I'll miss you Thassos

Since this is my last weekend in Greece :-( , tomorrow I'm off for Sweden :-) we were having a small goodbye party Friday night. It was a bit sad but great to meet with everyone and have a time to say "I'll miss you". Kenneth and I been cooking and baking so that our tummies also would enjoy the evening. I made "Swedish cubes" as someone called them (filled with ham, youghurt, majonais and wasabi, they turned out well if I may say so) and then we had other bits and pieces. I really didn't expect to get anything but to just enjoy the evening together. But they were overwhelming me/us with gifts and sweet words. Thank you everyone! I'm happy we were able to have this time together!

And I'm very happy for my time in Greece. I've met lots of lovely people, learned to live in the moment, seen new thing of God, understand new sides of myself, been enjoying the beautiful landscape... I'll always carry a piece of Greece in my heart.

Greek spring

Many people have been asking about what the spring is like down here.
Me myself I don't think it's as much spring as you expect it to be in Greece, it has been many cold and gray days and you have to keep your shirt and jacket on.
This past week, however, the sun started to show itself and it's lovely! It immediately becomes warm and pleasant, sometimes I even had to take my jacket off. Young people go, as young people like to do, in the t-shirt and do not want their jackets but it's not really that warm in the air. But as I said, in the sun, it is very nice!
The main difference from Sweden I think is that the temperature remains mild even at night and this welcomes life into flowers and trees. I were walking around in our neighbourhood and documented a proportion of all spring splendor that dressed our island for the the National Day, which yesterday was celebrated with parades and partys.

This flower is a sign that it is almost Easter, it is marvelous, delicate and colorful. You can find big areas full of this beauty, but this lonely one is growing in our garden.
And then a couple of pictures of the neighbors down from our house. The little lamb bleats to catch up with the rooster crowing. The donkey is, however, mostly quiet and seems to be a gentle creature.

Another sign of spring is our first barbecue on the balcony that we enjoyed last weekend.
And! the snow is gone from the mountains. :-)

The last box

We already done a lot of packing. Still some left but when we get a truck that will take our stuff we are ready to load. I realized some days ago though that I need some papers from a binder (papers I need to get a job)... The papers are in one of the boxes... but which one? Today we moved them all around, opened them and well it was not in the last box left to look inside -it was in the third last one...

Ok lesson learnd: don't pack your important paper!

Saturday night

One of the things that we really gonna miss from Thassos is the wonderful kids at floorball!

It's the highlight of the week! It's loud and messy, they all speak greek and we don't... But it's great fun! They are all very enthusiastic and someone always try to trick us and stay on the field to play some extra when it's time to let the other team play. It's about 15-20 kids in age range of 10-17, a great bunch of kids.

The poster says:

Hockey on floor, Saturday 18:00, School gym hall, Limena, Thasso

We play for fun! For free. Get ready!

Sweden awaits

As fast as we decided to move to Greece, we have now decided that we are going back to Sweden. Of course it is with mixed feelings. We love the people and the church here on the island, friends that we have made. We have learned to find our way around and understand more and more.
We hope we have made a difference during our time here, that we have meant something for the church and the people we met. They say they will miss us so we have probably done something good :-)
But it also feels good to get back to Sweden and our loved ones back home.
I'm not sure what to expect but a few things has fallen into place. The other day Kenneth got a job in Norrköping for the summer that might become something more than just a summer job. We used to live in Stockholm so it would also have been nice to come back to our church and friends there, but I (Lena) have my family in Norrköping so I really enjoy that we will get close to them, especially my dear mother.
And I'm looking forward getting home to the country of liver pate, "falukorv", "polly", salmon and other goodies :-)
I am going now in less then three weeks, on the 2nd of April I have a flight for me and the cat. Kenneth has to stay a bit longer to finish up some things.

First class done

We just said good bye to our visitors. We have had a great night with good fellowship and teaching.
"5 x 2 hours of our lifes and 5 x 2 hours with the word of God" as Dimitri said.
We began in Luk 24 about the men on their way to Emmaus. They met Jesus himself and still they had the truth revealed to them from the word! So we then continued with bibelverses that was talking about how God is revealed in the scripture.
The buns were good and many other brought other sweets and crackers so we had plenty enough! Looking forward to Thursday when we will meet again!

Άλφα και Ωμέγα

This coming Sunday we as a church are having the first class in a short serie about faith. And since it's all about God allmighty, Jesus Christ and He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the all inclusive so to say, we are calling the classes "Alpha and Omega".
We want to do it in the same spirit as the Alpha course that many of you might know about but we don't have enough time before the season begin to use the actuall Alpha material. Most people here are involved in the turism somehow and because of that they will all be busy from easter on.
But as in the Alpha course we are having some time for fellowship and treats -so today I'm making "sugar buns" that I hope will turn out well enough to enjoy on Sunday.
And things that we been keeping on hold because they are so boring we now got motivated to do... like cleaning :-) and then I mean big time cleaning. Like the ceiling in the bathroom that's becoming black in the winter because of all the humid. Good job, Kenneth! He took this delicate job as his responsability.

Buns did turn out well, now we have to keep ourselves from eating them all before Sunday.

Ceiling in process. Kenneth has sprayed it and scrubbed it
and is now waiting for the detergents to do it's magic.