Pireaus

Due to all the industrial activity, the water in Elefsis Bay was rather polluted. Added to that, all the sewage from our ship would go straight into the water. And speaking of sewage, up until this point, the sewage system on the ship was still not working. In Venice, we used to have to go ashore to go to the bathroom. In Greece, they set up a bucket and pulley system. When we needed to flush, we had to take a bucket to one of the supply locations, pull up a bucket-full of water from the Bay, dump it into our bucket and carry it back to our cabin to pour down the lavatory. 

The ship cabins had bunk beds built into the bulkheads (walls). The beds could be folded in and out. When they were rolled down, the bulkhead was very thin between cabins. I was on the bottom bunk and Samuel was on top. The South African girl I liked lived in the cabin next door on the bottom bunk through the bulkhead right next to me. To add to my 12-year-old anguish, Samuel and her would pass messages to each other through me.  

My parents decided to jump right into missionary outreaches ashore. They had a contact in the city of Pireaus, which is really an extension of Athens and its port. It’s where all the ferries come and go to the many Greek islands. A church let us stay in their building (sleeping on the floors) and my parents would rotate groups of people from the ship for 2 weeks at a time to do street outreaches and church meetings and camps. 

The part of Pireaus where we stayed is built on a small peninsula connected to the mainland by an isthmus about ten blocks wide. The church was located in the middle of the isthmus. On one side was the ferry port; on the other was a marina, which housed some incredible, expensive yachts we used to ogle. 

I still remember the smells of the city – the fresh-baked bread in the morning, the souvlaki/gyros lamb meat roasting as the day wore on and the sweet smell of baklava coming from the pastry shops. It was also where and when I first saw one of my all-time favorite movies at a local theater - Chariots of Fire.

The outreach was very successful with many people responding but one night there was a mishap. We didn’t speak Greek so everything had to be translated. Various Greek Christians would join us to help translate and for the most part, it went well. One evening we didn’t have a translator from Greece to help us. However, there was a lady with us who spoke Greek but I believe she was from Argentina. Let’s just say her Greek was not perfect. 

The street outreaches would typically begin with the group just singing with a guitar and once bystanders gathered, someone would begin addressing the crowd. On this evening my father began to speak and said, “Good evening.” The lady translated this to the crowd and they dispersed. My father was puzzled. Then they discovered that instead of translating “Good evening”, the lady had said “Good night”.

Of course, we got to visit all the sights in Athens, including the iconic Parthenon - an ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. It sits on a large hill in the middle of Athens called the Acropolis. It is one of the world's greatest cultural monuments. Below the Acropolis is the Areopagus, also known as Mars Hill, where the apostle Paul in the Bible made his famous speech to the Athenians about the unknown God.

Other families started to arrive on the ship from all over the world – Americans, New Zealanders, South Africans, Ghanaians and Europeans. Up until then, my brother and I were very innocent but one day a boy my age arrived from California. He would tell us about how he kissed his girlfriend. We were SHOCKED but that was the beginning of our downfall.

About that time, another family from South Africa arrived on the ship with two girls. The boy from California saw one of the girls our age and decided to pursue her. I thought I would take up the challenge and see if I could get her instead.

The thing was, I didn’t want to come right out and tell this girl I liked her just in case she didn’t like me. That would have been embarrassing. Instead, I meandered into this indirect plan. I let “slip” to some of the other girls that I liked her and it worked. I won.

Fortunately, I was still quite innocent. I now had a “girlfriend” but that didn’t mean a whole lot. We liked each other and would sometimes hold hands. I didn’t know anything about kissing but with the encouragement of some other kids we decided to try “Hollywood” kissing. That consisted of touching lips for seconds at a time. At some point, our relationship drifted apart and that was the end of that. But because of some things that were about to happen, she was the first and last “official” girlfriend I ever had.

Some other long-term families came during this time too. The Applegates, who had been with the ship we had lost, came from New Zealand with two of their daughters. The Hills, with two girls and a boy came from Canada. Don Stephens, from the United States, was the leader of the ship but he had been based in Switzerland as the YWAM leader for Europe. He had now passed off his wider, European responsibilities to focus on the ship and he moved his family onboard.

Making some kind of hand made coffee drink