Operation Joshua

Operation Joshua 5 || July 17-25 2012 || Alexandroupolis, Greece 

Eleven girls, one guy, in a van and a car headed out to Northeastern Greece for a one week marathon of distributing New Testament Bibles to every household we could find across the major cities of Alexandroupolis, Xanthi, Komotini and the surrounding areas. Operation Joshua, put on by Hellenic Ministries, has gone on for the fifth time as of a couple days ago and what an experience it was! Let's be honest, a year ago I would have scoffed at the idea of taking "religious material" door to door and promoting my God. But we all know a lot has happened since then and my love for God is so great, why the heck wouldn't I run with the good news of the Gospel and a relationship with Jesus?
We were camping for the week long stay, which I guess Greeks do a little differently here. Nonetheless, we were at a beach-camping-park! Yay for devotional time with Jesus by the sea shore! 


The most intimate part of this daily distribution that built up my faith was repetition: Jesus, come into this place, reveal Yourself to this family, Lord give them peace, honor, joy, God break off the chains of disparity, bring blessings to this family, let Your truth be known, I pray the Blood of the Lamb over this doorway…For anywhere between 6-10 hours a day I was proclaiming and promoting the Gospel in silent or murmured prayers over hundreds of people--every day! And in the car between villages, city blocks or elevation changes we read the truth of God in our car or sang worship songs. Lets just say it was GLORIOUS (remember, a new favorite word, it hasn't faded yet!)



Unfortunately I was not with my team of wondrous women that are my teammates for outreach for the Bible distribution part of the day, which was like 87% of the day. There was a lot of switching around and though for the most part people got to stay with the team members they came with from their respective teams from TWENTY TWO NATIONS (probably closer to 30 with the organization's staff) but because they had to get a Greek-speaker in every car there was some fandangling that happened. BUT, HOWEVER, WAIT A MINUTE: it was a joy! I did miss my teammates dearly and there was a lot of memories made without me, but if you know me at all you know I LOVE to meet new people. 


Athina is from Catarini, Lois is from Cyprus which is NOT Greece, but they speak Greek, and Deborah is from Florida. They were wonderfully fun and we all worked really well 
together. I definitely played the peacemaker of sorts between two young-at-heart girls and a motherly-figure with my oh-so-wise-nature. But it was fun to have adult conversations with an American English speaker, this doesn't happen often as our oldest teammate is only a year older, but also really fun to goof off with some young-spirited girls.
We went to several villages over the course of 6 days, 7 for some. 






DAY 1: MegaPisto,Chamiló, and Linos were villages on our list. Another car/team had done Chamilo and Linos but we spent time driving to them and checking. Communicating with pay-as-you-go cell phones to folks from a ll around the world, navigating in unknown territory definitely challenges direct verbal communication; i.e. they didn't and we covered a lot of ground to find we did not have more distributing to do.
DAY 2: Skalomá, Darmeni, Agra
DAY 3: Melia: 39 Bibles, Koila 12 Bibles instead of the listed 4, Itea about 45 Bibles; Thimilia--not sure how many.
DAY 4: Xanthi, a urban/rural border we passed out 174 Bibles and then moved to help in the urban center where we passed out about 450 Bibles. This took forever and the zone was not well covered by enough teams. It was a really fun time at dinner at midnight afterwards with our "buddy car" but it was the longest day!! It was very challenging but we persevered through the most discouraging feelings of exhaustion and redundancy, boredom nearly, but apartment lobby doors were consistently unlocked and doors were open to hang them on door knobs…so we knew that God was still working for us :)
DAY 5: Was a half day to serve as a sabbath of sorts, to rest and restore. My team was half new folks because Lois and Athina headed home, so we got Vangelis and Harrah. We were assigned the section across the street from our camping grounds so not only did we only have about 1.5 hours work but we were about a 3 minute drive from "home." Then we took the trouble to walk to the back end of the camp grounds to go to the beach….sometimes, being a missionary in the Mediterranean is rough, but someone's gotta do it. 
DAY 6: In a 
new car today, Lynn from New Zealand and I had MIA driversso we got paired with a different Vangelis, he's from Boston, and his friend Costas. This was a fun day! We were relaxed and only ended up with 1.02343 villages because a team came to help out--as we were waiting for them to meet us at the gas station they were actually getting started and had finished placing Bibles on door knobs and fence posts by the time we realized they expected us in-situ. We then headed up through Xanthi north west of our area to bring more Bilbes to another team. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL drive! Hills and trees, reminded me a lot of California!DAY 7: Some teams went out to finish up the remainder of the Bibles but the rest of us had a morning session of prayer for each other and the villages/urbanites that received their New Testaments, for the politics of Greek Orthodoxy and the drivers out, things like that.  



Day 8: We ate breakfast, tore down tents, said some goodbyes and exchanged Facebook information and headed back to Philipi on our way home. Oh yea buddy, thats right, we got to visit the ruins of Philipi where the book of Phillipians was written to their local church--we even saw a prison cell where the Apostle Paul was kept at one point or another.

We got seriously lost up in the hills between villages--we had just left the opposite end to the way we came of the last village and were headed on to the next. We were following the last sign we saw and reached a gravel beginning to what became somewhat like off-roading I do with my family. Except we were in a squatty Nissan with really crap horsepower. Anyway it was a really frustrating adventure for our driver who doesn't have a family that goes off-roading and we were in no sight of any other village let alone the one we needed to reach. We came to a fork in the road and prayed to ask which way--we went right against the sense we should head left. Why? Because we're human and think we know better. We marked it in our minds as a landmark to come back to in case we found no avail to the right. We didn't, came back and as I had just prayed for a local villager to be able to help us I looked up and from above on the adjacent hill I saw a cloud of dust trailing a speeding car. PERFECT. We asked for directions and they ended up not being very helpful, directly that is. We decided to just head back to the previous village and from there find the main highway-ish road and go the long way. Yet, somehow as we navigated nearly perfectly back tracking we found ourselves descending into a valley with civilization ahead! And guess which village we stumbled upon?? ITEA, the one we needed!!


At the center of town we met Glory and she was serving frappes to the local chess-playing men--such a Greek thing. She was so lovely and after explaining what we were doing gave us canned Lipton Lemon and then in further conversation insisted we take an ice cream. I hate when that happens. It turned out she has a sister in Florida about 2 hours away from my driver, Deb, and they will hopefully get in touch when she returns to the states. It was so wonderful and her hospitality was almost offensive--I would have never treated someone with that much kindness and welcome them into my home and business the way she did. She prayed blessings over us and we were thus welcome in the village to finish our job and get Bibles out to everyone. The men read their New Testaments in the shade of the opposite building, drinking their frappes. They also let us take lots of photos of them.
Being without my team for the majority of the time was not out of my comfort or character, but I am realizing that it is indeed a job of effort to constantly meet new people, have to stand firm in my ways of positivity and drive my day towards God. New company outside of my bubble of YWAMers and PhotogenXers will be that same effort. But Deb my driver and I shared tears over the compassion and encouragement I gave her. I did not realize that the strength it took to keep positive and reassure her in her frustration at street signs and maps that don't make sense, in the areas of self-doubt as a leader and driver for a team and things of more personal nature was so worth it. It was her first experience out of the country and for myself I was completely okay with the fact that things were not going to be easy or perfect and that I could rely on our translators. She assured me I saved her from quitting and that I kept her encouraged enough to finish the distribution. I cried because it is never easy to carry someone's burdens like that or be that light of joy and positivity if there are not others walking in the same direction. I continue to do it but I was reminded of the purpose and effect just in the time I was beginning to think of just doing what everyone else does. 


Some villages were Muslim Turkish villages--I wish you could have experienced it!! They were normal people, they DID NOT wear turbans, nor did they speak violently or angrily at us. They were decent and kind, they looked like country bumpkins you'd see in any other Greek village and some of them were nicer than most Christians I know from the states. I say this to challenge your idea of Muslim folk and to have to fight that inner-battle for your perceptions of them. I do not say this to get into global politics or say anything about a war or nullify the scale of Islam in the world today. So, lets move on. 




We came across legit shepards of sheep and goats, a man sowing fertilizer with a giant boom-sprinkler in the background; several sunflower fields as sunflower oil is a popular cooking oil; dogs are abundant and accompanied us along the streets of villages; ice cream cones, bars and cups were a plenty; we made many u-turns and had lots of laughs, those crying-kind-of-laughs.








We were blessed in abundant food, we slept in tents with air-matresses and it was so fresh and breezy at night--so fresh I am actually just finishing out a cold, but it was such a delightful rest from the 24/7 sweat-box we have in Thessaloniki. Coming back to the city was fond and I was excited to see our buses and street. We are ever-more-focused and have a media project in mind. GET READY! It probably won't be done until the end of outreach, but get excited!!
I love you all!! I do have some needs and if you're interested in praying about them or lending a hand get in touch with my via email or Facebook :) 


HOW CAN I PRAY FOR YOU??
THANKS FOR READING MY EPICALLY LONG STORY. 

Sorting Out My Differences

I try to treat my blog more like a journal, mostly because I like to think I'm a pretty open book but also because I want y'all to know my real experiences, not just the bullet points.

I go back and forth about how content or confident I am in my INDIVIDUALISM. I have this fiery, world-changer brewing inside of me [I miss beer (brewing, get it?) but to nip in the butt all possible troubles that come with mixing alcohol and ministry, no drinking allowed for this entry program, until we graduate].

The WORLD CHANGER in me wants large scale change, global-level shifts for the better. There is a lot of room for academic digression to explain what that end result is, if its good for all or just my soapbox...but thats another story, for another day.

I got so fired up about this sized ambition and zeal while being in my lecture phase because so many leaders on campus and other organizations were just like me, a student, somewhat resourceless, and they just went for it, leapt for that lofty goal. I guess they just do not walk around with a scarlet letter of their trials.

The back and forth I experience is in relying on the pace of those around me, on their ambitions and zeal and scale. But I learned a huge lesson last night in a family (team) meeting: everyone has a different calling from me, different desires from God and everyone is learning how to go through life through their own lives...What I am getting at is I learned a deeper and broader understanding on what it means to me in the context of others. 


I was getting frustrated in the ministry we are doing, not because it is not good or fruitful or what the Lord has called us to, but because it is challenging the way I think of ministry, for the goals I have for this short time in Greece. God is taking me through the practical and realist processes to growing in His love, developing an understanding of His character and all that goes with that like how to share His love, how to love and disciple others; in general, change. I skipped most of this in my eagerness to reach the end goal of our purposes here in life, the current highlight being "To Make God known"...and I need to continue on the first half of that phrase which is To Know God.

So what was this shift in my frustrations, the topic of family time that blew my mind? This simple plan of action: that each person on our team will be propelled forward in the direction they feel called, and that as teammates and sisters, we will alternate our own time for ministry amongst our ambitions and the others'.

This BLEW MY MIND because for so long I have been searching for a sense of normalcy (similarity) amongst my friends, for validation or just comfort. And friends, I apologize for when, not if, I have projected onto you in any way or amount, my lofty and zealous ambitions. If you liked it, I take the apology back. But really, I am the way I am and if you are nothing like me, WE CAN STILL SUPPORT ONE ANOTHER.  I was frustrated because I was not seeing in my teammates the motivation that I wanted...to see in myself. So I was also shifting a lotta bit of blame. Anyway, I was looking at the wrong prize: my agenda. And, then, BAM, all of a sudden my RIGHTEOUS AND WISE leaders grounded us in a re-strategization. See the paragraph above.

I am so excited for this change in my ability to work with others, understand how the Lord works within the Body of Christ that the Bible talks up and down about, the ability to be at more peace with my teammates (there were no outright conflicts, but you know, I can be more agreeable to them in my heart). WOOOHOOOO Greece, get ready!! You are about to be fronted by the most dynamic team empowered by unity and the Holy Spirit. 

Prayer over This City

Well today is the second Monday in Saloniki. We Started off with some prayers of thankfulness for all that God has given us in our team and in Sophia, our resident tour guide and culture instructor, translator, and the better version of Lonely Planet. 

Thankfulness for safety, protection and provision and all the lessons of seeing that in action. Thankfulness for the openness of the folks we meet on the street. Sophia is a local missionary focusing on open-air evangelism (street-ministry&friend-making like what my team is doing here, how perfect?) and with her perspective I was SOOO encouraged this morning. She sees a very distinct shift in the atmosphere so to say in how people receive what we're doing. 

Usually the reaction is along the lines of 'you're weird', 'you're not speaking truth', 'you must be in a cult'…But they are willing to listen to what we do and say, whether it is just giving away free coffees (frappes) or just making friends and preaching the gospel, sharing our personal testimonies. They are eager to befriend us, especially the guys haha--this world needs revolution in what it is to be a man and if we can disciple them in our ways and that be our ministry, then bring on the men!

Christine, Chelsea and I were in a group as was the rest of the team and we were sent out across the center of town to read aloud 1 & 2 Thessalonians to proclaim what the Lord spoke to Paul once again--and no, we are not the only ones to have done that in the last couple centuries (I keep needing to remember we are building on so much work by God in this place.  So we hopped on a bus heading in the opposite direction of everyone else and came upon a futbol stadium and then hopped off. Tons of people come through here and what a better opportunity to reach many with Spirit that comes with us and goes before us. 

I was praying that there would be a side gate open and we would have Jesus' favor to get inside. I really laugh at myself at the lesson I learn. I try so hard to seek the supernatural workings of the Lord and sometimes, you just gotta walk through the front door. And this is precisely why: the front walk way was open to the public. Perfect! 

We did some reading, praying, sung a couple verse of worship and I collected some trash to help the employee cleaning up the stadium. We met George, a younger guy about 18 and got to tell him where we are from and that we were studying Biblical Studies and Photography. He asked if we hung out somewhere specific and drank beers, this is the usual activity on any night of the week to be out by the shore and hang out at a pub or café. Hopefully we will see him this Thursday at White Tower--our reply to the beer offer was unfortunately a no thanks, but we go to White Tower on Thursdays. Muahaha, if he only knew it was for ministry! 

We also met Demitrius, which the English equivalent is Jim. Makes sense, right? This was a communications lesson for me. We have our schpeal about how we study the Bible and photography and are here to practice and share. But this is too comfortable, and perhaps we just got too comfortable in saying that. It did not communicate nearly at all that we are Christians, followers of Jesus Christ and boldly here to proclaim salvation, heal, and disciple those who are interested in a personal relationship with God their Father. We tried to sneak in, 'can I pray for you' at the end as he rushed off to a possibly false "meeting" with the president of….the fan club? He did not understand why and even as we said we are Christians we had to clarify across the language difference that we believe in Jesus and want to keep him in our prayers for a job and blessings on his life. At this point he understood we were believers and said, "Me too, so we are the same."

It is not enough to speak, but to speak the powerful words of the Bible like proclamations in faith for salvation to be the fruit of the knowledge of Christ. Direct and clear explanations, no holding back on the full understanding I have of God our Father, creator, perfecter, redeemer, forgiver, protector, joy of my life. These are my prayers for this week if you'd so oblige me :)

Reaching for eternity,

Britt

Thessaloniki, Greece: An Introduction

Above: This is the moment I realized I was in another country. A castle-like tower, White Tower, with a Greek flag. Hello, world!

Day 1: Feeling around the city! We got swarmed by street

 vendors. They were very friendly and one asked us to pray 

for him and then they all jumped in! It was wonderful 

to know their hearts and make friends with them.  Hopefully 

we  see them around again soon

This is "The Arch" but I haven't quite learned 

the importance of it. Obviously it was the entrance to something which is now in ruin, but thats all I know so far. I will keep y'all posted as I learn.

So this is a Minarete Tower (spell check?) which is from the Turk's influence post Roman Empire: Muslim effects after Christian reign. 

The ceiling is guilded but the rest of the interior was plain, with two or three rooms to walk into, perhaps for statues or shrines, offerings or priestly things. (do I have a history-buff to fact-check me?) 

This is White Tower again, but at night during our more people-populated ministry. We give out free coffee which always begs the question, "Why would you give away something for free?" Especially in the economic crisis, it is very counter-cultural I'm supposing to give things freely; even more so to really live out God's free love to us. It's wonderful and they feel wonderful in return!

Candles burning in the old Hagia Sofia church building. It was laden with hand-crafted pews, alters, golden chandeliers...before churches were burden with blandness and a duty to humility and taxes they devoted their precious possessions to building with honor to the Lord. Oh, and these candles were likely lit in remembrance for someone slash a specific prayer.

Across the street from Hagia Sofia, just a good shot of architecture in the center of town. Beautiful brick and balconies line most of this city. Ironically, it is what replaced the ruins which were also made of this same color brick...presumably, it of course is now a very faded version of this coloring.