Thassos i sikte

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Where the team lives

We can see these houses from our balcony. And there is Viktor from the Swedish team, waving from his balcony.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Today has been a full day. A good day. We started in church with sharing our testimonies and get a good review of the essence of the gospel- the good news you know! And for sure the gospels are telling good news to us! Even though we are born in sin Gods love for us brought us to him through the death of Jesus. Now it's only to receive and trust him who knew all our days before anyone of them came to be.
After sitting inside for quite some hours we went to the town beach for some fun time with games together with the youth. We did the same thing last Saturday but we have had some problems with our memorycard in the camera so we haven't been able to show any pictures yet, but we hope to work it out and give you some soon enough. And then in the evening we were all gathered in our house to cheer for Sweden (and Greece) in the Eurovision Song contest! As I'm writing it's only minutes left and we get the results, it's looking good for Sweden!!!

Friday, May 6, 2011

We are making history?

Proudly carrying our homemade Floorball goals

We are happy to have Markus with us in the team, he is an answer to prayer. Markus has played Floorball all his life and been studying in a Floorball upper highschool in Sweden (we have those sport oriented schools in Sweden), we did not know that when we got this idea before the team arrived here.

For the first time in history as far as we know, the game of floorball has been played in Greece by greeks! The kids really loved the game. This game was invented in Sweden, it's a bit like icehockey, but indoor and with a ball and no iceskates or tacklings.

We were visiting the highschool in Limenas and we had great fun there with about 150 kids.
We give thanks to the international Floorball association that sponsored us with the material.
What did the kids think? Well! We can only say that there would propably still be kids playing if we would not have stopped them. So we are looking forward to get to play with them again.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Our team

Viktor and Markus

Lisa, Elin, Matilda, Linnea

Josefin

Making floorball goals. We will have a "culture exchange" at the schools of Thassos and show them this game that was invented in Sweden. We pray and hope that we will have a fun time with the kids.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Bibleschool team.

We are so happy about having the a team here from the bibleschool "Livskraft" in Sweden.
They are 7 great youngsters and a true blessing to us!

Swedish "Pinnbröd" = bread on a stick.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

We're going higher

Here is more pictures from our hike up to Ipsario, the peak of the island.
First some pictures from the lake,
an artificial lake near Maries on the south side of the island.

Beehives

It was only the two of us at the lake
but then Pilidis came and joyned us for a walk up to the top of Ipsario
(we took the car as far as we could though).
It was great fun !

We found Oregano that was smelling wounderful on the hillside.

Kyriakos was the first one to the very top.
We tryed to race with him, but he's to young for us...

You can see a tiny bit of Limenas from the top

And this day it was clear enough to see mount Athos

Snow on the top!

Filling the car with nice sticks for decoration and for the fireplace

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Υψαριο

Today we went to the top of the island!!

Facts on Thassos

Thassos is the most northen island in Greece, in the province of Macedonia. It is a very green island with high hills that makes a beautiful scenery, and there is also some really nice beaches.
There is 16000 inhabitants on the island that count a circumference of 91km. Thassos town is Limenas but there is also several vilages on the island.
To get to the island you need to take the boat from Kavala or Keramoti to either Limenas or Skala Prinou. The seagull will make you company all the way hoping to get something :-)

The vision (english)

1996 Kenneth got the calling through a dream to go to Macedonia. At that time he didn't know that such country existed , more than mentioned in the Bible. But the same morning a Christian magazine, “Light for the peoples”, came with the mail and landed on the floor with an article about a missionary family in Macedonia facing up. The first that caught Kenneth's attention was a quote of Paule “Come and help us” Acts 16:9. Kenneth then felt he would have to wait for at least 10 years before fully stepping into the vision.

During the years he has prepared himself with bible school and work in different congregations to get experience. There has also been lots of trips to the area, among other in 2001 when he was working as a guide on Thassos. Until then he had thought that Macedonia only is the small country in former Yugoslavia. Now he found out that the area in northern Greece also is Macedonia.

During the time in Thassos Kenneth got to know some Christians, Dimitri and Gordon. Together they started to have services for tourists in a pavilion by the sea. These became popular and now they have a small congregation on the island where Dimitri is the pastor. This fellowship is the base for our mission in Macedonia.

On February 7, 2009 Lena became part of the vision as we got married. Lena has been in mission for some years with YWAM, youth with a mission, and love to do more missionary work. After a few visits to Thassos she got a feel for the people in the area. Kenneth think she's an important part of the puzzle and to see the vision come true.

Kenneth is a pioneer with many visions while Lena is of more calm and stable character. We complete each other well.

After one year of marriage we decided to make our way south. For two years we were having the privilige of staying on an island with a small english/greek speeking fellowship as a base for our mission. Our mission was simply to preach the gospel in the area. Our main focus has been on the youth. Now we are back in Sweden but the church on Thassos is still serving the Lord on Thassos. And we hope that we continuously will be able to bring in teams and do other outreaches in the area. And maybe in the future come back on a more long term base.

Visionen (svenska)

1996 fick Kenneth i en dröm Makedonien som en missionskallelse. Han visste då inte att landet existerade, mer än som omtalad i Bibeln. Men den morgonen trillade ett Ljus i Öster-tidning in genom brevinkastet och landade med baksidan upp, där var en artikel om en missionärsfamilj i Makedonien. Det första Kenneths ögon fastnade på var ett citat från Paulus ”Kom över och hjälp oss” apg 16:9. Kenneth upplevde då att han skulle få vänta över 10 år innan han skulle få kliva in i kallelsen på allvar.

Under tiden har han förberett sig med bibelskola och arbete i lite olika församlingar för att få erfarenhet. Det har också blivit många resor dit, bla 2001 då han fick arbete som reseledare på ön Thassos i norra Grekland. Det var tydligt hur Gud hade sin hand med i det. Kenneth trodde innan dess att Makedonien endast var det lilla land som tidigare ingått i fd Jugoslavien. Han upptäckte nu att området i norra Grekland också heter Makedonien. Under tiden i Thassos lärde Kenneth känna några kristna på ön, Dimitri och Gordon. Tillsammans började de anordna gudstjänster för turister i en paviljong vid havet. Dessa blev populära och nu är där en liten församling där Dimitri är pastor. Den församlingen är vår bas i vår Makedoniska mission.

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Den 7 feb 2009 blev Lena del i kallelsen då vi gifte oss. Lena har flera års erfarenhet från mission genom UMU, ungdom med uppgift, och vill gärna fortsätta med mission. Efter att ha vart med på ett par resor ner till Makedonien var det lätt att känna för människorna i området. För Kenneths del är hon givetvis en oerhört viktig pusselbit som fallit på plats för att klara uppdraget. Kenneth är visionären och pionjären medan Lena är den trygga, stabila typen. Vi kompletterar varandra bra.

Efter ett års äktenskap besämde vi oss för att flytta söderut. Under två år har vi haft förmånen att få bo på en ö med en liten engelsk/grekisk gemenskap som bas för arbetet. Vår mission har helt enkelt vart att predika evangelium i området. I huvudsak har vi arbetat med ungdomsarbete. Nu är vi tillbaka i Sverige men församlingen tjänar fortfarande Herren på Thassos. Och vi hoppas att vi även fortsättningsvis ska kunna ta med team ner och ha andra missionssatsningar i området. Och kanske en dag att vi åker tillbaka mer långsiktigt.