During the COVID-19 pandemic, things got harder for unregistered sex workers in Athens. Work dropped off during lockdown. And to qualify for government aid, workers had to show evidence of legal operation and tax payments.

AMG safe house

That’s why AMG International operates a safe house in Athens to help women leave sex work.

Brian Dennett talks about Community House Damaris (CHD). “A Greek missionary named Dina is a pastor’s wife associated with AMG for many years. She started this facility as a response to the years that she spent visiting with and witnessing to downtown Athens brothels.”

CHD provides a safe environment and therapy for trauma. Women also receive job training so they can support themselves. Since the safe house was founded 4 years ago, it has served 20 women. The program is designed to last 3 to 7 years. Dennett says, “It’s really leading women to discover their worth, their value, and their identity in Christ.”

“We just heard from Dina. She was sharing about three women that had just committed to completely leave prostitution.”

Pray AMG can expand this ministry. Dennett says, “There are lots of women waiting to get into it. We would like to be able to serve each woman that wants to leave this awful life and have help coming to the Lord through it.”

Header photo courtesy of Community House Demaris on Facebook.

AMG International President Tasos Ioannidis just returned from Athens. “There seems to be a spike of the number of people who are coming from Turkey,” he says.

“[On] one day, there were more than 600 arrivals on the island of Lesbos.”

Ioannidis says Turkey’s President, Recep Erdogan, is behind the recent spike. “Mr. Erdogan has been sending more people towards Greece, towards Europe, because he is under pressure politically,” he says. More about Erdogan’s threats here.

“Erdogan is using them as leverage, asking for more funding to take care of refugees who are in Turkey.”

Rising tensions

In 2019 alone, 30,755 refugees and migrants have arrived on Greek shores. Under Greek law, new arrivals must be “processed” and receive paperwork before they can find asylum in Europe. In 2018, the average processing time between pre-registration and a first instance decision was 8.6 months.

“Since this has been going for several years and has [strained] the resources of Greece, the Greek people are not as welcoming of refugees anymore,” Ioannidis explains.  “Initially when this was taking place, [people] were a lot more welcoming.”

Refugee violence also creates tension. Living conditions in Turkey are better than what refugees experience in Greece, Ioannidis says. Frustration over long processing times and poor living conditions often leads to violence, which creates opposition between refugees and Greek residents.

Ioannidis calls it a “vicious cycle.” However, there is a silver lining.

God moves in refugee hearts

(Photo courtesy of AMG International)

Society’s rejection is a stark contrast to the love and kindness displayed by AMG staff. Whether it’s providing a warm plate of food or helping refugees fill out paperwork, each interaction provides a Gospel opportunity. “As they experience Christian love, they respond,” Ioannidis says.

“They (refugees) have experienced violence; they have experienced that rejection. Then, these people who – for no other reason [than] because they are followers of Jesus – show love to them.”

Many refugees become Jesus followers as a result, Ioannidis adds. Learn more about AMG’s work here.

Find your place in the story

“First-entry” locations such as Lesbos have received more people than they can hold, so authorities transfer many refugees to mainland Greece. AMG serves scores of them at its three ministry centers in Athens.

“I visited our center in downtown Athens last week; there were more than 100 people,” Ioannidis says. At AMG’s center, “they have the opportunity to socialize, use the internet to get in contact with loved ones; we help them with paperwork, and then our staff members have the opportunity to express the love of Christ and even share about Christ.”

AMG needs your help to keep this work going. “It is expensive to operate three centers to minister to literally hundreds every day,” Ioannidis says. “We need financial resources; we need your prayers; we also occasionally need volunteers.”

Use the prompts listed beside this article to guide your prayers. You can give to AMG’s refugee ministry here. Or, you can ask AMG about short-term opportunities through the website. Just mention this article when you submit your request.

“Over the last couple of years, we have seen a great number of refugees come to faith as we minister to them in different ways,” Ioannidis says.

“God is at work, even in the midst of this tragedy.”

Header image courtesy of AMG International.

First built for the Athens Olympics in 2004, the CosmoVision Center was made to be a youth outreach location. Today it still focuses on youth outreach but also hosts missionary teams, host churches, and refugees.

(Photo courtesy of CosmoVision center and AMG International via Facebook)

Tasos Ioannidis, president and CEO of AMG, says, “It has turned into a multipurpose facticity that is used for all kinds of ministry both locally with the Greek-speaking people and among the immigrants.”

The center has dormitories and fields on the property for sports and youth outreach as well as buildings used by local churches and ministry groups.

Ioannidis adds that the center also hosts teams coming from outside of Greece who stay at the center to learn through the center’s education programs or help with ministry programs in Greece.

Financial Crisis and Plans for the Future

However, since the financial crisis in Greece began in 2009, the center has faced new challenges and opportunities.

“It has constrained the resources locally but it also has given new ministry opportunities to reach to the local churches through a variety of activities that are fairly inexpensive,” Ioannidis says. “God has used it in the lives of many people.”

The CosmoVision center has seen similar results from the refugee crisis in Greece as well. The center stepped into the refugee crisis and ministers to the people impacted in the country. Many of the churches the center works with are immigrant churches and multicultural churches. While the ministry’s resources may be constrained, their opportunities to share God’s Word are not.

In the future, the center plans to expand the property and build additional facilities. It also hopes to expand training opportunities so that international pastors and leaders may receive Bible training at the center.

(Photo courtesy of CosmoVision Center and AMG via Facebook)

The CosmoVision Center has so many new opportunities to share God’s Word and it wants to continue to help the Church in Greece.

“We want to see more people coming there and to see the activities on the property be used to grow the local churches and immigrant churches. There is so much potential for growth,” Ioannidis says.

How to Get Involved

Ioannidis explains that the center gets its name from the Greek word ‘cosmos’, which means ‘the world’. The center really is a vision for the world as AMG spreads God’s Word in Greece.

He says, “We are just so thankful… of what God has done in the CosmoVision Center which has exceeded all our expectations, I would not have imagined 15 years ago that we would be where we are today. This is a unique time in history where people are coming to Greece from throughout the Middle East and we have a chance to reach them and the CosmoVision Center is playing a strategic role that right now.”

Would you like to get involved?

AMG is asking for prayers for resources to be provided so it can expand the ministry. AMG also asks for prayers that God’s Word may be heard in Greece and that those already in ministry might grow in God’s Word.

Click here to donate to the CosmoVision Center and AMG’s ministry in Greece.

Header photo courtesy of AMG

(Photo CosmoVision Center courtesy AMG International)

Greece (MNN) — A recent photo-essay showed a sad reality in Greece: a decade after it was built to host the 2004 Olympic Games, the Athens site is in ruins.

Despite a weak economy, the country met an ambitious construction plan for new facilities to meet the demands of athletic competition and spectators. Several went nearly 10 billion Euro over-budget. The crushing debt along with a recession contributed to the eventual economic depression.

Even as the country is struggling up from rock bottom, there are some whose stories are different, more purposed.

AMG International president and CEO Tasos Ioannidis says the CosmoVision Center was built in time for use during the Games. But rather than fall to ruin, today it serves as a center for outreach to Greece’s evangelical minority. “It is a place for a family ministry for the evangelical community in Greece. It is a place where we have camps for local kids and also immigrant kids.”

(Photo courtesy AMG International)

Why immigrant kids? Ioannidis explains, “Athens is a hub for refugees coming to Europe from the Middle East and from the Far East. A lot of immigrants flow through Athens, and immigrant churches are meeting at the Cosmo Vision Center.”

AMG’s CosmoVision Center just wrapped up two weeks of camp this summer, reaching out to 60 Polish kids from the streets of Athens, Greece. Ioannidis notes, “A lot of them (Polish immigrants) live in material poverty. For the last three summers, we’ve had camps specifically for the Polish kids.” The first week was for children from 6-12 years of age, and the second for teenagers ages 13-17.

AMG’s camps provide a few days off the streets of Athens, embracing them with the love of Christ. “They come there, not only to have a great week in which they are able to have fun and to play, but the majority of the Polish kids that have participated in those camps have come to know the Lord as personal Savior.”

The ministry teams are truly living up to their name at the Cosmo Vision Center, where a Christian worldview is laid out and connected to all walks of life. The Center provides a unique opportunity to introduce underprivileged children to the kingdom of God.

Notes AMG missionary Fotis Romeos (from the AMG vlog), the highlight of the week will be the family celebration on the last day of each camp program, inviting all the families to come and let their children share with them what they have learned.

(Photo courtesy AMG International)

The CosmoVision Center is also home to the Zodhiates International Center of New Testament Studies. “There are teams that go from the States for educational purposes to go to study the New Testament in Greece, and they use the CosmoVision Center as a base,” says Ioannidis. This ministry emphasis an opportunity for students to study the language, culture, and lands of the New Testament through a variety of programs.

10 years after the Athens Olympic Games have passed, the AMG Cosmo Vision Center is thriving and growing.   Strategically located just seven miles from the Athens International Airport, the CVC remains a one-of-a-kind multipurpose facility designed to address the spiritual needs of families, youth, and children of Greece and beyond.

Given the recent financial disaster that befell Greece, they need help to keep that growth moving. If you’d like to become a CVC partner, click here for ways you can get involved.