Pickerings Progress: GREECE Missions Conference Report!

In case we haven't been able to tell you already, we had a WONDERFUL time in Greece. It was such a great blessing to be able to serve our missionaries in a way that was truly helpful and refreshing for them. We were really the beneficiaries though, because it was such a joy and privilege to get to know their precious kids. We fell in love with all of them!! I'll let the pictures tell the story...

We flew through London on our way to Greece, and wouldn't you know it - we ran into the queen! She was surprisingly in Heathrow at the same time we were, just standing out in front of one of those tourist shops ... (heehee)

So we arrived in Greece late at night, and went straight to sleep, exhausted (after chasing a gecko out of the room). The strange thing about jet-lag though... no matter how tired you are, your body still thinks that it's a great idea to wake up at 3 am. Hmmm.

But we loved our accommodation, it was a great resort that had ample space for our huge conference group, as well as many other guests at the same time.

We had our own little front porch (which, incidentally, is one of "my favourite things"), and on the first morning I really enjoyed it. These first few photos are of the days BC (before children), familiarizing ourselves with the complex... ie: the calm before the storm :)

We met Stephanie on our way to breakfast...

...and enjoyed a nice, relaxing buffet with the rest of our team. Complete with a Greek version of Nutella called "Melinda". Melinda and I became fast friends :)

Doesn't the pool area look so nice? At this point it was about 9:30 am, and the temperature was already in the 90's (or 30's for all of us Celsius folk)

The next day, we welcomed all our missionaries to the hotel, got them checked in, and took them and their luggage to their rooms. What a joy to see everyone's smiling faces as they arrived, and put names to faces. It was so much fun to meet the kids who were going to be in our class (7-8 year olds). The children's programme began the next morning, bright and early - while the parents started Day 1 of their bus tour around Greece. They went to Corinth, Delphi, Thessalonika, Berea, Athens and Philippi, and had a wonderful time exploring the ancient Biblical locations ... while we had :

Lesson Time,

Craft Time,

Music Time,

Game Time (Heads Up, 7 Up was a favourite for our class),

and Pool Time!

There were 12 boys in our group, so you can imagine that pool time wasn't just sitting down on the lounge chair and enjoying a good book ;)

3, 2, 1, JUMP!

We also took them down to the beach, for fun exploring.

Help yourself to the buffet lunch, kids - just make sure you've got something green on your plate!

"What about red? Is Ketchup a vegetable?"

Nap time became more and more popular as the days went on...

Here's all the adults in one of their teaching sessions. There were a few days when they all stayed back at the resort and had meetings, instead of touring.

Here's our class photo.

Such precious children!!

The balloon face is for one of our kids who wasn't feeling well that day :(

And here's our team photo, responsible for all the children from nursery to age 10.

At the end of the conference our whole group went on a day cruise to some nearby islands. For those who got seasick, they didn't seem so "nearby"... but all in all, it was a great day. Here's Reuben shooting the breeze with one of the guys in our class. Serious theological discussion, I'm sure.