Dear Pastor Chang and all your church  family!  

Greetings from Greece! Summer is already here and here is some of our news.

Soon the schools are closing and it is a good time to do summer activities-camps with children. We keep working at Katerini. We have a class there during a week and on Sundays children’s church. I get to know children and their families better and build relationship between us. Now for the summer, we with local church from Katerini plan to do some activities with children. We have a good team and we hope more young people from local church be able to help us at the gypsy camp during summer. We will have different activities for children: art, crafts, music, bible class, dividing them in groups according to their ages.

Also, we would like to do some practical thing to improve the conditions at the camp such as planting trees. It will provide them later on some fruits to eat: apples, lemons, pomegranates and shadow during the summer. Also it will teach them to take care of trees and be responsible for something.

 There are many needs and things which need to be done but it is impossible to figure out only with our minds and logic. Only God knows right timing for everything. We pray to God for changes in people’s heart and us to be instruments in His hands. The older you get the more you realize how desperate we are for God’s light, revelations, wisdom and His presence. No matter how much good work you have done without spiritual food and changes in heart and mind it doesn’t really solve the problems. With every year you realize more and more how important it is for us to be filled with God, so that our cup is overflowed and then we can share it with others. All the visible changes start from invisible. Pastor Sookil Kim and Sook Hee are an example and inspiration for me. I like praying and serving together with them and see their devotion and love for God and people. I am blessed to be a team with them.

Once a week we keep going to Agia Sofia area and do program with children there and building relationships with adults as well.  It is good to see children you already know every week and see their hearts and houses more open.  We learn some basic things about God, prayer, bible stories and slowly, slowly seeds are planting in their hearts and with God’s grace we pray, will grow and bring good fruits. It needs watering, prayer and we look forward to see lives of many children and gypsy people be transformed by God’s love and truth.  

At Perea Gypsy camp thing are going well. Children are growing spiritually as well as physically. We plan to do some summer camp activities with them as well, with the help of youth from the local churches, and organize some trips. Last week there was Christian art conference for children and some children from gypsy camp came there. It was good to see them participating in churches activities with other children and they were so good at dancing and singing, behaving so well.  It made me feel very happy and proud for them.

Twice a month we take some Albanian gypsy children, whom we have been visiting at their homes, and bring them to the local church for Sunday school. We do what we can and pray to God for changes to come in lives of all these people.      

I thank you for all your support financially and spiritually in this work. God bless you abundantly with all the treasures He has for those who love and seek His face. May His light shine upon you more and more brightly with every day.

1th, June, 2014     With love Yana Sotiriou.