Athens, Corinth and Iraqi Refugee Stories
Trip Start
Mar 17, 2005
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80
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Trip End
Mar 13, 2006
Athens,
Greece
Friday, October 14, 2005
We visited the Acropolis area which includes the famous Parthenon. It was pretty amazing, but unfortunately covered in quite a large amount of scaffolding. Our photos donīt show it really, but most of it is covered up. Incredible to get to see such a historical site.
Next to the Acropolis is the ancient Areopagus which was a famous ancient law court. We took a photo of it behind the verse in the book of Acts in the bible where Paul spoke to the leaders of the time in 51 AD at this exact spot where we stood
Acropolis Area from Filopapao Hill
. It was amazing to think that so much history had taken place in the exact spot we stood. This is the verse which mentions the location we visited:Acts 17: 19-25
īThen they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else."ī
Full verse can be found here:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2017:%2016-33;&version=31;
The following day we went to a international church (i.e
Areiouspagos
. non-Greek Orthodox) called St. Andrews International Church. The church is full of many refugees from Middle Eastern and African countries. A Greek woman named Zoe told us about her friend in the church who had fled from Iraq and was currently living in Greece. He used to work for Saddam Husseinīs son and was persecuted in Iraq after resisting the royal family. After escaping the borders if Iraq, he walked all the way across Turkey into Greece and is currently a refugee there. An unbelievable story, I wish he had been at church that day to hear his story first hand.We also met an American seminary student named Morgan whose wife is a student at Harvard currently working on her doctorate in archeology in Greece. Morgan took us around town for lunch and shared some stories with us of a documentary film project he is working on telling the stories of refugees in Athens. He brought us to the Monastiraki district where many refugees from Iraq, Sudan and Afganistan live. While filming his project he met an Iraqi refugee which led to a intense situation. Soon after meeting this refugee,
he quickly disappeared into a mob of people. Immediately afterwards a drug dealer from the neighborhood came up to Morgan threatening him that he shouldn't be taping his film in his "territory". The Iraqi reappeared out of the crowd and the two of them fled down the street together away from the drug dealer
Corinth
. Once they were away from the action, the Iraqi told his story of fleeing Iraq and how difficult it is to live on the streets where the government isn't doing much to support the many refugees who have recently entered Greece. We learned that it has been a challenge for many of the European Union Countries to find ways to integrating refugees into their homogenous cultures that historically have had very similar people with similar religious beliefs and histories. It got us thinking about our country and how the United States is full of so many people from different backgrounds. Overall it was a really interesting day learning about Greek culture and the struggle of refugees in this country.The following day we did a day trip out to Corinth, the ancient city 50 miles outside Athens. It is a famous biblical city which Paul came to in AD 51 where he lived and preached for 18 months (Acts 18:1-18). After leaving Corinth, he wrote two letters to the church in Corinth which can be found in 1 and 2 Corinthians in the bible. Most of this ancient city had been destroyed from earthquakes and invasions, but it was still an amazing visit to see this ancient city first hand.
