Dear Friends: View this email in your browser Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Larkin Family! This is our favorite time of year. The season that we celebrate our Lord coming in flesh. This year some traditions we had to let go of and picked up some new ones among which was having an action packed Christmas Day! This newsletter is extra long but we hope our absence has made the heart fonder and so you will see it as a reward to read both pages :) Here we go: It has been a while since we have connected because we have been in a VERY busy ecclesiastical season. We will try to the best of our ability to fill you in on everything that has been going on. The month of October signaled the beginning of the playground, for which we have been praying for, for so long. When we first started it was very slow but we were not disappointed we just continued to pray for the neighborhood and for the people God was going to be sending to us. Slowly people started to come and as they came we started to offer lessons and tutoring. We are responsible for running it on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We have started teaching English to pre-school aged children and the class looks more like a mommy and me, which Evangelia is enjoying very much as well as an answer to the type of involvement she wants to develop in that area of the church. During the week there are also tutoring helping kids with their school classes in mathematics and Greek as well as there is offerings of private lessons of guitar and piano. The neighborhood that the church is located in is culturally diverse so the language backgrounds are Greek, Albanian, Polish, Arabic and Indian, though all the kids speak Greek quite well. As we were praying at the New Year I got the picture of a bee hive that the playground was like a very busy place where lots of creativity was happening and as well as it is a place where people are drawn to the sweetness of the Gospel. Please continue to pray for this ministry and that the Lord will keep raising people who will offer of their gifts and talents to bless the neighborhood. In November we started with the youth the Alpha Course and Stephen and Evangelia each taught a lesson. We are going to be continuing the series in a few months. For the remainder of November and December we stepped in to help out with the need to come up with a skit for the teenagers to present for the Children’s and Teenagers show. It was stretching and challenging but it was also very fun and rewarding. Evangelia did a great job directing it. You can watch this here https://goo.gl/photos/7QkvEbxY9kWkqrbC9 . We did a modern version of the prodigal son and Stephen was the father. Many people said they were touched, believers and unbelievers alike, we can all benefit from experiencing the Father’s deep love for us. We were happy to see that there were 60 children from the neighborhood that came with their parents for the first time at the church among which were some of our new friends from the playground! We pray that the good seed that was sown will bear much fruit. As soon as the Children’s presentation was finished we turned our whole focus on the presentation for Christmas day. Evangelia stepped in to lead the choral portion of the presentation. Against all odds and largely by God’s unfailing grace it went very well and we also had a great turn out of first time comers at the church that were touched by God’s love as they came and experienced this Christ focused celebration of Jesus’ birth. To watch this Christmas presentation you can click on this link https://goo.gl/photos/sXVPrSQ9YwGPLGQ59. An ongoing ministry is the guys Bible study, which is one of the things Stephen looks forward to the most each week. It is invigorating to have young guys hungry for God’s word and full of questions. These guys also have been craving to reach out and bless the refugees here in Athens. All on their own they gathered food and clothes and we went and passed out materials one day. They got the bug and wanted to help even more. Therefore, they came up with the idea of putting on a concert at the church to collect more supplies for the refugees. They told their friends and even one of their schools was so excited the whole school got behind it and gathered a whole room full of supplies. Kids from the schools brought things to the church when they came for the concert. Wanting to use this opportunity to minister to all those kids that were showing up for the first time, Stephen was asked to bring an evangelistic message. We pray that what seeds were sown that day will grow and bear fruit. On a personal note these last few months we celebrated lots of events. Agapi turned four on October 21st. A week later Evangelia’s sister had a baby girl which brings the final count to 3 nieces 1 nephew. A couple of days after the birth of our little niece, Stephen, ran his 2nd marathon with our area missionary and a guy from the teenagers. He improved his time by an hour so that was very rewarding for him. Appropriate training and preparation pays big time. There was a group of teenage guys from the Bible Study, that joined Evangelia and the girls at the finish line, who got all excited and wanted to run it next year. Therefore, we are planning to all train together for that race for next year God willing. We also introduced a new holiday to Greece this year as we celebrated Thanksgiving with family and friends. Turkey is usually only eaten on Christmas here and many of our traditional dishes are very foreign to the Greek palate but thanks to movies they were somewhat familiar with the sight of it :) We were grateful that we had the opportunity to celebrate it in Greece, though it is an American holiday, there is the principle of Thanksgiving that is good for all people. We are particularly thankful for you and for your partnership to pray and support us and see Greece turn to our one, true, loving God. Praises:
Stephen, Evangelia, Gabriela Zoé and Agapi Thank you for being a part of our team both prayerfully and financially. We cannot do this without you. 100% of Every Donation Goes Directly to Reach Greece! For those who would like to give or to setup monthly giving click on the link https://www.foursquaremissions.org/donate/people/larkin-stephen-and-evangelia/ Then follow the prompts to donating online. For checks on the memo line write: "Greece Led By Larkins" and make Checks out to: Foursquare Missions International PO Box 26776 Los Angeles, CA 90026 God bless you.
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Larkins In Greece