The home Papouli grew up in takes up an entire corner, so the doors near the bakery are actually the back doors. Turn left, walk down the alley beneath the balcony of their home on the right, and when you turn again, you face their front door.

When I tell people my Greek family is originally from Patmos, most people who have heard of it know that it’s where the apostle John received the Revelation, the last book of the New Testament.According to Greek Orthodox tradition, he received the Revelation in a cave.

Tour buses park there and tour guides lead believers and skeptics alike into the cave.

Two engraved signs, one in English and the other in Greek, quote Revelation 1:9 where John says he was exiled to the isle of Patmos for preaching the Word of God.

Now that I’m pushing 60, the little “swimming” I do now is playing with Charlie in our neighborhood pool, but after the past week of swimming in the Aegean, I feel like a child again, ready to swim, swim, swim! Though now instead of feeling so big because of all I can do, I find myself increasingly more astonished at how very tiny I am in the scheme of things.

Unlike a pool where you can dive right in and get used to the water, you have to wade into the Aegean.

The pebbles often make you walk gingerly, unless you wear some kind of water shoes. I wore my faithful Chacos in and out of the sea, and after 8 years and hundreds of miles, it is about time to retire them.

Savvas said, “You can’t find parking? This is Rodos. Of course, there’s parking. You want me to come show you where to park?”

His question sounded like he expected us to say, “No, we can manage it.” But this was no time for pride.

Though it felt humiliating, we said “Yes!”

Five minutes later, he showed up on a motorcycle and told us to follow him. After looking all around where we’d been looking and finding nothing, he drove up the gated street and told us to stay beside him when the gate opened, so we could get through.

Amazing the kind of access you can get when you’re with the right person.

Kos interrupted by a sprained ankle! But we still enjoyed several wonderful meals, beautiful scenery, gorgeous sunset and seeing our family property.

After Papouli had been in the United States for many years and had enjoyed much success as a restaurateur, in the late 1920s-early 1930s,  as the Great Depression was making life hard and miserable for most, Papouli’s mother wrote him that the family was in danger of losing some family property. She asked him to please send $3500 to keep the property in the family.

The property is across the street from a marina and between  a hotel and a street beside a pharmacy.

Amazingly, he sent the money to his youngest sister and her husband, who were living on Kos.

Months later, his mother wrote him again and told him his sister was depressed and used the money to go on holiday, and begged him to please send the money again.

Even more astonishingly, he did it again!!!

For years I heard my aunt Calliope and my cousins Cookie and Joann talk about Theologia. (Pronounced THEE-Oh-loe-yee-uh) It wasn’t until this trip, however, that I learned how she became to be like a member of our family.

Listening to her talk, even though I only caught a few words I actually understood, because she only spoke Greek, made me feel connected to my Yiayia’s parents, Theologo and Iakinthi Gouras. (Pronounced THEE-oh-loe-go and Ee-ah-keen-thee)

Theologia came to work for Yiayia’s parents in the village of Hora as a servant around 1950, when she was eleven years old. By that time Yiayia and Papouli (Greek for grandma and granddaddy, my dad’s parents, Irene Gouras Dorizas and John Angelo Dorizas), been living in Jackson almost 15 years.

Theologia talked about how good my great-grandfather had been to her. I never met him, but as Cookie translated, she explained that a lot of people thought he was mean and stern, but he was always good and kind to her.

Wally and I have never been on a cruise, but traveling on the Blue Star Ferry felt a bit like we would expect that to be like. Except for all the people taking up almost every seat. Most of them spoke Greek and it occurred to us later that many of them may use the ferry regularly to visit relatives or friends on the islands.

We sailed on the Blue Star from Piraeus, Athens to the islands of Rhodes, Kos, and Patmos, and back again.

Wally remarked his first day behind the wheel in Greece, “An intersection with no signs!?”

To make matters worse, oftentimes intersections can have more than four streets crossing—five or six or more —which can make it quite challenging to determine who has the right of way. It seems every driver would claim to.

When I discovered the following post by Melina Thalassinou, I read much of it out loud to Wally and decided to copy some of it here:

https://greeking.me/blog/tips/driving-in-greece

As Thalassinou explains, “There’s a lot you can enjoy in Greece, and driving is certainly one of those things. In our country, there are no never-ending monotonous roads of the same scenery and chaotic 8-line highways.

June 30, 2024

On June 17, Wally and I celebrated 35 years of marriage. What a gift. Not just 35 years, but he is and our marriage is. God is always good, but He has been particularly kind to us as we have walked through so much of life together. Like the Michael Card song Wally gave me shortly after we met and that we had sung at our wedding, God has truly given us a Joy in the Journey.

After over a year of saving money and planning, the day has arrived for us to take a special trip. To Greece.

The day I finally made the decision to completely surrender my life to Him, I didn’t fully understand what He had done for me. He’d planted seeds of Truth over the years that had taken root in my heart and mind.And He sprinkled those seeds with enough water to convince me that He loved me with a never-letting-go-always-faithful-from-eternity-to- eternity kind of love.

I love this video and how it succinctly explains what a Christian is.

A True/False Quiz To Dispel Commonly Held Christmas Myths and Help You Find Deeper Joy in the TRUE MAGIC of Christmas

Perhaps the most critical thing a family can do together is worship God together. In family worship, we direct our thoughts and praises to God, remembering that He not only created each member of our family, but made us a family, and He wants us to make our home a foretaste of heaven, where we will spend eternity with Him.

Making family worship a daily habit is also a great way to teach small children how to worship when they gather with a church on the Lord’s Day. Teach and expect children to sit still and participate just as you would in church.

Remember, God delights in our worship and enjoyment of Him. Good family worship is simple, joyful, brief and God-centered. 

“Maybe it’s a better thing
A better thing
To be more than merely innocent
But to be broken then redeemed by love” 

Andrew Peterson, from lyrics of “Don’t You Want to Thank Someone?”

 The Japanese have captured this idea of beauty from brokenness in their art form, kintsugi. The idea is that rather than hiding the cracks, the artist illumines them in silver or gold to show them and how they make the object more beautiful than before.

 “For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.” 2 Cor. 4:6-7

 But if you put a light in a clay pot, you can’t see it. UNLESS there are cracks or holes in the pot. So God breaks us open so people can see Jesus in us.

And He loves to restore ruined places and ruined people. 

Life from Leviticus? Can you really see the grandeur of Christ in the third book of the Bible? Repetition in Leviticus points to Jesus by magnifying our sin and the holiness of God.

The way the exodus of God’s people from slavery begins in Ex. 2:23-25 is striking. Verse 23 says the Israelites groaned “under their burden of slavery. They cried for help…” Interesting that the text doesn’t say that they cried to God. Just that they groaned and cried.

The beauty and kindness it reveals about God that it didn’t matter whether they were crying to Him or not. The fact they weren’t crying to Him didn’t keep Him from hearing or acting.

How many times do people share testimonies of their misery and how God turned to them and moved them to turn to Him? I’ve heard countless stories like that. And that is my own story too.