Come on Over!......Part #2

The White Tower in downtown Thessaloniki


We hopped on the bus and began to read the instructions for buying a ticket.
Some guy helped us and asked what we were doing here.
We're just visiting Thessaloniki, I said.
You do realize you're not even close to the downtown? he asked.
Yep, but we are staying at Anatolia College, I replied.
Oh, then you are in the right place, he smiled.
(It's always comforting, when traveling to have someone say...You are in the right place. We so rarely are.)

Thessaloniki.

We are here at Anatolia College. Actually it is a school K-12 AND it has a separate IB High School AND it has a college AND it has ties with many American Colleges AND there are a number of American kids here studying.

Got all that?

AND it has historic ties to the UCC and to Turkey, yet it is in Greece.

The United Church of Christ (on the Congregational side) established missions in Turkey, part of the old Ottoman Empire back in the 1860's. It was part of the Haystack Communion, but that is a bit obscure for a most of you. Suffice it to say, that in Boston back before 1820, some students and seminarians with ties to Old South Church Boston met in a barn, prayed and began to send out foreign missionaries across the globe. Some came to present day Turkey. 

There was originally a seminary, hospital, nursing school, school for the deaf, orphanage, printing facilities and museum. (Our forefathers and mothers in mission were certainly inspired and tireless.). The missionaires were working more with the Armenian and Greek groups in the country (remember, this is the old Ottoman Empire). In the early 20th Century there were great troubles between the Turks and ethnic Greeks and ethnic Armenians. WW I forced the school to close, but the deepening crises between Greece and Turkey festered more and the school was closed in 1921 in Turkey for good.

A few years later, in Greece, the school was invited to move and begin again in Thessaloniki. The Trustees of Anatolia (who were based in Boston, where this whole missionary enterprise began) heeded the call to St. Paul..."Come on over to Macedonia and help us."

It gets even more complicated, but today there is a region in Greece where we are which is Macedonia, not to be confused with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.....and this gets very sensitive about who and what Macedonia comprises.....remember, I am just the messenger here......the point is.....the school moved from Turkey to present day Thessaloniki, Greece and today thrives. (there is an even more complex and tragic story to the rivalries in this part of the world concerning Anatolia College and what happened ethnic peoples, but I will leave that to the scholars.)

Today? I could put all of this in context and wax poetic and theological and philosophical....but let me be succinct.....this place rocks!

I mean, it is a wonderful school. It choose this land far outside of the city of Thessaloniki in the 1930's and today it is engulfed by the modern city, but the institution has some excellent facilities and looks like any small college in America. It is private and so the tuition is rather steep....comparable to parochial school in the States, frankly I think it is more expensive. As a result it caters to the middle class and upper. As I said, it is a K-12. The high school has the International Baccalaureat Progam and most go on to colleges in the US and UK as well as Greek colleges. The American College of Thessaloniki, as it is called has many US students here for a semester.

It makes for a thriving and dynamic institution of education for Greek and American students.

And last but not least, we have been shown wonderful hospitality and are in an apartment on campus for a couple days as we take trips along the bus line into the main part of Thessaloniki. The school President and wife invited us for lunch and we had conversation about the history and present day school. (The President is from Washington State and wife from California....interesting to note that we have daughters born in each of those states...but I digress)

I am always fascinated by the work of early missionaries and what they established and how they overcame hardships and thrived. I taught in an old mission school in Zambia and visited many similar institutions in other African countries as well as India and Sri Lanka. Clearly my heart is in such institutions. These pioneer educations had a deep faith in what they were doing and were resourceful and no doubt, had the help of the Holy Spirit.

Peace,  Bob