I can barely believe it but I am writing to you from Greece! How did I get here you ask? Well, let me tell you… God definitely had some surprises up his sleeve!
We left Albania on June 27th and bussed to the capital city of Macedonia for month 6 debrief! Debrief was four days long where we got to catch up with the rest of our squad mates, worship together, have one-on-ones with leadership and our squad coaches, Kerry and Toni (more like squad parents), and meet as a team to debrief the last two months. We also get time to do whatever we need to fill ourselves up, whether that’s relaxing, exploring the city of Skopje or spending time with the Lord.
Before going into debrief, we found out that five out of the seven teams that currently make up S squad were going to be having ATL ministry for month 7. The other two teams had assigned ministries (like usual) in Macedonia. Adventures in Missions only has 2 active World Race ministry hosts in Macedonia at this time so the rest of the teams don’t have a ministry host or assigned ministry.
No problem! ATL stands for “ask the Lord.” God still speaks! He is a living God but He’s also a Father and wants a relationship with each of His children. So of course He’s going to speak to us if we cut out the distractions, quiet ourselves (easier said than done!) and ask Him! So, ATL month sets World Race teams up to be able to just ask the Lord what He wants us to do and where He wants us to go and our job is to listen and obey!
The cool thing about ATL ministry is that it’s great practice for going back home to America and living every day life with the Lord’s direction in mind all the time. That is how Christians can and should live their daily lives: being sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s guidance. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit led people (like, Jesus!) into the wilderness and to specific cities or people groups (and even telling people to avoid certain places). Because God is alive and is the same yesterday, today and forever, that means He still speaks to people in the same ways!
We had time set aside at debrief for every team to pray and ask the Lord what He wanted this next month of ministry to look like.
Each one on our team got a different word, idea, or picture from the Lord. I’m still practicing hearing from God in this way. A lot of the time I doubt myself, but the more I practice, I get more confident in just the act alone, not even the result. But its always really cool to get feedback from someone with confirmation that it was from the Lord and not just from my own mind.
One thing that a lot of us had on our hearts were the refugees in this area. I mean, Greece is right across the Macedonia’s southern border and we’ve been hearing about the refugee crisis for years. We believe that the Lord puts passions in our hearts for a reason. So paired with tourist outreach/ministry and other things we got from the Lord, like visions of water, “consumerism”, and “displaced” we researched places in Greece.
After much research and AirBnBs not working out, we have arrived in Thessaloniki!! It was about a 3 hour train ride and a 1 hour bus ride (and a long time waiting in traffic at the border) from Skopje (the capital of Macedonia). God led us to a Christian-owned guesthouse/hostel called Jason’s Place.
The hostel is named after the first Christian in Thessalonica mentioned in Acts 17:5-9 and Romans 16:21. His house was used as a refuge for Paul, Timothy, and Silas. Non-believing Jews stirred up a riot in the city and had Jason arrested and thrown in jail because he was housing the apostles and the authorities were trying (and failing) to find Paul and Silas.
The owners of the hostel wanted to open a place of hospitality and refuge for travelers like what Jason in the Bible did. How cool! Also, apparently Jason’s Place used to house World Race teams (and whole squads) in the past! I have no idea how we got connected with this place but God definitely had his hand in it (of course). Through this hostel, we are connected with a couple different ministries we can choose to partake in during the week, one of them being a refugee center on Tuesdays and Thursdays! We can help cook and prepare food to hand out, organize and hand out clothing, teach English if we want, and other things! Hopefully we can start tomorrow.
The other days we are going to do our own thing. I might go to some of the historical sites and try to meet some tourists. On Sundays after church we want to make sandwiches and find homeless people talk to and give them out to.
This month is whatever we want it to look like! We really just want to build relationships and share about our faith in Jesus and disciple anyone who needs encouragement in their faith. We could be talking to a Greek who’s Greek Orthodox, an American tourist who’s atheist or a Syrian refugee who’s Muslim. It is so exciting to not really have any plans and see who God puts in our path!
We are living at the hostel with another team from our squad and our married couple squad leaders, Krystal and Eric! Krystal and Eric are joining our team for the month and we are so excited to have them because they are the best (check out their blog that is linked above)!
Please be praying for the other teams doing ATL month! One team is going to Athens, Greece, one team is going to the fairly new country of Kosovo, and one team is staying in Macedonia near the well-known Lake Ohrid. Please pray that we stay focused on what God called us to do in each one of these places. Please pray that we don’t miss any opportunities to share the Gospel or just love on someone. Please pray for discernment, that the Holy Spirit helps us discern God’s will and identify situations we should participate in and ones we should stay away from.
Thank you so much for your continued prayers, love, and support on my World Race journey! Every comment or email is so heart-warming and every prayer is felt!
Note: I will not be on social media this month. So all my updates and pictures will be posted here, on my blog, for the month of July.
