The following post is from CBF field personnel Bob and Janice Newell who serve in Athens, Greece.

The bright smile enveloped her face with such a gleam and a radiance that, at first, there was hardly a sign of the anguish which, so often, colors her countenance, gray and sad. I had to look beyond the neon smile to find, deep in those dark, brown eyes, the tiny remnants of her typical desolation and gloom. Why, I thought, is she so happy, so uncharacteristically joyful? We had been in the States for two weeks, but there surely was more in this unadulterated delight than simply our reunion. 

After a few pleasantries, she could wait no longer, could no more hold in her good news. In sputtering bursts of joy that outran her words, she blurted out that she had found more work. Never mind that she was working in the place of one who, like almost everyone else in this Balkan world, was on holiday in August and would return to the job. Never mind that the work is clearly short-lived with little prospect that it will continue. She had work! As a result, for at least a little while, she had money for school supplies for that little one headed, for the first time, to kindergarten next week. Never mind that, as of September 1, austerity measures imposed by the Greek government would add 23% to the cost of many family purchases. Never mind that her husband is still seeking steady employment. Never mind that her temp job will be compensated at less than the Greek equivalent of the minimum wage. She had work!

These are tough times for Albanian immigrants in Greece, even as these are also difficult times for Greeks. As many as 10% of the 500,000 Albanian immigrants in Athens have returned home to Albania. The irony is that prospects in Albania are even more grim than here. When they consider returning home, their choices are complicated  by the reality that, in many cases, their children do not speak the Albanian language; having been born and reared in Greece, the kids are strangers in their parents’ homeland.

 Since the early 1990’s, Albanians have worked hard, at sub-par wages in Greece. With a superior work ethic and a desperate willingness to work for less, they quickly became the blue-collar labor force. Just after Greece entered the EU, just before the Olympic Games of 2004, there was much work. But now, the dirty economic laundry of Greece’s dysfunctional and inefficient economy has come out; the soiled secret of the large deficit left by the Olympic Games has been exposed; and the grimy reality of many Greek’s unwillingness to pay taxes has been made known, for all to see.  

Albanians in Greece have been wonderful savers; often working two or more jobs and sending money home to their destitute parents, they were storing up a portion of their paychecks so that, one day, they could buy their own place or return to Albania and open a business. But now, many have no work and those who do, often are not paid for six months. As a result, their savings are depleted and their desperation is growing. If, as has been said, disillusionment is the offspring of an illusion, many Albanians are concluding that their hope was nothing but a fantasy. Daily, the hard gaze of despair looks back to us from the faces of our Albanian friends.  Sometimes, it shines from behind proud teeth, as a sarcastic smirk with upturned lips and wild eyes; at other times, it comes in tearful, fearful eyes, as the vulnerable and no-longer-proud plead, without words, for help. Our purpose in Athens is to be the presence of Christ. We want to so live and serve among these good people that the reality of the substantive and genuine hope that is found in Jesus comes across as more than just one more daydream or one more marketing scheme. If hope can be audacious, it can also be elusive, especially for Albanians in Athens!