Greetings loved ones! We hope you had a Merry Christmas and we wish you a Happy New Year! Each of you, receiving this, is someone who we are so grateful for. To our family, friends, churches, prayer warriors, each one of you means a great deal to us. Thank you for partnering with us and being a part of this great and wonderful journey God has us on. Here’s an update on what’s been going on for us. Evangelia has been very involved with the church’s choir and just had two great performances, one at the Children’s Christmas show, and one on Monday at the Christmas Day show. These shows are some of the bigger evangelistic events the church puts up every year. To see the Children’s show click the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08zbY364Kak&t=628s . During the year, Evangelia stays busy with homeschooling the girls who are doing well academically and growing in their love of learning. Gabriela Zoé is 9 1/2 and in the 4th grade. Her artistic/fitness outlet is ballet, which she is enjoying very much and is growing in grace and poise. She is always busy creating whether it is using paper, lego blocks, musical instruments, paints or even plastic bags. Her latest more structured art form learning has been learning some basic creams and processes in baking, with her crowned achievement of making creme brûlée…she is a little chef indeed. Agapi is 6 and officially started school in 1st grade. She is a very focused learner and she is learning how to read and makes amazing connections with the new words she reads. Observing her understanding grow, and the delight in her face when she does is a joy. For her fitness needs she started gymnastics and she is loving it! She is one fearless and daring little girl that amazes us at her independence and fierce love for those around her. She is also enjoying coloring and making creations with her play dough and she started learning the recorder. She has lost 3 teeth as of the writing of this letter. I have been trying to get her to sing All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth, but to no avail… ;) If you would like to see a video I did with each Gabriela Zoé and Agapi you can follow this link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SwJm4IOPSQ0IDzwX2 Stephen has had several events that have make it a very special year. First in April a team of 9 people formed that go once a month outside of Athens to share the good news with the different smaller towns. This month we took Christmas cookies with us and wished people a Merry Christmas and the people received them with joy as well as the blessing cards we gave them. We began some good conversations and exchanged some phone numbers. We are praying that as we saturate these areas with prayer, songs of worship to God, and these blessings that doors will open and more people will receive Jesus. Speaking Greek! Yes, Stephen is progressing in his language learning and it has shown up in MANY different ways. Within the last few months he has had conversations in Greek with locals and that could not speak English. A couple of weeks ago he preached his first message in Greek to the teenagers and a men’s bible study group. You can see it here: https://larkinsingreece.weebly.com/messages. Lastly, at the Christmas show he had a speaking part of an angel. The whole family is so proud of him. One of the greatest joys of his week is when he gets to sit down with his current group of young men. One of the guys that he started to meet with two years ago recently confessed to him that that year at summer camp when they met he was giving God one last chance. Now two years later he has come alive, caught on fire for God and while he is doing his studies on an island away from church he is starting to have his own conversations about God with the young people he meets. Another young man found courage to start his own bible studies with his friends. For a several months Stephen met with a group of Iranians he met at the church during an event with the church for serving the community. They started to meet to go through a discipleship group on how to start discipling themselves and start bible studies. Since then a some of them have either relocated to different countries or different parts of Greece taking the gospel with them. God has been opening the doors to share the gospel to others as well. Through an unfortunate event that required the insurance, Stephen had a conversation with the insurance representative and they have become friends and are meeting to talk about God, and he had a testimony of giving God a chance. Pray that this seed of faith in Jesus will not be stolen by the enemy but that is will grow and bear fruit. Stephen also had a conversation with a furniture mover about God and will follow up with him as well. He gave them both Bibles and is really excited as some of these newer conversations are all in greek. Pray for more opportunities like this and that these people will choose to follow Christ. Looking into the future, there is a group that wants to start a church in their neighborhood in another part of Athens and Stephen is really excited to help them with this mission. This is why we came, to help with discipleship and to raise up leaders and churches. Please keep our family in prayer. We have committed to coming to Greece for at least 3 years and three years is almost over. It really feels that the work is really just beginning and new opportunities are opening up for us. Please pray for wisdom from God as to what is next and how to take it to the next level. We will be back home this summer for furlough, and we are looking forward to seeing many of you in person. We love you. May the Risen Lord Jesus bless you with His joy and peace. If you would like to sign up to receive this email newsletter also you can click here: https://www.facebook.com/larkinsinGreece/app/100265896690345/ 4th Marathon completed in November!
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Larkins In Greece