South African Vision Tour

A group of 11 pastors and Christian leaders from South Africa spent the first week in November on a Vision Tour of the HM work in Greece.

Apart from the obligatory visit to tourist sites such as the Acropolis, Museums, Meteora, Philipi, Thessalonikki, Corinth etc., we also got to see aspects of the ministry of HM - the Love Meals, House of Worship, Morning Star, Porto Astro and the Hope Center.

Gary Steyn, the new HM South Africa National Director, shared his own dramatic testimony with the young people at the House of Worship as well with the refugees at the Love Meals. The team also participated in the staff chapel meeting and were treated to a wonderful lunch at the home of Johnathan and Miriam Macris.

The group expressed their appreciation to the HM staff for an eye opening tour as they were challenged to support the work through their prayers, finance and personnel. They now appreciate that Greece is not just a wonderful tourist destination with a glorious cultural history but is a country in desperate need of the gospel.

Submitted by Nico Bougas

Life International Visit October 2011

This past week the Hope Center team had the privilege of hosting Fran & Anne from Life International, an organization that mentors and equips ministries worldwide to uphold the sanctity of human life.

These two women are a wealth of knowledge and resources, and we spent the week gleaning from all their expertise about the opening and running of a maternity home. They also helped us develop our vision plan for other areas of needs under the Hope Center Ministries.

The building itself is nearly completed, however we realize that there is still much groundwork to be done to prepare ourselves fully for all aspects of housing pregnant women.

Please join us in prayer:

· As we seek God’s wisdom and timing for the opening of the home.

· That God will be preparing the hearts of the house parents and house assistant that He wants to live at the house with the girls.

· Regarding finances, we still need funds to complete the building, and then we will need to furnish it as well as providing for monthly operating costs.

God is so good! Looking back we can see God’s hand at work in each step of the process, and we are looking forward with much anticipation to see how God is going to use this ministry to touch and change many lives!

Psalm 32:8 The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.”

Pictures from a Blessed Summer

HM Summer 2011 Recap from Hellenic Ministries on Vimeo.

Pre-Operation Joshua madness!

Operation Joshua 4 starts in 2 (TWO) days!

Almost 100 participants + 130,000 bibles= Bible packing frenzy!
Despite the rising temperatures over 60,000 bibles have already been packed and are ready to go!

See pictures below for a taste of what is happening.

Witnessing during the Carnival

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Eph 5:18

From the 4th to the 6th of March 2011, I visited the city of Patra, where they biggest celebration of the Carnival in Greece took place.

Greece’s Carnival season known as "Apokries" is a period of eating, drinking, dancing, and masquerading for the young and the young in spirit. 
Traditionally, it begins ten weeks before Greek Orthodox Easter and culminates on the weekend before "Clean Monday," (Ash Monday) the first day of Lent.

The roots of Carnival celebrations and customs can be traced back to ancient Greece and are linked to the worship of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and festivity. 

The processions, costuming, and feasting all derive from ancient ceremonies honoring him and other Greek gods and goddesses. (http://www.grpressbeijing.com)

We were a team of 17 believers from Athens and also some believers from the local church of Patra. We spoke about the Lord to thousands of people who were out in the streets celebrating the debauchery of the season.

In 3 days, we distributed more than 18,000 Christian tracts as well as hundreds of New Testaments. We felt the presence of the Lord among us as we witnessed of the Lord to the people in the rain and cold but with joy in our hearts.

Please pray with us for fruit for the Kingdom from the distribution of His Word.
Panos Karakolidis

Evangelistic Program Airs on Greek TV!

Praise to the Lord. For the first time on Sunday, February 27, 2011, Hellenic Ministries, in cooperation with Vasillis Zetas from Toronto Canada, sponsored the airing of an evangelistic program in the Greek language on national TV here in Greece. The program will be broadcast every Sunday from 13:15 till 14:15.

The program called “Zontas Pragmatika,” was shown on the TV Channel “Kanali 1”
(http://www.enatv.gr/) in the city of Lamia (250 km from the city of Athens) and the surrounding neighborhoods from Volos to the outskirts of Athens, an area in which about 600,000 people live.

After the broadcast, about 20 people called our office to thank us for the show and to ask us for a New Testament and other Christian literature.

We thank God for this opportunity and we pray that this program will be shown on other channels and in other big cities of Greece, like Athens or Thessaloniki, etc.

Please pray for this program and also that God will continue to open new doors for us.

Submitted by Panagiotis Karakolidis

Teen Worship-Taking It to the Streets!

Go into all the world and peach the good news to all creation. Mark 16:15

Last week we had a different kind of Teen Worship. Instead of worshipping God upstairs at Evripidou Hall, we took our music to the streets and headed to the main square in Athens.

Imagine 52 youth walking with guitars, singing songs, clapping hands and joyfully singing praise to God as we paraded through the sidewalks with a vision to give HOPE to the city.

It was an awesome time. All glory and honor to God!

Nashville Rocks Athens-Year 2!

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises! Ps. 98:4

For the second year in a row, Christian musicians from Fellowship Bible Church, Nashville, TN came to Greece to encourage and inspire the Greek youth. The emphasis of this year’s worship conference was on equipping and train Greek worship leaders.

Thank you Carl Cartee, Rob Howard, Tim Head and Dan Vorm for sharing your love and talents and hearts with us.

Here what one of the Greek attendees had to say about the weekend:

I was really blessed by the FBC's guys that came to serve us in their own ways and to show us how to be better worship leaders.

The best lesson for me was the way they were worshiping God. Although they did teach us a lot of things about how we should lead our groups, their worship times were the parts of the weekend I was stoked about the most.

Since I was a little kid, I dreamed of heaven like a really cool worship time with great "worship bands.” I always imagined that when we stand before God, we will be really happy, with huge smiles on our faces and we will be pouring our hearts out singing. That was exactly what I saw in those guys' faces during the first worship gathering and it was exactly how I think worship should be.

Pouring our hearts out again and again until we are called to go back home! :)

Emmanuel Tsoutsas