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Refugees battle almost insurmountable odds to escape Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq. Thousands of them secretly disembark on one of Greece’s hundreds of tiny Aegean Sea islands and eventually sneak into Athens.

As far as the Greek government is concerned, these illegal immigrants do not exist. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees does not include Greece as a host country for refugees.

However, Christians on the ground gain a much more accurate picture of the refugees than bureaucrats do. They know that they arrive with hair-raising escape stories. They land in the jaws of poverty, with little to eat and no place to sleep. They also know that a goodly number eventually put their faith in Jesus Christ.

Missionaries with International Teams have heard some remarkable stories as a result of their Helping Hands ministries. Last spring they started a new Tea House program. The refugees call it the “Jesus Restaurant.”

It’s open six hours a day, three days a week. Volunteers serve snacks and tea to hundreds of refugee men, women and children. The snack includes bread, fruit, a vegetable and two hard-boiled eggs. On average, 2,000 to 2,500 refugees come per week.

Many of the visitors stay to watch videos, play table games and Ping-Pong, take language classes and participate in small group Bible studies. Workers apply no pressure. Refugees are free to stay or go. Hundreds of them stay.

As missionary Kate Cami explained, “Our new Tea House has not only allowed us to feed more refugees and expose more people to the gospel, it has also freed us to interact personally with many more people than before.” They pray for meaningful relationships to open the door to refugees’ coming to know Christ.

Ilir Cami said, “I’m praying for two Afghans. I shared the gospel with them and they each took Bibles, promising to read them. They told me that they were leaving Athens soon. I have not seen them since our first meeting, but I saw a real openness in them.”

Of course, tensions build among hungry, homeless people from such varied ethnic backgrounds. Fighting among the men often breaks out at the refugee center.

Nevertheless, they see strong evidence of God’s work. Farshid is an Iranian who found Christ at the center. He discovered the center the first day he entered Athens and watched the “Jesus” film there. He met a fellow Iranian who told him that Jesus is God’s Son. That upset him, as did the claim by some Kurds that the bread at the center was ceremonially unclean.

He drifted into stealing, drinking, drugs and sleeping with homeless women from Albania and Hungary. One day at the center he heard a sermon by a visiting pastor who spoke his language, Farsi. That whetted his appetite to know more about Jesus. One night at the center, Farshid prayed, “Lord, please show yourself to me and show me your true way.”

He explains: “I began to believe in Jesus with all my heart. Jesus came into my life as my savior and my God. We read the Bible every day and I go to church every week. I am free from my sins and I am not the same person I was months ago, because Jesus has changed me.”

Rashid is an Iraqi who lived as a refugee in Iran for twenty-nine years because his father was a Kurdish rebel. His wife and three children are Iranian. He was refused citizenship and a passport. He registered with the police every three months. He tried to get an Iraqi ID card, but was told he was not registered there. “I have no nationality,” he says.

“I wanted to be able to support my family,” he says, “so I left Iran illegally. I walked, shared a horse, even paid a smuggler and finally got to Greece.”

Once in Athens, refugees told him about “The American Church,” where he could get food. Eventually Rashid became a Helping Hands volunteer. “I was going to go to Italy,” he says, “but God didn’t want me to go.”

He attended the seekers’ class because he was curious about the Christian faith. “While I was asking questions, I was also translating for the other people from Farsi to Kurdish,” he explains.

Gradually, as Rashid learned more, he started to read the Bible and pray. “I asked God to show me the right way, the true way. I found reality in the Bible, so I believed it. I discovered that God is a God of love, so I chose the God of love instead of the God of fear,” he says.

Of course, he worries about his family in Iran. He thinks his parents might kill him if he told them that he believes in Jesus. At the least, they would disown him.

“I don’t know what my wife will do,” Rashid says. “I think I can only tell her after she comes to join me in a new land. I will tell her I am a Christian, present her with all the information, and then let her decide.”

He longs to live with his wife and children in a free country and resume a normal life. “I used to be very depressed before I became a Christian,” Rashid says. “Sad because I was away from my family. But now I have peace.”

He talks with his wife on the phone and continues to grow in his walk with Jesus. Rashid has managed to make it to Italy. Helping Hands workers continue to pray for him and his reunion with his family.

Helping Hands in Athens means long hours of hard work, serving refugees with critical physical and social needs. It also means patient sowing of the gospel, knowing that God is bringing a harvest in people like Farshid and Rashid.

July 19, 2002