The home of Barnabas and a destination for several of Paul’s missionary journeys—welcome to Cyprus—a beautiful island tucked in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.
We left Morocco last Thursday and arrived here Friday afternoon after a lovely layover in London. Before coming to Cyprus, we were told that we had a host who we would be staying and working with in Southern Cyprus. While in London on our layover, we received an email that the plans with our host had fallen through. This meant we would land in Cyprus with no where to stay or go. Several teammates quickly sprung into action and started looking for airbnbs, but nothing was available until the next day.
Through a series of events, we stayed with another team that first night that had a host and housing for the month. Before going to bed that night, I looked up more airbnbs and finally found one that would work for our team. I emailed the owner and sent a request and then went straight to bed. The next day I woke up to see if the owner had replied—and she hadn’t. This meant that we still had no housing. And staying with the other team was no longer an option for us. We decided to go ahead and take a bus to the city God had put on our hearts even though we had no housing lined up. About 15 minutes before we left to catch the bus, the owner emailed me back and said we could rent her airbnb! (If you watch my friend’s live video that I posted in my FB page, you can see this happen in real time.) Once we got to the city and met the owner of our airbnb, she told me that she hadn’t checked her email in two weeks and that she even missed a client during that time. But, for some reason, she checked her email that day and saw my request. God is so good!
So yesterday we arrived in this beautiful city in Cyprus. We have housing here for a week, but the cost is too much for us to stay here for the whole month. And as far as ministry goes, the other team’s host gave us lots of contacts and organizations to meet with in this city, but we didn’t have anything set in stone for the month.
Today, we found an international evangelical church to go to. And let me just say—going to church was amazing. I loved being in Morocco, but the city we were staying in did not have an evangelical church. I am realizing that the ability to worship corporately is a privilege and not something that should be taken for granted.
At this church today, we had the opportunity to meet new people and learn about how the church is already working here in this community. The church has a program called AfterHours that works with the youth in this city and there is also a women’s ministry program that works with women refugees. These programs are all ways that we can get involved in during our time here and be part of. And not only that—we met a man who decided to open his home to us for the last two weeks that we are here in Cyprus! Oh, and while all this is happening, God also provided a location for our debrief at the end of the month! (Which, as logistics, is one of my jobs to find.)
Getting here was not easy and there seemed to be so many obstacles and things preventing us from getting here. Yet God has been so good and so faithful and has opened many doors for us here. Please be in prayer for our team and for the church that we are partnering with and the people we will be working with. Love you all and I am so thankful you are on this journey with me!
