News from Greece

It's Saturday 20th July and we're on our fifth full day of the mission trip to the Greek Island of Paros. We're a team of 18 in total including 8 of us from Emmanuel and the aim of our trip is to make friends with people we meet on the campsite where we're staying and on the beach and share the good news of the gospel over the course of our time here. Highlights so far have included.....

- Visiting the Aeropagus in the ancient part of Athens, before we came over to the Island, the place where Paul preached a famous sermon recorded for us in Acts chapter 17. 

- An evangelistic bbq on the evening of Thursday 18th with a short talk and lots of good conversations afterwards. 

- We've been studying Mark's gospel as a team in the mornings which has been great food for the soul..! Our take home point from this morrning, Mark 8:36....'What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?'

- Afternoons on the beach meeting people over a game of volleyball and other games, doing questionnaires and talking to people about Jesus. 

Thanks so much for your prayers, it'd be great to pray for the following over the next couple of days....

- Another evangelistic bbq tomorrow night (Sun 21st), for lots of people to come, for more good conversations afterwards and perhaps the chance to open up the Bible with people. 

- For courage and energy for our last few days of the trip. 

Team from Emmanuel: Ellie Maffett, Ed Houghton, Ben Heasman, Susan Burberry, Beth Roberts, Harriet Usbourne, Joshua Kinderman 

Is two weeks on a Greek island really “mission” work?!?

On 10^th July 2012, having set our alarm clocks for a painfully early hour, 5 of us from Emmanuel Westbury flew out to Athens to join the Paros summer mission trip 2012. The other members of our team were Jonathan Clark (our Emmanuel mission partner), an English girl, a French girl, two Greek chaps and a German.

We took the boat to the Island of Paros and stayed at a campsite near the town of Parikia for 10 days. The aim of the trip was to reach tourists on the Island with the good news of Jesus. Therefore, in everything we did, we were trying to be outward looking and sociable.  We made quite a few contacts on the beach playing volleyball or beach cricket, others we got to know over dinner and others whilst just chatting at the campsite. The key parts to the day were our group Bible study in the morning working our way through Mark’s gospel, afternoons on the beach playing games and getting to know people and an evangelistic bible study in a beach café at 6.30.

Our prayer before we left was that the Lord might give us a few individuals whom we could get to know and share the gospel with and it was great to see him answer that prayer! We met lots of people during our time but two that we want to particularly remember and pray for are a couple of Danish guys called Jonathan and Morten. We got to know them quite well and during our second look at Mark’s gospel together they both said that they understood it in their head but not in the heart – do pray for them!

As the trip went on we realized it wasn’t all peaches and cream however as the general wear and tear of an evangelistic beach holiday began to set in. A couple of afternoons of beach questionair-ing provoked some fairly hostile responses. Sun burnt shoulders, injured feet, mosquito bites, water stuck in ears and 35 degree heat were also at times a bit of a pain! On the whole it was a privilege to serve the Lord in this way and He provided a good number of opportunities for us to tell people the best and most important news they could ever hear! Could you be there on the mission trip to Paros 2013?