Annika Hanefors
I was born and grew up in Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden, although a few years earlier than her. I gave my life to the Lord in my mid-twenties in the Lutheran Church just across the street from where I lived.
A few years later God led me to move to Stockholm where he gave me a great place to live, in a community house full of new wonderful Christian friends. During some intensive years I managed to work as a youth camp administrator within the Lutheran Church, be part of a Baptist Church, attend the Discipleship Training School “Levande Stenar” (Living Stones), spend a couple of winters on a church planting team in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia and take part in the birth of the first Vineyard Church in Sweden in Stockholm. Do I have great memories from those years!
During my time in Stockholm I got close to pastors and worship leaders Ted and Siw Jeans. In 1995 they were called to go to Göteborg to plant a Vineyard Church there. I received the news with great disappointment as I would miss them terribly and had vowed never to move back to my old home town. However, God knows what he is doing and it only took him a few hours to convince me he wanted me to go with them.
Some years later, friends from the Göteborg Vineyard, then missionaries in Turkey, asked me to come and help them as ABLA (big sister) when they had their third child and in 2002 I went there for three months. At the end of my stay I went to Antioch, a wonderful little town full of history and Christian heritage and there God started to speak to me about going out on missions once more, this time to Greece. Interestingly, it was in Antioch that the gospel first was preached to Greeks. I have now lived in Thessaloniki since April 2004 and I have felt at home since the first day.
I long to see this city, and all of Greece, changed by the power of God. So many times when I see beautiful Mt Olympos I am reminded of the song saying: “Come down from your holy mountain and shake this land”. I long to see people worshiping God in spirit and truth, free from the religiosity and the superstition that permeate this nation. I long to see people filled with the Holy Spirit, with the peace of God, delivered from the fear that rules so many here. I long to see a loving church that impacts the rest of Greece and the surrounding nations.
Having said this, God is also working in me, building both faith and endurance. Working with missions you need a lot of patience, but at the same time we the Lord moving, so I am exited about the future!
So, please pray with us that there once more would be a church here in Thessaloniki full of worshipers who reach for God and stretch out to the community, all the country and the nations beyond.
