Over the last 3 weeks, we have gotten to interact with lots of people around the city of Thessaloniki. It’s been so fun getting creative with the ways we reach out & build relationships with people.
Handing out cold water bottles on an extremely hot day.
Going to coffee shops & journaling prayers over the waiters as well as customers who come in & out.
Prayer over the city.
Consistently going to the same coffee shops in order to build relationships with waiters & staff.
Buying someone’s meal/coffee leaving before they knew it had been paid for
Public worship in the square, proclaiming the name of JESUS over the city
My favorite day so far has been the day we got to hand out flowers to various women throughout the city with notes in Greek saying: “This flower is from Jesus. He loves you & sees you.” During our morning prayer time, we all got various ideas as to whom we felt led to give our flowers to:
Moms with children
Elderly women
Homeless women
Women who hand out flyers on the street
A woman whose job is to pick up trash around the city
Women we had established relationships already
Although, some of the women didnt want the flowers because they had their hands full or they didn’t understand that it was free. You see, its not common for people to go around giving out free things. The Greeks expect to have to do or give something in return.
Most of the women did become less skeptical after they read the note. The smiles that came across their faces was the best! I cant even explain how wonderful it was to see their somber, guarded faces become relaxed and filled with joy!
On Wednesday evening we stood with posters in the square that said: “Write what you are thankful for today?”
We recognized how easy it easy for us to get caught up in the busyness of life or in everything thats not going the way that we want it to go. So we decided to allow space for people to stop & reflect on something they were thankful for that day. It also opened the door for us to have conversations with people in a non-intimidating way. 🙂
We were blown away at the response we got! We had people from all over the world come write something. People from Greece, Ukraine, Germany, France, Serbia, Israel, Cyprus, Syria, Algeria, Romania, Pakistan, Russia, and even our good ole U.S. of A!
(no, we did not gain an eighth member to our team. We got photo bombed… )
Some of the things people wrote:
-Being alive
– Family
-Health
-Laughter
-Education
-For meeting us
-Syrian people and american people coming together as one
-Not being hungry today
-Cousins coming to visit they haven’t seen in 2 years
-Boyfriend/Girlfriend
-The beautiful weather
Hope yall enjoyed this tiny glimpse of what this month has been like for us! 🙂
