Hello once again from Romania! After much travel and rest, we are back in Draganesti-Olt and starting our ministry here (more on that later).
You may have seen the #11n11 logo plastered on World Race pages or gear – 11 countries in 11 months. But my squad could now use #12n11 as our motto, after spending last week being the very first World Race squad to ever do ministry work in Greece.
I shared in my last post about how much of a blessing it is to be sharing this journey with my team while I’m so far from home, but I’ve been thinking a lot in these past few days about how much I was blessed by our ministry opportunities as well.
I didn’t leave Thessaloniki feeling this way.
I left feeling like I personally had made an impact on the last day, and that day only. I left feeling like other people had done such a better job, or a more important job, than me.
We all met at the church together in the afternoons to sing and pray for an hour, then (on two of the three days) met another contact for a prayer walk (led by a twin of Patrick Stewart). We had a short break for dinner before heading to our ministry group.
I was most impressed by the “unsung heroes” group. In World Race lingo, the Unsung Heroes are the people that allow the Holy Spirit to lead them to new contacts. Last month, one team spent their entire month with no plans, no places to stay, no contacts besides the ones that the Lord provided. In Greece, this group started off with not much more than this and ended the week having made connections with several ministries, including a pastor who had been praying for 2 years for God to send help to his church.
Wow.
Another group went to a park to spend times with the families there; a third to a nearby basketball court to play a game with whoever came by. A small group actually went to work with the pastor of a nearby Nigerian church. And my group went to sing and evangelize at the White Tower, both a tourist destination and an area where the locals hang out or stroll along the boulevard next to the sea.
At this point, my question in thinking about ministry was: what will I do?
But our “doing” in Thessaloniki kept getting interrupted. It was interrupted by rain, it was interrupted by a wave of sickness that hit our squad, it was interrupted by the touristy distractions of the city.
It drove me crazy.
Now, though, I appreciate that this was my first evangelizing ministry experience (compared to the working mission trips I’ve been on previously).
Now, instead of feeling frustrated that we didn’t hit every destination on our prayer walk, I appreciate the depth of prayer that covered the places we visited. Now, instead of feeling intimidated by approaching people on the street, I know that we can use singing to draw people into conversation.
Now, I hope I have a more encompassing view of what ministry is.
