What I like most about living in Athens

Living and working in Athens is tough I think I've made that clear to most, the work we are doing is rough and at the beginning it was hard trying to relax after a week of brothels and dirty streets with young girls you know if they weren't here doing this would be at school or playing with friends and just enjoying life. What do I do to get my mind of things, how do I relax well me tell you;

Starbucks- Thursday night outreach is from 11.00pm - 2.30am and i never go to bed before 4.00am so Friday afternoon I always walk to Starbucks (half asleep) with my laptop and a book and sit for at least 2 hours enjoying comfy sofa, great coffee and just relaxing. The staff are always so friendly and will laugh at my attempts at speaking Greek but will always inquire about my day and sometimes give me a extra shot of expresso in my cappuccino. 

Friends- Saturday is now Hill climb Saturday, Me (end right), Rosie (middle) & Annette (end left) walk and attempt to climb hills and just enjoy each others company. The aim in November (before we leave) is to be so fit that we climb mount Olympus. Really its just great to have people around so I can vent and moan and just have a laugh with. 

Mars Hill - Me and Chris love to walk in the evening, we live really close to the Acropolis and Mars hill so at night we just walk up to the top and enjoy the view. It really is beautiful!

Love from those in Bournemouth- I feel so much love and prayers from friends and family in Bournemouth. I have never spoken so much to my family in all my life, I speak to my dad each week and we e-mail most days and i phone my mum and sister sometimes two or three times a week. I loved getting letters and gifts from friends and hearing about how much they are thinking of us and praying hard and I love all this attention. 

I do find days hard and I don't wish life here to be any different because they make the good days really really good!

As long as He think your beautiful, you will always be beautiful.

When I had flu I was in bed for a week I couldn't get up I just stayed in bed, aching body, aching face, migraines, fever, running red noes, chapped lip the lot I was a mess. Chris was doing everything the good news I wasn't eating and so he didn’t have to cook for me and I didn't leave the bedroom so I was tidy (apart from the tissues laying at the side of the bed). I was a state I slept all day for the first two days, after that I cried most of one day because I didn't want Chris to leave me alone (which he didn't missing a meeting,oops) after that I lay on the sofa watching movies and reading and sleeping and complaining. Like I said I was a state! Some mornings I wake in a bad mood now that is a women right I feel because sometimes waking up just isn't what you want to do. I shouted most of the morning about how messy the house was about how I living here and eventually left the house and sat in Starbucks feeling sorry for myself.  I go through days and days of self loathing I get ready for the day only to cry because I hate how I look or what I’m wearing and look in the mirror only to hate myself more. I feel like a failure as a wife, friend, volunteer, and mostly child of God. Really what I’m trying to get at is I’m a pain in the butt, I kick up a fuss, I run my mouth off, I’m difficult, I shout and swear and fight, I snore, I wait as long as I can before getting up and showered in the morning. I pick my noes, I talk with my mouth full, I burp really loud. I'm rude I always say the wrong thing because I want to see the reaction and I secretly hope its a bad one, If I don't like you, you will know about it!  

Why would God ever love someone like me? How could he ever love someone like me?  

God who see beyond my imperfect and loves my heart. How can I continue to focus on myself in such a negative way when I should be concentration on Him reverse pride is still pride have I becoming my own idol? This isn't going to happen over night I will always have ugly days of self loathing but I hope I can always come back to the cross and remember I exchanged my rages for His righteousness and what a beautiful trade that is.  Looking away from myself and to the girls I am trying to support what more to teach than love, that God thinks your beautiful and not because he can pay for you for a few minutes or because you pay him because that's would good girlfriends do, He would never force this love but it comes gently and freely. I want them to see through me the glory of God because I know that God thinks I'm beautiful and because I am worthy of this love and so are you.

Don't listen to lies especially from yourself , accept who you are in Christ, God will always give you the best and nothing less when we leave the decision up to him!

In the beginning

It took a while for me to decided on Blogging, everyone who knows me know I like to talk but I’m not always so good at writing down all the thing that happen during the day. Since moving to Athens so much exciting stuff has happened and I’m suddenly afraid I will get to the end of my journey and realise I forgotten most of it. I want to Blog so I can look back and remember what I did, the fun stuff that happened, the bad stuff, the things that encourages or truly touched me or just the normal life stuff. I'm not great at writing I often forget that I’m typing and things get jumbled up and then I forget to go back and re-read because I want to get on with something else, so this is the first of many apologise for my grammar but I hope you get the point.

I'm living in Athens with my husband (Chris) we volunteer for a non-profit organisation that works with men and women in prostitution we offer hope, assistant, support and alternatives and to see each one empowered by God for a new life. Some of these women have no other options in life than to work in the brothels or on the street because of problems in there home countries, no other option than to give themselves away to many different people over and over again each day. Some are forced to work day after day to pay off huge unjustly debt forced on them by the promise of good job abroad, because someone has then there passport or travel documents or because they are beaten or threatened. Whatever the reason no one wants to work in this occupation and no matter what someone tells you how would you feel selling your body, mind and soul over and over again. God loves these women he know everything about each one of them and we are working for Him to show love unconditional and complete. 

This is then I hope the first of many blogs and I hope you enjoy them and are encourages by them or just interested to know how life is with us!