September to March.

We left on June 10^th at 2:55am after Kylie finished her online school for the year a few hours earlier on June 9^th at around 10pm.  That’s called “cutting it close.”

The conference was refreshing, and we had opportunities to meet some more people who work in our region of the world.  The kids had a great time, too, and since it was such a small gathering, 6^th-12^th graders were all together, so my older three were in one class together.

Check out the size of the feta in this Greek salad!  

 And, of course, we had a serving or two of pork.

On our way to the conference, the bus stopped for a bathroom break at a souvenir shop in Corinth.

We took this picture of the man-made canal there that cuts through the narrow isthmus of Corinth.  The canal is 4 miles in length, but it's very narrow, so most modern ships can't pass through.

It took 12 years to dig and was finished in 1893.  That is a lot of rock cutting done without modern-day tools!

Our first night at the conference, the kids wanted to rush down to the water, so I thought I'd get a picture of Keira's first time to ever touch the ocean.

But within 30 mintues, like all kids, she ended up preferring the sand to the water.

While Kylie and Caleb preferred seeing who could knock each other off the floatie first.

Keira loves the water, however, she has always been a little timid of getting her face wet and trying the pool without floaties.  But she wants you to know that she went swimming with her class at the conference, and when she saw that other kids could swim, she decided she could, too.

Off came the floaties, and down she went.  She taught herself to swim and go underwater in a few hours time.

One day, our schedule allowed us a free afternoon to see some of the local sites.  Many people took a boat or a ferry to neighboring islands, and we did as well.  It was quite beautiful, and it refreshed all of us.

The conference was a few hours north of Athens, and it was nice to be out of a city atmosphere.

The weather was beautiful, and my only complaint was that the week was too short.  It was such a blessing to be with other people who work in our area of the world, share stories and gain encouragement from each other, and the meeting place was in a pretty decent locale, too.

Oven and Pork (Shhh!)

My oven stopped working on February 23rd, and after a week at the shop, we called and found out they were waiting for a part from a neighboring country.

Not good.


Even though two people offered me extra ovens they keep on their porches, I kept thinking, "Surely it will be here any day now."

But no.

For the second half of the week that the stove/oven was in the shop, a friend let us borrow this propane stove to at least heat up food and water.

It was a life-saver.

The drama continued the whole month of March.  

We would get excited about making cookies for an event.  We'd make the batter, and right as we were getting ready to preheat the oven...we'd remember and have to go to a neighbors.

We had leftover pizza to heat up...we'd remember and have to re-heat it in a pan.

I bought 85 tomatoes, 10, onions, 35 peppers, and several cloves of garlic to make salsa.  I cleaned, cut, and blended veggies for about an hour, and when I started thinking about the sealing process in the oven...I remembered.

It took 12 trips, back and forth to my neighbors to get all my jars sealed.

So, when it was time to can pickles, I just asked my teammate across town if I could bring all my stuff to her house and work there for an afternoon.

Then, Doug took a translator with him to the shop last week to get his point across as strong as he could.  Interestingly enough, they said they would have the part the next day, and he could bring it in then. 

Doug's theory (which is probably correct) is that without a computer system (or any kind of system), a part comes in and they have no record or memory of who needed that part, so it just sits there.

The next morning, we got a phone call during language asking why we hadn't brought our oven in early.  Now, we would have to wait because others were in front of us.  

Through our language helper, Doug communicated that we had been "in line" for a month.  They quickly recanted, and then they asked if the oven was in warranty.  Doug communicated that the oven was in warranty when we brought it in in February, but now it was not. 

When Doug went to pick it up on Thursday, April 5th, after one night in the shop, we were not asked to pay a dime (if they had those in this country).

By the way, have I ever told you there are no coins here.

No pork either.

That's why Kylie's and Karis' dance teacher made our day when she told us she had "connections" and could get us pork.

She pulled up to the curb outside our house and opened her trunk.  In an ice chest in the back, we saw treasures of bacon, ham, and pork loin.

I bought a lot of it; however, I must admit it felt a little like a drug deal going down (not that I really know how that feels), but you know....

And now that I have an oven, we can finally try the pork loin (because we've definitely already tried the bacon and ham)!  The bacon is not as good as the stuff Doug's dad makes for us when we visit, but I'll take it over "nothing" anyday.

Worth every penny (or dime)!