Greek evangelism in London
There are 300,000 people of Greek and Greek Cypriot origin in the UK, and most of these live in north London. This ethnic group is often overlooked as a mission field by churches and missionary societies.
Once a year on the last weekend of June, the Cyprus Wine Festival and Business Exhibition takes place at Alexandra Palace. Several thousand Greeks attend this commercial and cultural event.
For some years, a small group of Greek evangelical believers have also been present at the exhibition, distributing Bibles, New Testaments and other Christian material. We participated in this year’s festival too.
As we are not Greek Orthodox we often face suspicion and opposition. However, once more there were many happy to receive Christian material free or at a low price; and we had opportunities to ‘speak the word of God with boldness’. The NT Greek word laleo for ‘speaking’ or ‘talking’ (Acts 4:29; 11:19) is still used today in the Greek-Cypriot tongue, with the same meaning.
Among those we spoke and gave literature to were Andreas, Soulla, Victor (a security guard), Georgina, Yiannis, Eleni, Katerina, Petros (a Jehovah’s Witness), Maria, Yianoulla, Demetris and Christina, as well as many others. Please pray for them that the Lord would open their hearts to receive the gospel, and give them the desire to say, ‘We would see Jesus’.
Stephanos played his violin on stage on the Sunday. He played traditional Cypriot folk tunes and ended his performance with ‘Amazing Grace’. This year, we were also interviewed by a private cable television company, Hellenic TV, based in London.
More information from: http://www.bethelwimbledon.com/gcf.htm (Greek Christian Fellowship).
Paul Karageorgi
