Planning for a Volcano

We have been developing another "business" course for our students who are in skills training at Made in the Streets - this one is about PLANNING. Bill Rider of Mt. Vernon, Iowa, created the basic materials, and Darlene has tailored it for our current students. Part of planning is seeing the potential obstacles and possible pitfalls of our plan of action.

Darlene and I always try to plan ahead when we travel. But we didn't plan for Iceland's volcano, even though we had read that is would erupt someday. So we flew through London and stopped off for a couple of days in Athens -- which turned into several more days, as we couldn't go back through London. Our favorite travel agent, David Jack from the Conejo Valley Church in Thousand Oaks, CA, finally got us seats on a Turkish Airline flight through Istanbul to Nairobi.

If you have to be stuck somewhere because of a volcano, Athens is a mighty good place. We watched the sun set from the Areopagus, where Paul preached to Greeks about the unknown God who is known in Christ (Acts 17). The picture is of the Areopagus taken from the Acropolis with the Parthenon in the background. Note the new stairway they put in to make it easy on older people!! The old stairs are still there, down below, and still a bit slippery, but that is probably the way Paul got up there, so we went ahead and climbed up that way. We ate gyros and feta cheese and spinach pie (and Darlene ate baklava). Dino Roussos graciously invited us on a bus trip with Christians from Tennessee to Corinth and Mycenae (remember Agamemnon and the Lions' Gate with the oldest sculptures in Greece??). It was a sentimental trip to Corinth, because we remember well one of the last trips we made with Darlene's Mom, who would come to Kenya and teach street kids to read for 6 months a year during her 70s. She loved Crete and Nikos Kazantzakis, whose tombstone reads, "I desire nothing, I fear nothing, I am free." She also loved Corinth, and she put a foot on every paving stone of the ancient city so that she would step where the apostle Paul did. So Darlene and I went down the street that way this time too. Now Darlene's Mom cannot go in the flesh to any place, but in the spirit she can still walk the walk with the Lord, and some day she may again step where Paul has stepped before her.