Please help to ignite the Great Re-Awakening in Europe

And, thank you for the Christopsomo recipe, we've circulated this around both to our European missions and the ones back in the US preparing to make the move. I suspect there's soon going to be a lot of meaningful and quite delicious Christopsomo bread baking in kitchens in some unexpected places this weekend!

You are very welcome, we're always glad to share when it comes to Christopsomo and all the other special unique things about the missions down in Greece and the broader area. In fact here's a recommendation for another recipe that's even closer to our hearts, because of it's special history when we were first getting our feet wet as mission newbies around Epirus. This particular mission had been dedicated to winning converts in Greece and in Bulgaria, Kosovo, Bosnia, Albania and Macedonia, with incredible success. It was a big confidence booster for us and gave us object lesson in the way to bring people in. Christopsomo – Rezept für griechisches Weihnachtsbrot [Χριστόψωμο]

Turned out, one of the mission leaders and his wife were expert chefs, and they used a special Christopsomo delight to spread the teachings of the Bible and illustrate parables. So this long had a special association with the spirit and substance of missions in our hearts. He had been a respected pastry and chocolates chef back in Hershey, Pennsylvania before he moved with his family over to the Netherlands to stay for good and do missions there and in Germany, and so the original text I believe is in German or Dutch, so just use one of those on-line auto-translators to translate as needed. But the beauty of Christopsomo is it wins hearts and helps teach the Bible in any language, I suspect it's the combination of it's unique ability to teach the parables and the sheer delight of eating each piece, that helped make those missions and conversions so successful.

And want to express a congratulations and send blessings to one of my good old friends and fellow missionaries in SE Europe for a great and joyous milestone from what we just heard in our own bulletin, his group's 500th conversion over years of dedicated mission work! He moved permanently with his family from a farm outside Terre Haute Indiana to a part of Greece near around where we started up, in fact he and his encouragement were a part of what launched our mission journey and big move to Greece and the eastern Mediterranean.

He's since been working a lot out of Bulgaria and Albania and ministering there and around in Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia mostly with energetic church building, outreach, Gospel lessons, charity and hymn and hymnal singing. And his love of the Bible and it's teachings and fervent worship are contagious! Congrats to you and we're cheering for your next mission adventures good friend.

Greetings Joey,
Thank for filling us in on this indeed wonderful news. Congratulations to your friend's team and their amazing achievement, and all the hard work, dedication and strong belief that undoubted made it possible! Out of curiosity, as this sort of question has been coming again with some of our own teams, is he of Greek ancestry himself and was he able to use this to get his family settled in Greece for these efforts?

Inhocsigno said:

Greetings Joey,
Thank for filling us in on this indeed wonderful news. Congratulations to your friend's team and their amazing achievement, and all the hard work, dedication and strong belief that undoubted made it possible! Out of curiosity, as this sort of question has been coming again with some of our own teams, is he of Greek ancestry himself and was he able to use this to get his family settled in Greece for these efforts?

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He's not actually though one of his main mission planners is, in fact his mission team far as I know runs the gamut in how they actually got into Greece and fanned out into Europe, some through ancestral records and some through other means like what we had to do. My old friend and his wife did have ancestral records from Ireland, and I believe either Germany or Czech and then one other country they were able to use to get an European Union passport. From there they and their kids established the residence requirements and could move to Greece. His planner from Michigan had I think Greek great great grandparents, or somewhere around those generations back and came over from Ellis Island, so he and his family were able to head over and get settled directly in Greece.

But, his coordinator of cross-church mission operations, I think that's her main title is like us, she and her family had ancestors that came over from Europe too far back, or just didn't have the documents to get the citizenship granted so they couldn't get passports through their family ancestors. In fact she and her husband were originally from the Carolinas, ancestors as I understand went all the way back to the Albemarle province of North Carolina settlements, in the 1600's! Instead they came over through work opportunities and business connections and gradually worked their way through and get sponsorship, then naturalized and from there joined the group in Greece. Similar as what we did. Others in his group either used ancestor connection in Greece or other EU countries or what the coordinator did. I know at least one mission family that got to NE Greece sold their home, not even at the peak but they had enough to help get landed and get their kids enrolled, and join with the missions. Others, used things like digital nomad visas, or starting a business or even property investing to get a passport that eventually got them to Greece. I know some are sending their kids to international schools but most insisting their kids go to the Greek schools, grow up speaking Greek and identify as Greek, just like us to help blend in with the people. I guess the point is, with the missions over in Europe lots of ways to get there, and lots of ways the Lord guides us in our path but we wind up in the same place helping each other!

Greetings Joey,
This is indeed wonderful to hear. We are frequently reminding prospective missionaries of our own flock getting involved in the effort, that there are many routes into the European missions, While family and ancestral connections are without doubt a significant and valuable practical means to gain the residency and passports needed to bring their families into their new European homes, it's also true that a large proportion of our own missionaries find other ways in too. And often for the same reasons, the Texas German community is one of the biggest missionary source communities in our network to make the leap and bring over their ministry (especially in both France and Germany) but for many if not most, their roots are so many centuries back in Europe that they too don't have the genealogical documentation to get their citizenship confirmed straight away.

Yet they find other ways in as it appears you have. When the love of the Lord and the desire to spread His good word is strong enough, as we say in our instruction sessions there is always a way. As it is written in 1 Chronicles 16:24. "Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples." Those who keep and carry this message in their hearts are fired by the will to fulfill it. And fired and empowered by that spirit, they are able to navigate the practical challenges and find a way to bring their motivation, their families and their new messages into their newly adopted homes.

Greetings Joey,
Also thanks for the reminder that for those who enter the European missions using ancestry, they need not have their roots specifically in the country where they are doing their ministry, they can gain citizenship in whichever the country they have the ancestry that qualifies them, and then use the free movement principle in the European Union to move to where they are ministering. If you have a passport to any country in the EU, you can go anywhere else there to do your ministry, or of course stay in that country which many of us our missionaries also do.

It's in fact helpful to give a timely reminder of this to our own flock and others engaged in the missions in Europe as this still comes up time and time again, even in our church network where we've been involved in this for decades. We do most of our ministry in France and Germany yet most of our members who have moved there did not qualify to receive citizenship based on their ancestry there, and initially, many of them were upset when they worried they did not quality. But then they were happy to hear that they could for ex. use their ancestry in Ireland, Poland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Portugal, Austria, Slovakia or wherever else they had it to get an EU passport and join the ministries there. Or of course in other cases to stay in their ancestral countries to join those ministries or start their own, or in still others to use their French or German ancestral passports to move in the other direction. (And of course also as mentioned, some entering through non-ancestral paths to do the same) This again is one of the beaties of the missionary path, there are countless ways to arrive where you want to preach the Word of the Lord, and many ways to seek guidance on getting there.

You are quite welcome. We just learned of another Greek-American family, 4th generation from a neighbor church back in the US that will be joining us here with their family to do missions and stay in Greece some time in 2026. And another with Scottish and English ancestry doing the same next year too, through a work arrangement they were able to work out. Both working in nearby towns, helping to translate Bibles and songs of adoration, improve their Greek ability and bring the message to the Greek people, even with their very different backgrounds. That's the beauty of mission work, it draws in people from many walks many backgrounds towards a common goal.

And a very Happy Easter to all of you or as they say in Greek, Καλό Πάσχα!

Just wanted to forward here on some additional rousing news we got for some weekend cheer. I recently had chance to speak with another of my old missionary inspirations, a long-time servant of the Church and spreader of the good tidings whose recruited dozens of American missionaries, to Europe and several places. From Iowa originally and had recruited mostly from Wisconsin, Michigan and upper Midwest so this naturally brought him to those regions common ancestral lands over in Scandinavia, Holland, Germany and Ireland. But since the past decade he's spread his wings to 7 or 8 other countries, including in Italy and France, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and even briefly down in Greece when we sadly were not there.
But he's confirmed he and his close knit circle have reached over 450 passionate conversions as of the start of this year in their European missions, and helped to restore or build 7 different churches! It's an incredible contribution to the re-energizing of the church and delivery of the Lord's message to the world, and he's even been able to make several trips to give comfort to churches in war torn areas of Syria and Lebanon, and help them to re-build too. This of course has also been embraced by for ex. his Algerian, Turkish and Tunisian converts in Europe and many have indeed gone back to their home countries to preach and build too. It brings us such great enthusiasm to know how many lives he's touched and how many communities he's helped!

Greetings Joey,
Much much thanks for this wonderful and uplifting news. We are getting a kind of quarterly update ourselves tomorrow from our multi-church missions teams in Europe who've based moved from in and around Texas, from one of the visiting members who launched one of the efforts in France almost 20 years ago and has since helped in over a dozen other countries. We don't know details yet but early info indicates it will be exciting, with apparently one of the highest conversion rates we've ever had in our group in a 3 month period and record number of new missionaries pledging and moving over to Europe with their families, and dozens of churches newly built or repaired. We're truly bringing the good word of the Lord to a record number of people in communities long thirsting to re-connect, and we're all excited to soon hear the numbers and success.

That's so nice to hear! We've having one of our own somewhat belated quarterly updates on the Europe mission's progress tomorrow with a ring of churches including my own original place of worship. Focus is on not just conversions and new churches built in the mission countries but a topic comes up here a lot, the success of the converts from the migrant communities in Europe, going back starting their own churches in North Africa, and Mideast and Anatolia region, the 10/40 countries from those earlier threads here.

We've got early hints ourselves, it's been a huge success, many of our converts in Europe back to start up what sounds like an incredible number of new churches in their home communities in Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon. We're eager to hear on the progress.