Pioneering the new land of Greece was our purpose for our trip. We were the first World Race squad to ever do ministry in Greece. How incredible?! We had an awesome time exploring the country a bit and then diving head first into local ministry.
We were able tour 2 towns, or beaches while we were there—one word: GORGEOUS!
However, that was not the best part of our trip. The best part of my journey to Greece was being a member of the Unsung Heroes team. Unsung Heroes, UH, is a ministry within the World Race. We simply pray and seek out new partners for future Racers to spend the month with. This time, we were not only searching for the Race, we were helping our Romanian host, Pastor Raul, to find new connections in Greece so that the vision for ministry out of Hope Church can be expanded! Hope Church is based in Romania, where we’re currently stationed. It is a hub for all sorts of ministry. Pastor Raul and his church have a vision to spread God’s love to all the Balkans. I think it’s incredible!
So, for our 4 days of ministry, I was a member of the UH team. This was a challenge for me. You have no direct plan or instruction, at least at first you don’t. You have to solely rely on what the Lord tells you. Only 1 of our 5 teammates had ever had an experience with UH. So, truly none of us knew what was going to happen.
Like every good thing, we started out with prayer. All we knew to ask was, “Lord, who is out there waiting for this opportunity? Who do we need to speak to? Who is ready for a team to help further their vision?” We listened to what the Lord had to say and then collaborated all of what we heard into one list. It was a CRAZY list; from letters to colors to pictures of people to batman to places. It was kind of funny, actually. We later learned that the Lord has an incredible imagination and He put us on this team for a reason.
Our first night, after our initial prayer, we found ourselves walking along the beautiful pier just waiting for our hearts to tug at something, anything. Low and behold, we ended up at Starbucks! No, this was not my fleshly desire to have a semi-American cup of joe! This was real! Once we got inside, the pastor from the church we were staying with was there with his wife. Pastor Mike and Mrs. Maria had just partnered with Hope Church and now there were 44 Americans and 2 Dutchmen living at their church! We at down with them and Pastor Mike spoke about his vision and his wife spoke about other possibilities just around the corner for us. And they, too, wish to have a team of Racers come in the future! We made a plan to meet with them the next day. I was so surprised at this! We started with nothing, now we have a meeting (with someone who found us) in order for them to show us new contacts, new ministries for us to potentially partner with. How awesome?!
While meeting with Pastor Mike and Mrs. Maria, we were lead to this super cool coffee shop called iHeart. It’s a coffee shop purely for university students to come and build relationships with people who genuinely care about them. It was super duper cool! Also, while with this power couple, I was able to connect with Mrs. Maria. I loved talking to her and listening to her. She has such spunk! She is definitely my kind of woman! She’s joyful, glamorous, friendly, outgoing, a go-getter, and she loves Jesus. How much better could it get?
At the conclusion of this meeting, we had 4 or 5 leads to new people to get in touch with. Just the night before, we had nothing but a crazy list! Now, we have 6 potential partners? Crazy. God crazy.
Our first plan of action was to go with Pastor Mike to Berea, Greece. Yep, Berea, another place where Paul went! It was such an incredible experience for us. We met Pastor Nicos there. He is the pastor of a Pentecostal church. One of his ministries is with a Jewish synagogue. This synagogue is not a functioning house of worship, by that I mean there are no practicing Jews there. The building itself is incredible! The ministry that Pastor Nicos does is simply opening up his church for people to use the bathroom. People come from all over to see this specific synagogue. It’s been around for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. It’s supposedly built on top of the same synagogue that Paul taught in so many years ago. How cool?! Anyways, while we were touring this synagogue, we met an awesome tour guide, Eva. She knew so much about the Bible and the history of this building, but didn’t believe in Jesus. It definitely broke our hearts to speak to her about Christ and her not accept it. But, we are all believing that the Lord is doing something incredible in her life. So, pray for her too!
While in Berea, we were walking down the street back to our car, and again, a man found us! Even crazier, he was wearing a green shirt, which is a color one of us saw while praying. Crazy! His name was George. He has a church in Greece and wants us to come see him in the future. Wow!
Now, back to Pastor Nicos, he wanted to show us a piece of property he had that future Racers could possibly stay. I honestly was a little concerned as to where we were being taken and what kind of tenting we were signing up for. We were all so pleasantly surprised by what and where we were taken to. It was like a modern day Garden of Eden! It was beautiful and had almost every type of fruit tree or bush imaginable. Pastor Nicos went and picked tons of figs and grapes for us to have—DELICIOUS! We soon met his family and they served us lunch and a homemade dessert! We learned that they have been praying for two years, yep TWO YEARS, for us. US! It was crazy…which seems to be a common word for this experience…
After this, we talked for a while and laughed a lot. We agreed that this church was a place we wanted to be a part of. I truly believe that Hope Church will partner with them and future Racers will have a phenomenal time ministering in Greece.
This was my hidden treasure. Not the Garden of Eden, iHeart, or even sweet Mrs. Maria, but the chance to seek out and experience exactly what He wanted me to. Finding such jewels to help unite and spread His love was something that I’ll never forget.
All in all, we serve a mighty God who is on time. I came into this experience of UH not knowing what to expect. I was amazed that literally out of nowhere our team was able to find such incredible people with a huge passion for spreading His love all over Greece. All thanks to God, that is.
This is just a taste of what the Lord is showing me on this Race. I can hardly wait to see what’s next.
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