Final month in Greece!

Our last month on the field we got to spend in Greece! I know, what a dream, really gotta pull people’s leg to get ‘em to go. It’s kind of like saying the Bahamas need missionaries, is anyone willing to go? Everyone would jump on that hahaha. 

 

It was truly beautiful and incredible, and also I think it might have been the hardest spiritual mission field we encountered. We started with a few days in Athens and got to celebrate my birthday there! As we would walk around town, you can feel a heaviness. Athens has a port and it’s accessible by boat, train, or plane. It moves tons of people in and out all the time and tons of tourists flood in. In all this movement, it’s a hub for human trafficking. It’s also a place where a lot of Syrian and Afghan refugees come to stay, and unfortunately the vulnerable position of being a refugee often gets exploited by those with bad intentions. 

 

Our ministry placement was Atl for the month. Atl means “Ask the Lord”. That’s right, we had no actual place we knew to go. We had a budget that wouldn’t make it in Greece during the off season, but especially wouldn’t make it during the peak season that we were in. We didn’t know where to go, what to do, how to do it, it was all up to God and what He wanted for us. 

 

My team prayed and got different things. Not opposing, just different. I kept seeing this vision of a worn woman in a red dress that was tattered and I knew it had something to do with trafficking. I also kept hearing “Turkish quarter”. And I was specifically drawn to pray Acts 4:29-31 over our month, that’s what I assumed we were going to be walking in. 

 Acts 4:29–31 29 And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Fast forward a day and we’re all still praying and sending out messages to Airbnb hosts asking crazy low rates to fit our budget. We got a lot of no’s and a lot of almost in budget but not quite.

 

Some of my squadmates met a girl that came to our hostel who was an Afghan refugee that had been trafficked by a man who claimed to love her and want to help her. She had just broken free from that after 3 years of being in it. She had no clothes except the ones on her back, no documents, and no clue what to do. 

 

My friend Steph made a connection with her and got to pray with her and it was incredible. We gave her the clothes we didn’t need and any bags or extra things we could do without. Our friend Jacob who we met in Romania had a connection with an organization in Greece that Steph took the girl to, and by the end of the month she had was able to file for asylum and had all the paperwork being processed. God is good!! 

 

But was that what my whole month was for? Was that all I was supposed to pray for and was she my mission even though I only saw her for a few hours? I didn’t know. But it felt like God had answered at least part of what He had given me for the month. 

 

An Airbnb host finally messaged us back within our budget and off we went to koronos, Naxos. I’m gonna be honest, I was still confused. Yes, the place was beautiful and we had so very many confirmations that we were supposed to be there (read about that in Dana’s blog here), but was I really doing what God wanted me to do? Was He following up with what He had given me? Was I living out Acts 4, and living up to what He had called me to? 

 

I struggled for the first several days. I didn’t feel like I was doing enough, or anything at all. I was confused if I was hearing God correctly, the whole thing. Didn’t expect that in month 11 of the race, but I think it’s common whenever we ask God what to do and let Him direct our steps. 

 

You see, atl that I have done in my life had never looked like this to me. It had never looked like pouring into conversations over and over and just hoping and waiting for the chance to mention Jesus. It had never looked like making my teammates my ministry and supporting them in their dreams when they wanted to hike hours to the sea, or go to the cafe wayyyy past my bedtime. It hadn’t looked like this. Or I thought it hadn’t, till I realized that these are in fact things that happen all the time in my life, I just haven’t been putting the language of atl on it. 

 

God is so much more interested in you loving the person in front of you than anything to do with living up to expectations of what you thought you were “supposed to do”. 

 

After I settled into that realization it was a lot easier and less stressful. I helped with the kids at a school (there were only 8 cause the village was so small), we were hanging out with the locals all the time talking to them about their lives and the Lord and loving whoever was in the village. 

 

I still don’t know what Turkish quarter was about, I don’t know if I filled what God gave me, but I do know I experienced His goodness and His love and got to share that with other people, so in my book I’m counting it as a win. 

 

This is my encouragement that God loves you and if you’re loving Him and loving the person in front of you, that’s what ministry is!