Athens Trails and Trials

I have cc (below) some insight from inside the Olympic village off another blog (that I wanted to document here). Isn't it frustrating how often the best news the world will ever hear is so often silenced by little people with a self-inflated view of their own importance? (I should probably include myself in that category!)

"Please keep praying about our ongoing difficulties with the Greek managers of the Religious Services Centre. They are wanting to keep everything under control so much that it is beginning to hinder the chaplaincy. For example, they have said they do not want us to give out bibles to athletes who come asking for them because they have not been given official clearance by ATHOC. Also, one nation’s athlete fell ill while training and ended up in hospital. One of our chaplains received a direct request from that nation’s team management to go and visit him and take him a bible. They questioned first whether he should have been allowed to go and visit him and, secondly, whether he should have left the bible with him! The experience of religion that most Greeks (97%) have is of the Greek Orthodox Church. In this context the role of the priest is to conduct the services and any sort of pastoral contact is taken care of by the immediate family or social group. As a result, they have had very little contact with sports chaplaincy and have no concept of the pastoral care that ministers provide that we take for granted. Unfortunately, they want us to conform to their very narrow view of ministry and get very scared when we do anything else. Pray that we will be considerate of their position and caring towards them but still go about doing our job effectively.

More chaplains have arrived now and we have a bit of a United Nations feel on the chaplaincy team now rather than a Commonwealth feel. We have chaplains from Australia, UK, USA, Mexico, Argentina, Kenya, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway and a few other nations that I’ve probably forgotten. This makes life a lot easier because each of these people has their own contacts within the different nations, people groups and/or language groups. This makes it easier to get the word out about chaplaincy to many more people."

I have also checked carefully through the official Athens Olympics website and found no reference to Chaplaincy Services at the Games. Knowing personally the high value that some athletes place on their chaplains role...and that the IOC mandates chaplains at the Olympics...and that I personally know at least six of the 35 chaplains who are working voluntarily at the Olympics (at quite some personal time and expense)...I am quite disappointed that there is not even reference to their presence. I have written directly to their site to query the omission but I seriously doubt there will be any redress.

I reckon it is probably a far more effective use of my time and energy to continue praying that the chaplains would be able to do exactly what God wants them to do in Athens...in spite of any human recognition (or not) and that God would be glorified as a result. Come to think of it, I doubt whether any of them are doing their job in order to be "recognized" anyway. What a contrast to most of the athletes they are there to serve?