Peppy music blared from the neon flashing speaker as members of the local Greek evangelical church walked up the cobblestone road waving. They called to residents sitting on their balconies to meet them at the park in this Athens, Greece, neighborhood.
Mixed in with the lively procession were seven volunteers from Germany. They laughed nervously, feeling self-conscious with everyone peering out windows and stopping on the street to watch. They’d never do something like this back home in Frankfurt, Germany. But as a short-term missions team, they’d prepared to work outside of their comfort zones to share the gospel and partner with this Greek church. So, they embraced the experience.
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The group of seven were the first missions team sent from a church in Germany that International Mission Board workers Kelly and Janice Seely helped start years ago. They now work with European churches to help them see what it means for a church to be involved in long-term missions.
“One of the biggest ways to encourage healthy missional relationships in your own city is to partner with people in another city and engage alongside them in sharing the gospel,” Kelly explained. “These volunteer teams bring back to their church practical knowledge of cross-cultural evangelism and what it takes to enter a ministry all the way through to exit to partnership.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Sue Sprenkle and originally published by the International Mission Board.
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