Another week in Greece is over, and it was yet another eventful one! This past week, ministry looked different for me almost every day, and I’m learning that there are so many different ways to serve the Lord, even while walking the streets of Thessaloniki and evangelizing.

I’ll be completely honest: Monday was a rough day. I was feeling spiritually stuck and caught in discouragement. I kept asking myself, How can I continue walking miles every day and going out onto the streets when it feels like I’m doing nothing for the Lord? I had reached the point where I just wanted to leave Greece and move on to our next country, the Czech Republic. I was tired of the ministry and found myself counting down the days we had left here.

As the weeks seemed to drag on, I became even more discouraged. I could no longer find comfort in the ministry of evangelizing on the streets, and I felt abandoned by the Lord. How could He bring me to another country to do His work and then seemingly leave me during one of my most challenging moments?

Thankfully, my squad leader noticed that something was off and helped me process some of the things I was struggling with. She also encouraged me to bring my honest feelings to God because He was still right there, waiting for me to run into His arms.

And that’s exactly what I did.

I went to Him in prayer and told Him honestly how I was feeling about Greece and the ministry. There were a lot of tears, frustration, and confusion. But the amazing thing about our God is that He meets us wherever we are, no matter what we’re feeling. He showed me love, grace, and comfort when I felt like I didn’t deserve any of it. Even though I was angry and frustrated with Him, He never abandoned me.

I also wrote God a psalm, inspired by David, who often brought his raw emotions before the Lord. It helped me move from feeling abandoned, to honestly expressing my emotions, to recognizing the blessings God had given me, and finally to thanking and praising Him.

God completely shifted my perspective in that moment, and I began asking Him to give me a heart posture and attitude that reflected Jesus every single day.

When ministry began that day, I still wasn’t doing great. I felt like the Lord was picking up my broken pieces and slowly putting them back together with His truth, love, and grace. But I went out anyway, and wow, did the Lord have plans for that day!

I was paired with a squad mate who admitted that she was also struggling with the ministry and homesickness. We began talking more deeply about what we were experiencing, and before we knew it, we had spent almost our entire time pouring wisdom, truth, love, and hope into one another.

That day, I learned that ministry in Greece isn’t just about evangelizing and reaching the locals. It’s also about supporting our squad mates and leaders. The Lord had paired us together to remind us that we weren’t alone in our struggles and that we could help one another through our hardest days. He wanted to work in our hearts that day rather than have us try to pour into others when we were already running on empty.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 says:

“So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.”

That day, my squad mate and I got to encourage and build each other up in ways only the Lord knew we needed. We’re learning that it’s okay to set aside a ministry day here and there to do this because encouraging one another is part of obeying the Lord and remaining faithful to Him and our World Race community.

God hasn’t just called us to Greece to serve the people of Thessaloniki. He has also called us to help one another grow spiritually and become more like Christ.

Tuesday was a completely different day. The Lord blessed me with an incredible day of evangelizing!

I went out with three girls and a squad leader I hadn’t been paired with yet. We decided that we wanted to be bold that day and really try to share the Gospel with anyone we felt God was highlighting.

As we began walking, we chose a street we hadn’t taken before. When we reached the end of it, I glanced to the side and saw a woman sitting alone. I immediately recognized her as someone I had met during my first week in Thessaloniki.

The first time we met, she told my group and me that she had recently moved to the city and was struggling with loneliness. Her work was 12 hours away, so she couldn’t stay in Thessaloniki as often as she wanted, and she was having a hard time making friends.

We showed her kindness and compassion and even brought God and the Gospel into our conversation. However, she explained that she was an atheist and had already written God off. Although she dismissed the Gospel, we were still able to encourage her and show her compassion that we felt she hadn’t experienced in quite some time.

Before leaving, we encouraged her to reach out to us on Instagram if she wanted to meet for a free coffee. Nothing came of it afterward, so we moved on to other people.

But this past Tuesday, God placed me on that same street to see her again. If He hadn’t paired me with that particular group of girls, they would have walked right past her because they had never met her before. Yet God had me with that group, on that street, looking in her direction at just the right moment.

I immediately stopped and called out to her, and she recognized me right away. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was struggling, so I sat down beside her and asked how she was doing. That simple question opened the door for another conversation.

She explained that she wasn’t doing well at all. Her cat had recently become very sick and was at the veterinary clinic in a lot of pain. She was heartbroken because she had had this cat for 11 years, having adopted her when she was only three months old. She began showing me pictures of her cat and telling me stories about their time together. I could tell that this cat was such a huge part of her life and her heart.

I complimented her on her compassion and kindness and told her how sorry I was for what she was going through. Then I asked if I could pray for her cat. She agreed, as long as I didn’t include her in the prayer. I prayed for her cat, and it opened the door for us to talk more about God. She told me that her family was Christian but that she didn’t believe in any of it. She also shared that if God were real, she was very angry with Him.

Then she asked me a question that really struck my heart:

Could God still love someone even if they were angry with Him?

I got to tell her that He absolutely could. I explained that God still loves her even in her anger, that He sees her pain, and that He is with her even in the middle of this difficult situation with her cat. Before leaving, I offered her more encouragement and love, but I also challenged her to try something. I asked her to spend some time alone and say to God, “God, if You are real, give me a sign by healing my cat.”

I believe God can heal that cat, and I prayed that He would use this situation to draw her back to Himself and help her discover His love and truth.

I haven’t seen or spoken to her since, but I believe we left her with questions, curiosity about whether God is truly real, and seeds planted in her heart. I trust that God is working in her life and that He can do anything to bring another person to salvation in Christ.

The rest of Tuesday, and again on Wednesday, I continued practicing boldness for the Lord and shared the Gospel with several people. It was so encouraging to have those opportunities, but I’m also learning that it is ultimately God’s work, through His Holy Spirit, to change hearts and draw people to Jesus. That can still be difficult for me to surrender because I want to do everything I can to see more people declare and believe that Jesus is their Lord and Savior. But I’m learning that I can faithfully share the truth and love people well while trusting God with what happens next.

Thursday was my birthday, and it was a day filled with so many emotions. It was incredibly difficult to be away from home and my family. More than anything, I wished I could spend the day with them. Still, I felt so blessed, loved, and celebrated by the Lord and my team. They surprised me with gifts and homemade caramel rolls in the morning, and they took me out for a birthday dinner and dessert! They put so much effort into making my birthday special. They even made caramel rolls despite the fact that none of them had ever heard of them or eaten them before. (Apparently, caramel rolls are a very Northern thing, because the only other people on my squad who know what they are are also from Minnesota or Wisconsin!)

But that wasn’t even the sweetest part. My teammates had secretly reached out to my mom and asked her for her meatballs and gravy recipe because they knew it would be such a special gift from home. They wrote the recipe in a journal for me and even included a little note from my mom. It immediately touched my heart and brought me to tears. All the effort they put into making my birthday special made me feel so seen and loved. They became my family and friends on a day when I couldn’t be with the people I love most.

And the banner photo for this blog is a picture of me and my team on my birthday!

Friday brought another change in ministry because we had to move out of our apartment and into a different one for a week. Our ministry hosts explained that the apartment we had been living in was booked for one week in the middle of October, even before they knew we were coming to Greece. So, we had to move somewhere else for that week before returning to our original apartment.

We spent Friday completely cleaning the old apartment, packing up all our belongings, and moving to a new place about 15 minutes away. Previously, 12 girls had been living together in one apartment. But because of our budget, we had to split into our teams for this upcoming week. That means I’m living with just my team instead of half the squad!

The new place is really nice, and we’ve felt so blessed to have comfortable beds, a bigger kitchen, and even a working TV!

This arrangement is also giving us an opportunity to practice living together as a team because we’ll be with only our team when we’re in Thailand for a month and a half. We figured this was the Lord’s way of equipping us for what’s ahead on the Race!

On Saturday, we got to relax as a team and grow closer to one another. It was such a beautiful day, and it reminded me how thankful I am to have people I can truly trust and rely on while I’m away from my family.

God has been providing community for me in ways I didn’t even know I needed.

Through all of this, you may be wondering what God is doing in me and what He has been teaching me. Honestly, I’ve been trying to figure that out, too!

I know that what I wrote about in my last blog post is still something I’m learning: trusting that the Lord is working through every little act of obedience and simply following wherever He leads me.

There are still days when I feel like I haven’t done enough for Him or that I’m not worthy of approaching Him because I didn’t share the Gospel that day. Yet I keep receiving encouragement and truth through God’s Word and His voice, reminding me that I should recognize how much I’ve grown, how I continue to persevere and go out to evangelize even when it’s difficult, and how I’m still being obedient to Him. I think the Lord is deepening that lesson in me.

This past week, He especially showed me that being obedient to His calling and faithfully participating in His ministry can look completely different from one day to the next.

Isaiah 55:8–9 says:

“‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

Some days, ministry will look like evangelizing and walking the streets. Other days, the Lord may call me to pour into a teammate or squad mate, pray over the city as I walk through it, or participate in a Bible study with people on my squad who are feeling spiritually stuck.

I don’t want to rely on what I think should be done or what I believe is best because I know that the Lord has a perfect plan and can see far beyond what I can. I want to follow His plans because I trust that His ways are better than mine. If I don’t share the Gospel with someone new every day, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m being unfaithful. It may simply mean the Lord has called me to a different kind of ministry that day.

That can be hard to learn and accept when the main goal of our ministry here is to evangelize and reach the people of Thessaloniki. I want to see people come to Christ, and I want to know that I’m making a difference. But I’m beginning to understand that if we aren’t spiritually healthy and growing in intimacy with the Lord, we will struggle to encourage others and share the love of Christ with them. If we feel distant from God ourselves, how can we effectively go out and share His love with others? God’s Kingdom is built not only by going out and making new disciples but also by pouring into other believers and helping them grow in their faith.

I’m learning that faithfulness and obedience to God may look different every day. It’s less about doing the exact same thing each day and more about listening to Him, following what He highlights, keeping my eyes open to see Him at work, and being interruptible for the Holy Spirit. That is a hard lesson to learn because we are creatures of habit and routine. It’s easy to believe that if we do the same things every day, we’ll get the same results and know we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

But God doesn’t always work that way.

He is stretching me and growing me in so many areas. He is teaching me to talk to strangers, share the Gospel boldly, build up other believers in Christ’s body, and become more attentive to His voice and the Holy Spirit’s leading. Most importantly, He is teaching me to trust Him even when His plans look different from what I expected.

I don’t want to be so focused on what I think ministry should look like that I miss what God is actually doing right in front of me. I don’t want to be so concerned with reaching others that I neglect the work He wants to do in my own heart or the people He has placed right beside me. I want to be faithful wherever He leads me, whether that means sharing the Gospel with a stranger, encouraging a struggling teammate, praying over the city, or simply sitting with someone who needs to be reminded that they aren’t alone. Because at the end of the day, it’s all ministry when it’s done in obedience to Him.

I may not always see the fruit of my obedience, and I may not always understand why God leads me in a certain direction. But I can trust that He sees the bigger picture, and I can rest in knowing that I don’t have to figure everything out on my own. I just have to keep saying yes to Him.

Thank you for reading this blog post and continuing to pray for me! Thank you to my family and community back home for being such a huge blessing throughout this trip. Your love and prayers mean more to me than you know.

I would love for you to continue praying for these things:

• That I would continue to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit and grow to look more like Christ.

• That I would develop an ever-growing hunger for God and His Word.

• That I would become more obedient to Christ, surrender everything to Him, and more fully understand and apply His Word.

• That our squad would be lifted out of discouragement and that our eyes would be opened to see God at work in this ministry.

• That more missionaries would come to Greece after we leave.

• That people in Thessaloniki would hear and receive the Gospel and begin building a strong Christian community.

• That we would find ministries and lodging in the Czech Republic as we prepare to leave Greece at the end of October.

I’m so thankful that the Lord continues to teach me, stretch me, and grow me through every experience here. I know I still have so much to learn, but I’m excited to keep discovering what it means to live completely surrendered to Him.

Some days, faithfulness will look like boldly sharing the Gospel with strangers. Other days, it will look like encouraging someone who is struggling, being present with the people God has placed around me, or allowing Him to work in my own heart. I may not always understand what He is doing, and I may not always get to see the results. But I know that He is working, and I know that He is faithful.

So, I want to keep listening. I want to keep growing. I want to keep loving people well and stepping out in obedience, even when it’s uncomfortable or looks different from what I expected. And most importantly, I want to keep following Jesus wherever He leads me.

Because faithfulness isn’t about doing the same thing every day. It’s about saying yes to the Lord every day, wherever He calls you to go.