Brooke's Eastern European/Southeast Asian Trip Adventure Update - Summer 2008 - September 15, 2008

Brooke’s Eastern European/Southeast Asian Trip Adventure Update– Summer 2008 –September 15, 2008

Dear friends,

I have always been able to rejoice and thank God for all the amazing ways He provides and protects and today is no exception. I have much to rejoice over and I just want to begin this update by giving praise.

Psalm 8:1
“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.”

Friends I have just returned from a five-week journey through six different nations, eight if you count the US and my return to Australia! I have so much to rejoice in – not the least of which is my health and physical protection the entire journey, but there is so much more for which to be grateful.

What I am most grateful for is to have been able to experience the body of Christ in the diverse cultures that I encountered. My first stop on this tour was to Greece. I was picked up at the airport by a friendly face and a familiar accent, by Peggy Lowe, a fellow American. Peggy and her husband Mike came to Greece recently leaving behind in the US their grown children and selling their house and beginning a new life for the sake of the Kingdom of God in Greece. They work with a ministry called Hellenic Ministries (HM), whose aim it is to minister to the Greek people and raise up mission-minded believers to reach their own people for the gospel, as well as the nations. If you are interested, check out the website at: http://www.hmnet.org.gr/. HM operates a Christian guesthouse there in Athens that was my first home away from home on this journey. It was the perfect base for me as Mike and Peggy treated me as a daughter and helped me find my way around this massive city and brought me along to church with them at the Second Greek Evangelical Church. This church is a Greek-speaking congregation, however many internationals attend so translation was available, and here I was able to meet many called to mission work in Greece. In particular I connected with Sam and Fran Holdsambeck who work with refugees that come into Greece with a ministry called Entrust and their website is: http://www.entrust4.org.

Athens is a beautiful city full of ancient wonders and also modern history; as of course the city hosted the 2004 Summer Olympic games. It is a city seeking to grapple with the past (and of course profit from it), as well as modernize. I was delighted to use the new subway trains and found my way quite well using my Lonely Planet guide and happy to see that underneath the Greek characters on street signs were Roman characters also. This was an interesting part of my trip, in the six countries I traversed, only the Philippines used Roman characters, otherwise it was Greek, Cyrillic or Thai and it can be very hard to know where you are if Roman characters aren’t listed as well, let me tell you! After my first few days in Athens I spent two days in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. I found this city to be delightful and much easier to navigate in its size compared to Athens. It is also rich in history and I found Greek, Roman and then Turkish ruins all over this city. It is a port city also which leant itself to beautiful views as well as fortresses, like the famous White Tower and ancient city walls with towers and viewpoints to explore. In terms of church history, it is also where the apostle Paul came on his second missionary journey in 51 A.D. and subsequently the books of First and Second Thessalonians was written to the fledgling church planted here. I found the history very fascinating as I learned that the main cathedral was built on the site where the first martyr was killed, Saint Demetrius. He was a Roman soldier and was martyred by the pagan Roman governor in the Roman baths, over which the Hagios Demetrios was built (a large basilica church). Then of course, Greece went from being pagan and killing martyrs, to venerating them in the 4th century and building a church over their deathbeds and Orthodoxy reigned for a long time. Then I learned that the Turkish Muslims had ruled for 500 years and turned many of the churches into mosques… and of course now Christianity is back as the ruling religion. It was fascinating!

From Thessaloniki I traveled by train to Sofia, Bulgaria and my dear friend Dimitar and his sister Mariyana met me there. The next 5 days were spent blissfully traveling all over this beautiful Baltic nation with my most amazing indigenous hosts. Dimitar is from the Black Sea coastal town of Bourgas, Bulgaria’s third largest city. We used this area as our base to explore amazing UNESCO World Heritage towns such as Nessebar and Sozopol. These towns contain some of the earliest European history and today are filled with seaside restaurants, excellent places to watch the sunset and lovely beaches. They are also filled with tourists, but from all over Bulgaria and Russia and not so much discovered yet by westerners. Taking in a sunset in Sozopol was as lovely as any I’ve shared in Cinque Terre in Italy and for a fraction of the cost. Bulgaria is a nation that is developing quickly as its entrance to the European Union is helping fuel infrastructure improvements, like highway upgrades. Together Dimitar and I also enjoyed the frantic Sunny Beach, Bulgaria’s version of Miami Beach (and just as busy!) and with Mariyana took a fantastic trip to see old war memorials, a mountainside monastery and the unbelievable ancient city of Veliko Turnovo. This ancient city is set on hills in which a river runs through the middle. It is multi-layered and also contains remains of a large castle set on a hill in which the Bulgarian royalty ruled for almost 300 years. Bulgaria had many charms, but the best part was staying and traveling with my friend and enjoying his family and learning about the culture through being with them. I quickly discovered that Slavic hospitality is amazing and whether it was his parents sharing with me about the years under communism, or watching Bulgarian-dubbed Spanish telenovelas at his grandmother’s square communist-style apartment, I found a warm welcome. I was also able to visit my friend Stayco’s parents there in Bourgas and was again reminded of the importance of making time to just be with people. Quite often in traveling the time can be all about the traveler, what I am going to do next… but there were some wonderful times in my trip where my agenda was decidedly to just be with and I was rewarded (even as Dimitar or others in the journey had to translate for me) to incredible times of connection. I would highly recommend Bulgaria for anyone interested in going to a nation a bit off the beaten path, but one that will be more discovered soon…

I then journeyed back to Athens to await my friend Bethany’s arrival. It was wonderful having Bethany join me in the traveling, as she is a fellow sojourner called to cross-cultural work and one well acquainted with living overseas. She had lived and studied in Croatia for a year and a bit and it was always her dream too to go to the Greek Isles. So together we enjoyed a bit more of Athens, like seeing the Acropolis lit up at night (so romantic), and then headed off to Mykonos. After a four-hour ferry ride we ended up on the sun-drenched and wind-swept island. It has been long photographed for its beautiful white cubed architecture and azure seas. We stayed only one night in Paradise Beach, but were able to enjoy the ocean and walking through the labyrinth streets and getting pushed along by the throngs of people. It was beautiful, but to be honest it was all a little bit over the top for my taste and the fact that Bethany and I had a minor crash on a motorbike didn’t exactly lift our spirits. Praise God we were safe though, albeit a little poorer in the most expensive spot I went on my trip. From here we went back to Athens and on an overnight train to Thessaloniki. Here’s where our trip gets a little harried. It turns out Greece will sell you a train ticket, even if there are no seats left, so an overnight train can turn into a few hours sitting sideways on the floor trying to sleep, or perhaps sleeping for some time in another person’s gracious seat. It was a skit! Then, we had to try and stay awake most of the day before catching our next train to Skopje, Macedonia – all in mid-summer heat of upper 90 degrees! Then of course, our train was delayed by over 4 hours… what a day! We were very glad when at 1 AM we finally made it to Macedonia and got to meet up with Bethany’s former roommate from Croatia, Eli. Eli’s family graciously hosted us in our two nights in Skopje and once again demonstrated the incredible hospitality of the Balkans (which I had of course already known through experience from Brendan’s Macedonian family). Eli showed us around her city and it was clearly a little less developed than Bulgaria, partially because it has not been allowed entrance into the EU or NATO. We learned through new friends Katerina and Susannah, friends of my friend Lynn Dennehy from DC, that the nation has faced trouble entering into these geo-political groups due to a dispute over the name, Macedonia. Greece has a northern province of the same name (where Thessaloniki is located) and even though currently the nation’s official title is Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYRoM) there is a dispute whether they should be allowed to keep that name. It is a hot debate and seems to limit the economic development of the nation. Here in the capital city it is not unusual to see chickens walking around, Roma gypsies collecting rubbish off the streets, and for Roma children to be very aggressively panhandling in the city center or bathing in the nude in the main river downtown. It is fascinating place. I found it amazing to learn that this nation has almost a quarter of its population that is Muslim, mainly of Albanian ethnicity, but also a portion of these Albanians are Catholic. Skopje is the birthplace of Mother Teresa and there is a plaque at the site of her birth home and a statue commemorating her. But overwhelmingly the nation is Orthodox. The city of Skopje contains a very beautiful Turkish quarter where there are old remains of a castle, as well as minarets dotting the sky and old Turkish baths that now house art galleries. It is a place that struggles, yet also flourishes through its diversity. We were able to worship at the Voice of God Baptist church there and again able to meet missionaries from the US there serving with the Roma gypsy population. Bethany and I had talked much about the Roma after seeing whole families of them on the ferry with us in Greece and seeing the way they were treated with disdain by the Greek ferry operator. We learned from these workers that Roma gypsies make up to 10 percent of the population in these European nations, but their acceptance varies from nation to nation. It was great to hear that there are specific programs being targeted by believers at this underserved segment that often doesn’t participate in government programs such as education. I very much enjoyed learning about Macedonia and know it probably is only my first trip to this nation.

It is with sadness that after Bethany and I traveled once again overnight on a bus into Serbia we went our separate ways in Belgrade. Bethany continued onto Croatia, and I went to see Megi. Belgrade is a beautiful and vibrant city with much happening. I stayed with Megi and her family in their apartment on the 20-something floor of the tallest building in the new part of Belgrade. I was given a bit of a riverside tour by her son Paris and enjoyed the company of other 20 and 30 something’s that day on a little island in the Danube. It was incredible discussing politics and literature with this decidedly cosmopolitan population. We were then able to celebrate Megi’s birthday with the rest of the family and Susannah, another friend from Sydney was also visiting. Samuil, Megi’s son and my first entry into this family gave me a bit of a city tour the next day and paired me up with Marko, another peer to give me even more history. Marko and I it turns out have a few friends in common, including the ladies I had just met in Macedonia. Many of these young people are connected across the Balkan region through gatherings of young people called ROM each summer. I enjoyed learning about Serbia from Marko and what are the economic needs in this nation that also has yet to join the EU. I don’t want to sound like joining the EU is the only hope for these nations, it isn’t, but it was evident there was a stark contrast to what I saw in Bulgaria and the optimism there with the harder time friends were having in Serbia for instance… Marko also showed me buildings that had been bombed by NATO (the US) in 1999 that have yet to have been destroyed or repaired. It is always interesting traveling as an American abroad, and Serbia was the nation where I faced the most hostility if it was found that I was American and from seeing this damage firsthand, I was able to understand why. I was glad to be able to get to know the Petrovski family more through this trip, as I know through living in Sydney my relationship with Megi will continue to grow and I really appreciated learning more how to pray for this nation and particularly my peers and that of the younger generation through learning of Samuil’s work.

After three weeks of travel in Eastern Europe I boarded the first of three planes to go to Thailand. I spent five days on the island of Phuket and decided after all the overnight buses and trains that relaxation and reflection would be my goal here. I stayed in a youth hostel in Phuket Town which was a sure fire way to meet some people and I was able to enjoy fellowship with some fellow female travelers from England and whether it was going to the beach, climbing a hill to look at the town, or watching a film when it poured rain outside, I felt blessed to have some new company. The Sunday I spent in Phuket I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find a church, as the landscape is of course dotted with Buddhist temples and there are mosques also in this southern part of Thailand. But my prayers were answered as I saw a sign for an international church at a hotel close to where I was staying. I showed up at the time I thought perhaps it might be on and heard the drums and worship before I entered. It was a Thai-speaking congregation but they were only too happy to give me a headset and translate for me, the only English speaking attendee that morning. They graciously gave me a rose as being a guest and ushered me after the service to a table at the front of the church to share lunch with the pastor and their family. This church is called the Hope of Phuket church, and is part of a church-planting organization throughout Thailand. There was a young man about my age who had just moved from Bangkok, feeling called to Phuket who sat next to me and encouraged me to come to the 2 PM afternoon English-speaking service in which he would be preaching, so I did. This service was filled with Filipinos, which was a pleasant surprise since I was headed to the Philippines just two days later. They gave me the opportunity to share a little bit of my testimony with the congregation and I was able to ask for prayer for the upcoming trip. I experienced such warm friendship and felt so much a part of the body of Christ while I was there. The most touristy thing I did in Phuket was to take a fast-boat trip to Phi Phi Island to experience Maya Bay – the beach that was the site of the Leonardo DiCaprio film “The Beach.” It was magnificent, but packed with tourists like myself, including some Korean young students there on a mission trip… It was amazing, no matter where I went God introduced me to His people, it was so much fun!

I safely left Phuket, just days before protestors ended up closing the airport and stranding tourists, and headed to Manila. I had a one-day layover in Manila in which I explored the city with an Irish man and a Ghanaian woman (who lives in China of all places!) before heading to Dipolog City. What a relief it was to see my parents walking to meet me at the Dipolog City Airport. It was a great reunion with them and so fun to be able to spend the next week ministering together. My mom and step-dad Dan had flown in two days before I had and had preached at the service the night prior. The conference began though the day I arrived and together we were able to speak to the pastors and congregants gathered. There had been some recent violence in the island (Mindanao) and consequently some pastors that would have had to travel through these Muslim autonomous zones where violence had occurred did not come. The church we were partnering with, International Christian Leadership Connections, Inc. has planted over 60 churches throughout the island and so many traveled many hours to be with us. It was so fun to watch my mom and Dan preach and my mom sing anointed worship songs for the church. They allowed me the opportunity to speak to the children and youth and pray for them and I also taught the children at Sunday school. Together, my mom and I spoke to the women pastors and laid hands on them, and we also laid hands on the Bible school students and many others through the days of ministry. It was truly a Spirit-led time with many testimonies of God’s grace and His prophetic word coming forth. I was able to flow in ways that I had hoped to, but not been able to in the past. Part of it I know was just being given the opportunity, and I believe another strategic part was being able to do it with my family, stepping out together. It truly was wonderful being in an international ministry context together with them, after so many years of doing trips separately. I know there was a power in the unity of the family. It seemed especially relevant given that we were ministering in the Philippines, where large families are the norm and we were ministering in partnership, invited by a ministry family in which there are 9 children, one of whom is the pastor that invited my parents. He and his wife are in ministry over a church and helping run one of the homes for orphans. I was able to stay with the family during my visit and got to experience the delight of a big family from the inside – it was great! Of course, my mom, Dan and I were also able to experience together the beauty of the Philippines beaches on a day off and I really hope this won’t be my only visit to this nation. The people are really a delight and that also is what I hope will bring me back. The needs are of course great here as well, but it is the hunger for God that makes the church and the people more attractive to me. I enjoyed fellowshipping with some of the adult children who are my age and learned firsthand from them of the economic hardships they are facing. Unemployment is rampant, despite the population being relatively well educated and literate. Many Filipinos go abroad to work and I remember learning from my masters course last year that 15.6 percent of the Philippines GDP comes from overseas remittances. All of the young people I spoke with wanted to go overseas to work to be able to help their families. So many times on this trip I realized how incredibly blessed I was to come from and live in nations that although may be suffering a bit of economic recession at the moment, do have prosperous economies that offer jobs and opportunities to their young people. Again and again I was reminded that to whom much is given, much is required. I kept thinking, why Lord, have you given me the eyes to see all of these needs and now introduced me to friends in all of these nations… what is your purpose and plan? Those are not easy answers to discern, nor do I believe I will know all right away… but I know that this trip was not just something to take lightly, but rather a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be exposed and now, as the film “Call and Response” (http://callandresponse.com/) has taught me, there is a response that I have to give to all I have witnessed to.

Psalm 8:2
“From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies to silence the foe and the avenger.”

The end of my trip saw one more layover – this one in Bangkok and afforded me the time to go visit NightLight Bangkok – the amazing ministry I had volunteered with last summer (http://www.nightlightbangkok.com/). It was wonderful to meet once again with the women as they worshipped at the start of their day – their work day consisting of creating fantastic jewelry designs rather than dressed in skimpy clothing and waiting for a man to take note. I loved hearing of how the ministry has been expanding and the opportunity to purchase the building space they have been renting in order to become more established. Truly, God is at work everywhere…

Psalm 8:4
“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”

I returned to Australia after all of this about a week and a half ago and was gladly reunited with the Saxton family where I will be living once again in Hornsby and to worship in English at Northridge Vineyard with them on Father’s Day. Now I’ve also worshipped with Barbara, Brendan’s mum at New Vine Baptist yesterday and with Brendan at the Newcastle Cathedral last night and I feel like I have come home. My journey has been marked with many nations, tribes and tongues, but saying together the words of the Nicene Creed last night in my native language was welcome on my tongue. It truly feels like home returning to Australia. I will be working at Blu Water Grill in Hornsby in the immediate future and apply for full-time jobs in development. Brendan has returned home now too from his overseas adventures to the UK and we have been joyfully joined and are enjoying time catching up with his family in Newcastle. I’ve also been able to visit the Rotary Club of Newcastle Enterprise and catch them up on my last 9 months since I left Newcastle and visit my old friends at Fitness at Viking. God has been unbelievably faithful to me this year and has not only given me so much I had on my heart, but more than I could have thought possible. He has expanded my borders once again and not only strengthened existing bonds with friends and my family in the US, but allowed me to be repatriated to my adopted family here in Australia. Only the Lord knows the future, but I can say with confidence that I trust Him and that I have seen His plans are for good, not for harm.

Please do keep Brendan and I in your prayers as we continue to settle back into life in Australia and for a job and place to live for Brendan in Sydney. We are heading to Canberra this week to participate as facilitators in the National Student Leadership Forum on Faith and Values (http://www.nslf.org.au/home) and I would also love your prayers for this gathering that will take place September 18-21. Indeed, there is much to be excited about coming up, and grateful for – especially your friendship.

May the God of all peace, continue to give you His mind and vision. His dreams are better than our dreams…

Psalm 2:8
“Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.”

Together on the journey, all my love,
Brooke Gagnon

www.brookesintladventures.blogspot.com