  Bureaucracy, bureaucracy, bureaucracy!! Sometimes it just wants to make you cry. The Christian Chaplaincy Service at the Olympics is just one of 5 faith groups represented at the Religious Services Centre.
The others are Judaism, Islam, Hinduism & Buddhism. Overseeing all of this is the Greek Olympic administration – in our case, two delightful ladies: J and C. If you’ve ever seen ‘Yes, Minister’ then you’ll begin to have some understanding of what we are going through but they make Sir Humphrey pale into insignificance.
Their administrative area takes up over one-third of the reception area but they have closed themselves off from the entrance so that they can’t be seen by anyone who comes in. When it comes to being sticklers for rules and regulations, they win the first gold medal of the Games. Major angst was had in working out the correct size of the storage cabinets for the different denominations in our meeting room. It took days of negotiation to allow us to bring in a van-load of bibles, song-books and some homely furniture for reception.
There is a printer in the admin area that we are allowed to us but when I asked for the printer drivers so I could load them on my computer they refused to give them to me. I wasted some hours tracking them down. We have just tried to put up some signs to make it clear for those who enter reception which direction is the meeting room for each faith.
“Oh, no” said C, “we can’t possibly do that. It might mark the walls.” However, despite all of this things are still getting organised and prepared for the first main influx of athletes at the end of the week. The Village has been open now for a few days and there are now some people staying here – mostly team administration and representatives of the National Olympic Committees (NOCs). There are a few athletes but not many. We conducted our first Sunday services yesterday with only a few attending our noon and 4.30pm protestant prayer, praise and bible study times.
They were mostly team officials from some of the African nations. What a wonderful thing to be in a place where God’s people from all over the world come together and can join together in praise to our Father – united not only by the Olympics but, more importantly, by our unity in Christ. To hear people praying to the same God in completely different language and know that they share the same faith is a great thrill.
And it’s only going to get better as more people arrive! Transport around the city has been great fun over the past days. There has only been one bus link between the metro system and the Olympic Village for the volunteers at a station called Marousi. This was very convenient for us because it is only 3 stops from where we are staying. However the buses ran every half hour and there were always too many volunteers that could fit on the bus. This led to some interesting confrontations. However, yesterday, they decided to change the station from which the Olympic Village bus would leave to another one called Doukissis Plakentias.
This means that we now have to travel 55 minutes by train to get to the new station! What is really frustrating is that the Olympic Village is only 10 minutes by car from where we are staying but we cannot get near it. Today we heard that if we went to the Olympic Complex station, only 5 stops from where we are staying, we could catch an express bus to DP.
So I went to try it out. I spent a whole hour walking around the entire Complex (this is where the stadium, aquatic centre and velodrome are situated) looking for the X20 Express bus stop. I had been told by a helpful volunteer at the station to turn left after leaving the station and I would find the bus stop. I finally found it 200m away from the station TO THE RIGHT! I was then told that the bus doesn’t start until next Monday!
Aargh! As a result, it took me over 3 hours to get to the Village this morning. We have been told of another ‘quick’ way home that we are going to try tonight. Lots of prayer is required on this one! Please be in prayer for those of us who are already here – that we will take all of these ‘teething problems’ with good grace and copious quantities of patience (which I do not always have).
Pray also for the majority of chaplains who are preparing to arrive from the end of this week – that God will oversee their preparations and their travelling. Pray for the families that we leave behind that God’s family will look after them with great love and care. Until I blog again! 
