Thessaloniki!!

Hey, guys! Its been so long since I’ve written an update! I don’t even know where to begin with the amazing things that God has been doing in my life and in the lives of others since the last time I wrote, which was only about half way through Lecture Phase! CRAZY. I would love to write about every detail of every moment, as I am bursting to share with all of you, but… for the sake of your minds not being completely blasted… I will restrain myself. :P  

The rest of Lecture Phase was absolutely incredible. Moving from city to city every week made things soooo fun and interesting, but was stretching, as well. When I last updated, we were in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, where we had Marriette Louw speaking on Authority in the Spirit and one of our DTS leaders, Jaimie, speaking on The Word. 

Then, we went from Coleraine to Port Stewart, Northern Ireland, where Jaimie continued to speak on The Word, and was my absolute favorite location out of all of them! Every morning I got to spend time with Jesus sitting on/in the rocks on the beach by the ocean! It was FREEZING but WONDERFUL! So worth it. I’ve come to the conclusion that the beach, on a rock, is my favorite place to spend time with Jesus.While we were in Port Stewart, we also got to run a kids’ day camp thing, which was really fun! We facilitated games and acting out Bible stories and just got to love on the kids! It was really great. 

Then, from Port Stewart, we went to Sligo, Republic of Ireland and had Amy Sollars (an incredible prophetic voice and one of the founders of the School of the Circuit Riders) teaching on the Holy Spirit. This week massively impacted me and my walk with God in such a good way. It gave me so much more understanding in how to hear from the Lord and how the spiritual gifts that God has given me work. So many more awesome things happened in this city, I wish I could say it all!

Then, we went from Sligo, to a Monastery about 2 hours from Sligo (not sure what city), which was beautiful and so relaxing. We had Ray Hughes as our speaker for this week, teaching on the power of Worship and it was powerful! Unfortunately, this was the week that I learned that my grandma had passed away, so I had to fly back home for a week, and missed the next week where my team went to Kylemore Abbey in Connemara (near Galway) and had Andy Byrd as their speaker. I know that my decision to go home meant the world to my family, though and I believe it was good for me, as well. 

When I came back, my team was in Cork, Republic of Ireland, where we stayed for 2 weeks, and had some really great speakers and really cool encounters in ministry, leading up to our Outreach Phase. The first week, we had an amazing speaker named David Gava who was Zimbabwean and SO fiery and passionate for the Lord. I can’t even really say what the subject of that week was, but maybe somewhere like Faith and Hearing God? He was all over the place in a really good way! Then, the next week, we had Dan Baumann who has been imprisoned for his faith, but is so down to earth and just a true lover of Jesus. Both were so inspiring and perfect for us to learn from before going out on outreach. 

After that week, we all flew together to Noway as one last Hurrah before outreach called the School of the Circuit Riders at the YWAM Grimerud base! It was seriously one of the best, most equipping weeks of my life! I learned so much about the practicalities of leading someone to salvation and have seen so much fruit just from what I learned in that one week in Norway. It was soooo good, and so increased my boldness, and burst me out of my comfort bubble within the first 5 minutes of the school. 

After the week, our DTS split into three teams to leave for outreach with one team going to South Africa, one to Nepal, and our’s to Greece! And, just a side note, we as a DTS had a need of 20,000 pounds 2 weeks before the deadline for outreach phase and if those in need didn't have the money in by the deadline, they would've had to go home. We received all of it within 2 weeks, the last 4,000 pounds coming in within 1 hour of the deadline from random people. That's almost $40,000 in 2 weeks, and $8,000 in an hour. If that's not Jesus, I don't know what is.

It was so hard leaving each other, but we were all super excited, too. Half of our Greece team had to leave late at night to get the last train to the Oslo, Norway airport, and spend the night in the airport to catch a early morning flight to Thessaloniki, Greece. So 3 of my team members, and my friend Emily (who was flying back to the states early in the morning), stayed the night in the airport under the escalators, which was quite comical. It was like a really awkward, hilarious slumber party! We then had a 7 hour layover in Berlin, where we met up with the rest of our team and flew to Thessaloniki together.

Thessaloniki was a very interesting city. I really liked it, I’ve really liked Greece in general, but Thessaloniki was the medium sized city out of the 3. I didn’t really have any expectations going into it, so I was pleasantly surprised by almost everything, but there were a few things that I didn’t expect like how intense spiritual warfare that we encountered was, how hot it was, and how open people were to the Gospel. 

The church that we were staying with was absolutely amazing and one of the things that we’ve heard very strongly from the Lord for our time in Greece is that He wants us to be building up the Church, because there’s not a YWAM base here and the new believers need discipleship, so that begins with the church. 

We were in Thessy for 4 weeks, and I helped on the worship team with the church we were staying at by singing and playing piano every week. It took us the first couple of weeks to settle in and get a feel for what God wanted to do in Thessaloniki and in Greece, as a whole. One of the divine strategies we heard from the Lord was to do dream interpretation as a segway to share the Gospel. There is a very evident New Age vibe in Thessy and its predominately a night culture. So, we tried out doing dream interpretation on the Monday of the last week, and saw 2 salvations in one day. The whole rest of the week, every night we went out to a main hang out place to do dream interpretation, and saw 11 people saved in that one week. GO, GOD!! :D 

One of my favorite testimonies from that time of doing dream interpretation was when these two 19 year-old girls came up to us to get their dreams interpreted, one of which was into some very dark stuff, but was very interested in the Jesus that we were talking about and was asking a lot of questions. While I was talking to her friend, two other guys came up to another girl on my team, Taylor,  and the girl who was into dark stuff ended up translating for Taylor and leading both of the guys to Jesus through translation. I think that is just one of the craziest things ever. Unfortunately, she didn’t get saved, but her friend who I was talking to did!

We had the opportunity to do so many other awesome, and spiritually significant things in Thessaloniki while we were there, as well. We got to join with missionaries in Greece and do a prayer walk weekend, and as a team we prayed at and anointed (with oil and honey) multiple historical sites including the ancient ruins of the fortifying wall that surrounded ancient Thessaloniki and the adjacent watch tower, a very significant site called Liberty Square where Jews were gathered and shipped off to Auschwitz, and multiple Orthodox Churches. 

We also went to a Roma camp every Tuesday and Thursday and played with the gypsy kids, helping the missionaries there with preschool and other extracurricular activities, as well as just loving on them. We also got to meet up with people who gave their lives to Jesus and disciple them a bit, as well, which was really awesome! 

We really got to love on the people of the church, as well, by really serving them in whatever way we could. One of my favorite things about outreach so far, though, has been praying for and loving on the homeless beggars all over the streets. There are so many refugees from Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and Nigeria and its absolutely heartbreaking hearing their stories and seeing the desperation and hopelessness in their eyes. 

Jesus did so much in Thessaloniki and it was so awesome! Outreach has been so great, and I can’t believe that there are only about 7 weeks left, then I’ll be home. I’ll post an update about Corinth as soon as I can!

I love and miss you all! For the next 5 weeks in Athens, we’re in very tight quarters (yay for bonding moments!! :D), living at the House of Prayer, in a very sketchy area of the city. Though those things may seem negative, I am actually really excited about it all! There are so many ministry opportunities here, and I can’t wait to see what God does in us as a team, and through us to others. 

Prayer is still needed, though, so please pray for unity within the team, and that we would grow in love for each other, that we would really be able to bless this House of Prayer that we’re staying in, and that we would all be safe and always in tune with God’s heart and what He wants to do in this city! Thank you so much for all of your support prayerfully and financially! You guys are awesome! :)

Love, 

Rachelle :)