Then upon the next youth meetinged miracles happened Kenneth sang his original Gospel song he wrote upon the journey and wowed the youth and the thirteen year old son of a pastor of two Church congregations was Born Again and the Pastor was so grateful that he scheduled us for every meeting he had and took us into his beautiful apartment and treated us like royalty for dinner and played John Biaz Gospel and inspirational music and feed us authentic Greek food and said that he went to Bob Jones University and his wife was sweet and we took an afternoon nap in his apartment for the tradition in the Mediterranean was to stope work in the heat of the afternoon and take a Siesta and then go back to work in the afternoon and evening where cooler and ships even close down for the afternoons and a very savoy way of doing things to get around the summer heat and the night life wakes up to the warm summer nights and another miracle happened I met the beautiful daughter of the most famous Evangelist in Greek named Angelo Demaskenitus and we got an invitation to minister on a Sunday morning in a large Church in the port town of Athens by the sea and spoke there with Angelo as our interpreter as Ken Ministered in music and it was a topical Protestant formal Church service with no one saying Amen and quititly paid attention silently as we tried to stir the typically dry congregation up too a revival for the Greek Evangelical Church as it was called and the main Church was the one we met in Athens and ministered too the youth was and is theologically based on Congregational and Presbyterian lines and very dignified and conservative and after the .music and preaching a miracle happened people began praying out load and Angelo said that, that has never happened before and we knew that God was with us on this mission to revive the Church and to reach people for Jesus and before we left the port city of Pieraus Angelo told us that he would meet us in the city of Thessolonia where we had an invitation to preach and sing a revival meeting for a week and that he would be our interpreter and after all the engagements with our Fundamentalist Pastor and his Churches who's son became a Born Again Christian in the youth service we ministered in and before I forget one of the services was in a high rise hotel office building over looking the city of Athens and it was one of the most beautiful views of a city that I have ever seen and the Pastor told me that there there are people living in Athens that never have been too the Acropolis where the marbel Temple of Athena stands and I can relate for I have never been to Alcatraz the number one tourist destination in people busting San Francisco and number two I believe is my home town Sausalito outside of the City and accessable by ferry boat where Otis Redding wrote Sittin' on the dock of the Bay and just when we were about to run out of money so to speak an elderly lady gave me a Pentecostal Hand Shake and put a five hundred Greek Dracma note in my hand for we never asked for money on our journey and people just gave and God provided all along the way without any support from home until we reached the Muslim country of Turkey where there virtually was no Churches to minister in. When we left Athens for our engagement in Thessolonia, we travelled through country north that reminded me of California the weather was so nice and the scenery on the bus and we came to a place first called Leptocardia and I forgot how we came to know about this place but about half way to Thessolonica when stopped there on the waterfront camp retreat where a large youth meeting was camped out and I think we got a tip to stop there along the way and were invited to speak at their summer camp and I gave my first sermon in broken Greek or testimony and the youth camp leader was so delighted as he interpreted my broken Greek words that I had picked up in Corinth while ministering to the youth there every evening for a week and the camp leader was so delighted that he invited us back to sing and minister in the future, so I still have an open invitation and then they put us up in a large walk in tent and I felt like the Apostle Paul the tent maker by trade and the youth leader told me that they were the reinments of fundamentalist and conservative Christians and refugees from Christian oppression in Turkey and the whole large Curch and thfe Christian community moved back too Greece some five thousand of them and after a shower and a good night's slept and snorkel diving in the swimming pool clear waters I found an octopus in discarted shoe and startled a school of large fish and I was in Heaven on Earth on the clear blue water and on the bus again going past California like weather and senery we pasted Mount Olympus somewhere ong the way and Ken was excited and impressed and then we finnaly rolled into Thessolonica the area of Greece where to he Greek version of Paradise would be with it's Elysian Fields and on course near the waters of Paradise beaches of which all Greeks dream of and the place where Socratese was suppose to go after Plato bribed the guards and official to look the other way to make his escape from the death penalty imposed upon him and Plato was a man from a family and friends of substantial means and Jewish family history background and but Socratese would have none of it at his old age and difficult wife to live with always nagging and him being a horsefly on the Greek State always criticizing thier beliefs I'm thier false gods and pagan ways, with his teachings and Symposiums and Thessolonia is were two great wars between East and West took place and were Julious Ceaser and Brutus faced off and lost and another great East and West conflict took place also if I recall and was an important strategic area and the city of Thessonica was named after Alexander the Greats mother and when we entered the city we meet the Pastor of the Greek Pentecostal Church on Agapis' Street Church and bargain our week long revival invitation with Angelo Demaskenitus as our interpreter Greeks version of Billy Graham as our interpreter and the Holy Spirit of God fell upon the congregation and true revival broke out and a Black female Gospel singer from America was there and filled the room with praise and revival is and the power of God was moving and Kenneth Hopkins as usual wowed the crowd with his original and traditional Gospel songs and the palms of my hands were sweating with the witness of the heat and fire of the Holy Spirit and music filled the air and people were shouting and singing and this went on for days until one night was completely quite and no revival and everything was a struggle and the anointing had left and afterwards the Pastor said that the secret police was there in plain clothes and he was so bored by the meeting that he left for Greece at that time was run by a Dictator named Papadopoulos and the secret police were wondering what was going on this meeting with all the shouting and singing and this was about the third or fourth day of the revival and after that incident at night I saw a flash of light outside the second floor window at night in our bedroom above the Church and I peeked out the window and saw a car parked in the alley wide street we were on and if seemed like it had a police type looking spotlight on the side of the car and maybe I was getting paranoid but I put my camera out of the side of the window and put the timer on to photograph the car without being seen on the window ledge and photografed the the dark shadow of the parked car that seemed to be somewhat blocking the narrow alley wide road and began to get nervous about being there and after another night or two we cut thr revival early and Angelo had left back too Athens and the pastor was our interpreter and at dinner sometime during our stay as his guest we had a great Greek dinner and salad and such and cucumbers and things and fresh food with wine if I remember for I learned to live Greek food and they avoided pork and ate lamb instead and the bread and wine and he told me a story about being in the middle of some desert town in Arizona somewhere visiting or on preaching your and stoped somewhere and was terribly thirsty for a beer and Assembly of God Pentecostles in America traditionally don't drink alcohole or at least not in public and just then a lady who recognized him from his international radio broadcast came up to him to say hi and he was saved so to speak from drinking in front of her for the Apostle Paul wrote not to drink in front of anyone that would be made weaker concerning alcohole and basically said that was the Lord's timing for him not to stop and have a beer for in Greece there is no problem drinking wine it's a tradition like in Germany there was no problem drinking emeine and beer at the YMCA . So anyway we had to cut our revival invitation short due to concern about the secret police and Angelo our interpreter leaving early to back to Athens and feeling very nervouseaving the castle walled city and had an invitation north to minister in a little Greek Assembly of God Church near the ancient ruins of Phililipi and place when the Apostle Paul first set foot in Greece after having a vision on the other side of the Aegean Sea near the site of Troy and like a conqueror coming from the opposite way from the East with the Good News of the Gospel from Asia a minor from where he was born in the city of Tarsus and zi had s similar vision that brought me here also in my wildest dreams and we settled down in on the little Church and wonderful host and Pastor and ministered there and were treated to a delightful Greek dinner with olives from Tassos an island half way across the sea from us too Asia where the Apostle Paul first set foot and from there we took a day trip to the Ancient ruins of Phillipi and visited the traditional jail where Paul was kept with Silas for preaching the Gospel stired up by the local non believing Jews who had already heard about him the man who was turning the World upside down and of which was released after an earthquake and man of his his first coverts the jailer who was about to commit suicide, when he thought that Paul and Silas had fled the scene and Paul.prevented it by saying that they were still here on the cell when they could have fled but stayed as a matter of principle for they were falsely charged with disturbing the peace and Paul being beaten unlawfull and being a Roman Citizen was suppose to have a trial and the city officials were frightened for the potential consequences and begged them to leave and meanwhile and idelic scene had happened down by the riverside, next too the city, where Paul and Silas went too pray and met a women named Lydia a dyer of purple and excepted the Lord Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour and was baptized along with her family and became the foundation of the first Church in Greece along woth the Jailer before moving on South towards Athens and Kenneth and I visited also the river where the song "Down by the Riverside" of which the Gospel song was inspired by a we met a group of youth swiming there on the beautiful green shores and shade and one was was holding a poisonous serpent unharmed and smiling and obviously knew what he was doing and Ken played a Gospel song for them and witnessed Christ for them and they excepted and we felt like Paul and Silas reliving the Bible and we were with a prominent Greek physician student from the little Church of which we were invited to minister and took us to the ruins, of which an earthquake apparently destroyed long ago and from there after acouple of days boarded an ancient black steam train in the village of Drama a regiment of the old Orient Express line too Istanbul and was so excited to see or witness the black smoke pouring and billowing from the smoke stack and an almost unbelievable ssightike from the movie "Back too the Future" and virtually the smoke being in my face as I stared out the window in almost disbelief that trainslike this still existed in a modern World, like Europe and but Greece at the timewasstill using Dracmas for currency and not Euroes andeventually we rolled into Istanbul over what looked like the Golden Gate Bridge in size and landed in the heart of the City, with its countless Mosques and clear translucent waters and a sight to behold and being the Mosque capital of the World and the first thing we did was look for a Church to contact and we could not see or contact except for a whole in the wall office Church run by the Seventh Day Adventist...to be continued written as I speak in William Faulkner style paragraph long sentances or which that I have taken to a new level, like Chaper long sentances so to speak and unedited and unpunchuated in a continuous
glossolalialic and prosaic style of my own and if you would like to help me edite and proof read the chapters of this book for credits please do and send to peteromanowsky@gmail.com or telephone 415 374 0734 for this non profit work and Gox bless you in Love and Grace Warefront Pastor and Apostle too Sausalito, California where we meet every Sunday in front of the Sausalito City Hall for a for a ten hour service and meals from noon till ten in the evening and ponder sonetimes and bring something to share or cook for this open mic Church event.Where all are welcome and bring candels and insence and flowers if you can Love....
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