Some the YWAM team gather in Athens. PICTURE: Courtesy of YWAMGO. INDEX PAGE PICTURE: Rob Sylvan (iStockphoto.com) “Everywhere you turn in this city you’ll bump into people doing ministry, praying and worshipping. Our participants have engaged in many exciting conversations with Athens' inhabitants and we have seen many hearts returned to the Father. Hundreds of thousands of people are praying for Athens and the advancement of the Kingdom in this land. Everyday we witness the effects of these powerful prayers and we praise God for raising up so many intercessors for this time.” - Megan Sall, communications director for YWAM's Games Outreach

22nd August, 2004

DAVID ADAMS

“Last night, (we) a big worship time in Maroussi (a suburb of Athens) outside the train station,” wrote Andrew on an internet message board last week.

“It was such an amazing time, and we started to draw a bit of a crowd...I opened my eyes and saw this kid...and God said ‘Go talk to him’. He was smiling and enjoying the music. I went over and asked him if I could talk to him after the music was finished, and he said yes.

"He spoke very little English, and it was somewhat difficult and took some time, but he gave his life to Christ last night! His name is Vincent, and he received a lot of joy from God and answers to some tough questions. God is so good! It was only the Holy Spirit that could have got through those language barriers, and He did.”

Andrew is one of more than 370 people who are in Athens and Thessaloniki this month as part of Christian training and mission organisation Youth With A Mission’s Olympic Games outreach (known as YWAMGO).

Along with more than 60 others, Andrew came to Athens as part of a team from YWAM Perth. The Perth group, according to one report on the website, has so far seen 27 people accept Christ into their lives. Other team members have come from all over the globe - from Belarus and Brazil through to Taiwan, Spain and Finland.

The games outreach mission came about after Greek Christians asked YWAM to send people to help with bring the message of the Gospel during the Athens games when around 500,000 people from as many as 217 countries were expected to descend on the city of four million.

YWAM has run similar programs at the Olympic Games since the Munich games in 1972 and has since attended the Montreal, Moscow, Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, and Sydney games.

Those taking part in this mission are reaching out to people through a range of different means, including staffing 'hospitality houses', sports-related activities and just one-on-one 'friendship evangelism'. Others are ministering to refugees and two teams have gone to the city of Thessaloniki to minister in gypsy camps. There is also a 'Prayer House' at the games which is being staffed around the clock for the duration of the games.

“I think the games outreach is an amazing opportunity to reach all the world in one concise time and place,” Megan Sall, the YWAMGO team’s communications director, tells Sight from Athens.

“Rather than sending out 240 plus outreach teams to every country of the world, they all come here to us. Additionally, the large majority of the people coming are those of influence - national athletes, officials, government representatives. The Gospel can be taken back to each respective nation and can be shared through many spheres of society.”

Sall is a 22-year-old from Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the United States. She joined the Olympic Games team after meeting some of the staff who were going to Greece while completing a “discipleship training school” with YWAM in Texas. Sall has been in Athens since early July.

“(The) Lord has given me a huge heart for the nation of Greece and its people,” she says. “I love the Greek people and my heart longs for them to understand and experience personal intimacy with the Father. Religion is very stoic here - very impersonal and unmoving. A God who we can interact and talk with, and who conversely speaks to us, is something quite astounding to these people.”

Sall says the spiritual atmosphere in Athens “has been very encouraging”.

“Everywhere you turn in this city you’ll bump into people doing ministry, praying and worshipping,” she says.

“Our participants have engaged in many exciting conversations with Athens' inhabitants and we have seen many hearts returned to the Father. Hundreds of thousands of people are praying for Athens and the advancement of the Kingdom in this land. Everyday we witness the effects of these powerful prayers and we praise God for raising up so many intercessors for this time.”

For more information and updated reports, see www.ywamathens2004.com