Olympic ticket scalpers approached a group of women in a restaurant in Athens, Greece, as they ate supper. Through the men’s conversation it didn’t take long for the women to figure out their purpose.
The women’s purpose, however, led the conversation into a lengthy discussion that planted seeds of the gospel in a nonthreatening, lifestyle approach.
“It was amazing how they turned that conversation around to get them to think about deeper things,” said Melody conversation with a Greek man in Athens, Greece. Maxwell, student ministry associate with the national Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU).
She co-led a team of six college students in Athens as the WMU’s first collegiate women’s ministry team under Missions Interchange (MI), a program of WMU. MI was developed by WMU to offer college women a place to learn about being Christ’s followers and participate in missions and ministries on campus, in communities and around the world. Another WMU program, International Initiatives, was the catalyst through which the Greece trip occurred.
The women competed for the attention of the world in the vast city of Athens, talking with shop- keepers, beachgoers, athletes and tourists, according to Maxwell, a member of Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, Birmingham.
During their 12 days of ministry they talked face-to-face with people from 30 different countries. They also conducted ministry events, including making balloon animals and doing face-painting in public parks — all to share the message of Christ.
Structured time for ministry events was one component of multifaceted ministry, explained Kym Mitchell, design editor and team leader for the student resource team of WMU.
“They took the challenge we gave them to look beyond structured ministry times to talk to people,” she said. “They far surpassed what we ever dreamed they would do.”
The six students had not met before but were open with one another and quickly bonded to begin their whirlwind tour of ministry in Greece, Mitchell said.
“The openness with which people related to each other opened doors for us to have the same openness related to ministry,” she noted. “We don’t assume people will stop to hear what we have to say, but people are more open than we believe.”
Mitchell, a member of Shades Crest Baptist Church, Birmingham, said the day before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, the team had a devotional on Mars Hill and visited the Acropolis, where preparations were under way for an Olympic flame.
Influence multiplied
Their first ministry time was that night at Omonia Square, just a short distance from the main Olympic complex. “After the ministry was over that night we sat down and realized we had talked with people from 18 different countries — just at that one event,” Mitchell said.
But Olympic ministry began even before they touched ground in Greece, Mitchell noted. During a two-hour leg of their flight, which was routed through Bucharest, Hungary, they engaged in conversation with some of the Romanian Olympic team, who boarded the plane.
The WMU student team was among numerous evangelical groups ministering under the banner of “More than Gold” during the Olympics.
The True Love Waits (TLW) campaign founded by LifeWay Christian Resources, challenged youth of the world to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. The group hosted an Aug. 22 rally at Dora Stratou Theatre, located on a hill adjacent to the Acropolis. Filling the hills were Christian music, testimonies and a display of more than 460,000 abstinence pledge cards from around the world, which were prayed over. The event, held in cooperation with Lay Witnesses for Christ International, featured Carl Lewis, one of the greatest Olympians of the 20th century.
Jimmy Hester, director of student ministry with LifeWay and co-founder of TLW, said, “I believe the diversity of countries from where we’ve received either cards or words of commitments made shows the global scope of True Love Waits.”
More than 500 International Mission Board (IMB) volunteers also greeted athletes and spectators at welcome centers in Greece, offering a cool place to rest, to talk and receive packets that include the message of Christ. They also engaged in creative arts ministries and personal street and cafe evangelism — Greeks typically linger over meals for conversation, creating an environment for personal evangelism.
Working closely with the IMB, the International Sports Federation, based in Atlanta, organized recreational sports camps throughout Greece for non- Olympic athletes. The more than 30 members of the team, ranging in age from 17–73, also provided IMB missionaries names and numbers for follow-up after the grandeur of the Olympics has passed.
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