Mind broadening travel to the places of the holy spirit?
At first this felt like mission impossible. But "The Word" and His word travelled to the four corners of the globe. Into the hearts and minds of mankind. But two millennia of time, and man's not learning the lessons of history, sees many hearts and minds, jaded, hardened or closed to hope in The Word. Our modern-day mission is for The Word and His word to travel back into the hearts and minds of Christians. We chose to use the modern phenomenon of travel to visit the places of the Holy Spirit.
Travel broadens the mind
Mind broadening travel, once only accessible by a few, is now available for the many. Our mission is for Christians to briefly step out of that sometimes despairing, uncertain world, and "Come, and see" the places where The Holy Spirit was active with Christ and the Apostles.
This act of being present - awareness in the heart and mind and physically - in the ancient places of the Holy Spirit, is a chance for us to strengthen our Faith in Christ. Hope in our future; and above all, Love for one another in our everyday lives now.
Where it started for us
While we were in Greece visiting the places of the Apostle Paul, our mission unexpectedly began to take shape. It started in Thessaloniki- old Thessalonica, Macedonia.
The place where Paul was Inspired by The Holy spirit to travel to from modern day Turkey was This Thessaloniki:
Paul in Acts 17:1: "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he declared. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few leading women."
In Thessaloniki
This Thessaloniki is where His followers persisted despite persecution. This Thessaloniki was where the Spirit was, and strengthened Paul and the Greeks to act to take Christianity forward. And today in this Thessaloniki, we were inspired to act in ways we were yet to discover; all we knew from our side,was it came: unexpected,unintended,uninvited
Little did we know then that this unexpected encounter had already formed the smallest "mustard" seed in us. Within hours it was to germinate and move us immediately to act; to create a thing; that within days we would see become the mission, soon to be named: "TheWordTravels".
Things fell into place
The right people, places, words, thoughts, design, technology, enthusiastic helpers, opportunities...seemed to come our way. This was different to our normal struggles to get anything done. It took less than 2 months to go from nothing to a brand with mission. We had aims, purpose; this web site, and all the web design and serendipity of assets we need for the mission coming together. Then Fellowship Tours began to take shape, and the words assembled themselves for a very singular purpose for others.
Purpose of our mission
The mission parameters were forming and were very specific:
It is not for us to evangelise or convert; not to discriminate any Christian denomination; not to favour any
It is for us to be here for all Christians and those newly looking to Christ, as well as those looking for the way back after pain & loss
It is for us also to somehow find a way in the long term, to bring Christians who haven't the means to consider travel, to the places of The Holy Spirit.
Fellowship begins
Fellowship tours too were forming in our minds. We've defined them with care and the constant mission aim. Which is to help Christians strengthen their everyday life through visiting the places of Christ, His teachings, and His Holy Spirit.
From this place of the Thessalonians, with its ancient history recorded in its streets and buildings and churches, The Spirit who made certain The Word travels to the peoples of Europe & the world, today in this Thessaloniki: could He be inspiring the creation of TheWordTravels for people of our times to travel to Christ. This seemed like an Inspiration we needed to Trust
