St Paul's, UNHCR and Milk

This morning I went with the team to meet the vicar of St Paul's, the Athens Anglican church.
Of course our discussion was very much centred on the refugee crisis and the church's response. The local Salvation Army has had a very good relationship with the Anglican church as well as the other churches of the Churches Together group.
All are very keen to work together in meeting some of the needs of the refugees, and the Revd Canon Malcolm Bradshaw (pictured here talking to the team) has been appealing to the Anglican Communion around the world for funding to help in this crisis.


From there we went to the UNHCR office to meet with staff and discuss a coordinated approach. It was a very useful meeting and it did help to clarify for us what the needs and the gaps are in the humanitarian provision.
It does appear that almost all the NGOS have gone to the islands and hardly anyone has a presence here in Athens. This was a confirmation to Polis and Maria who from the beginning of this crisis they were convinced that their place of service was here in Athens.
Victoria square has been their patch and it was confirmed by UNHCR that there is a need here and this is where they ought to be.
We also found out about the need in both Athens and Thessaloniki for storage of NFIs (non food items) and the logistics involved in the storage and distribution. We are very glad to have Jan here who is head of logistics for the Salvation Army in the Nederlands. I believe he's got a very important role to play in this humanitarian relief work that we engage in.

After that, on to Victoria square to meet and talk with some of the people there. I had a chat with Ali and his friends who have been on the march for nearly a month. He's been waiting for 4 days now for money to arrive from Afghanistan.

Today many in the square could feel the cold and I just hope and pray that we can soon set up a better system by which we can give all the clothes that the refugees may need.

Our need is for a very large warehouse and Coca-Cola has offered a 2,000 square meter warehouse, which will be ideal. It does however take time as all the legal paper work needs to be in place before we can start using it.

We are also looking for a big enough shop which can be used as a distribution centre. Once this is set the refugees will have the opportunity to come and collect the clothing they need and be on their way. This will help in a big way to prepare the refugees for the winter and the cold weather they will certainly meet on their way.
We have about 6 containers waiting to come to Athens with clothing and Jan is getting very impatient to get this system running before he goes back to Holland.  Please pray with us for this need.

Later on we distributed cartons of milk for the children which were very gratefully received. Maria and Damaris also gave out to mothers of babies packages of nappies and other baby items.

Travelling to Thessaloniki tomorrow.