Arrival

We arrived yesterday morning on Lesvos after taking a plane across the Aegean from Athens. The town we are staying in is called Mytilini. It’s a picturesque little Greek town, overlooked by the ruins of a medieval castle, and we were immediately arrested by the physical beauty of this place – the sea, the mountains – it’s no wonder that this is a popular tourist location during the summer months. It’s also really cool to be here in the land where the Apostle Paul went on his missionary journeys to the Greeks. It’s actually mentioned in Acts 20 that Paul stopped in Mytilene on his way from Troas to Jerusalem, perhaps docking in the very same harbor where we are now.

YWAM didn’t have any work for us to do right away, so we spent most of the morning yesterday exploring the town and getting acclimated to our new living quarters – which are on a boat!

We are staying on the YWAM Next Wave ship, a 100-foot long sailboat currently home to 37 YWAM personnel, which will be our base of operations for the next couple of weeks. It’s actually pretty cozy and convenient, with several bathrooms, running water & electricity, a refrigerator and kitchen, and even laundry machines on board.

In the afternoon, we had our orientation with Shanda Derilus. Shanda is 21 years old, Haitian-French, (like I am Korean-American), and she is the current director of the YWAM Next Wave operations. She's hilarious, and awesome. She gave us a basic idea of what to expect in the camp, and told us we were an answer to her prayers, because they've had a shortage of able-bodied male volunteers here.

We'll be working our first shift tomorrow, from 4 pm - 12 am. Looking forward to it!