A local church group's visit to a clinic in central Greece.

A story how an Asian sister found her way to a local church service in Greece.

History of how Albanian gypsies came to Greece and their life today.

In 2008, the Greek Evangelical Church in Athens opened a community centre, in a suburb where many Albanians live. OM worker Martha describes how she and other staff are reaching out with God's love to local young people.

Rosie from OM Greece helps at a project for homeless people run by local believers in Athens. She describes how one regular 'guest' is progressing towards faith in God.

Beneath the scenes of turmoil in Greece, one OMer sees a different crisis altogether – and for the same reason, an opportunity for the gospel.

Jemina (Finland) joined the Transform team in Athens. Changes in travel plans meant she used the metro system—between stations with very special names.

Instead of the two families they had hoped for, seven families from Katerini attend the Christian camp for Albanians in Greece.

In an interview with OM Greece’s country leader, Kees den Toom (Netherlands), we learn about the current situation in Greece and OM’s response to it.

OM's Gabby Markus shares how his team is working with a local church to help people facing economic crisis.

Instead of staying with OM Greece’s leaders for the holidays as planned, a visitor stays in a local church, which changes his life.

How OM is partnering with Greek churches to address the growing immigrant and trafficking situation

Women caught in the sex industry find new life through Nea Zoi, a partner organisation, which reaches out to sex workers in Athens.

After working with the needy on a Transform 2012 outreach to Greece, Anthony (UK) returned to Athens to continue in that ministry.

OM Greece partners with the Greek Church to help feed the hungry and share Jesus in their own community.

A Greek woman embarks on a lonely journey to the Transform 2013 conference in Rome, a journey that began when she accepted Christ at 19.

Believers from different nations and denominations gathered to worship God together in Athens, promoting unity amongst the city’s believers.

After attending Transform 2014 and going on the Greece outreach, a young South African man returns to Greece eight months later to stay.

OM Greece and partner organisations help Syrians and other refugees as they reach the island of Lesbos from Turkey and disembark from dinghies.

OM partners with a Greek aid organisation to run the only Christian camp on Lesbos, offering help in Jesus' name.

Beyond providing basic relief items, one OM worker spends time with refugees passing through Greece, listening to their stories and hopes.

Following escalation of the refugee crisis in Greece, Greek and migrant churches unite to serve the refugees passing through the country.

OM Greece facilitates food distribution and children’s programmes at an Olympic arena in Athens now housing hundreds of refugees a night.

A long-term worker overseeing refugee relief work on Lesbos describes the people he’s met on the island, the chances he’s had to share his faith and how God has shown up during the crisis.

In the midst of the refugee crisis in Greece, OM country leader says OM acts as ‘the glue,’ doing behind-the-scenes work to bond churches and other Christian organisations.

Churches are the key to continuity in the refugee ministry, states Gabby Markus, director of OM Greece.

OM worker witnesses a new openness towards God and the Gospel amongst the thousands of refugees on their way to Europe.

Greece – a land with a glorious past is today faced with many challenges. OM is working with churches, ministering to the Greek and refugees.

Day after day, OM volunteers staffed transit camps meeting and loving refugees on Lesvos. After roughly nine months, the ministry is closing down.

OM Greece's involvement with refugees is always evolving. This summer the team is able to work in more camps and connect with more people.

Relationships form and opportunities to share Christ follow as OM workers minister to those seeking refuge in Athens and beyond.

An OM Greece worker explains, while she is babysitting, how she helps ladies involved in human trafficking and the sex industry.

OM seeks to love refugees like family members through starting sports ministry and cooking meals in camps.

Fion Lau, from Hong Kong, shares about her year serving with OM in Greece.

Lila from Argentina wanted to go on a mission trip, but always had a reason not to. Then she found the opportunity to serve refugees.

If God can speak to a national faith believer, and move him to cross continents to share his love for Jesus with other refugees, despite dangers and difficulties, what more might He achieve with more workers prepared to take the same risks for the gospel?

A group who started a funeral cooperative but registered it as a church learns what it means to be a real church.

OM Africa partners with Davar Partners International to distribute audio Bibles to those who cannot read.

A shepherd from a Muslim background comes to Jesus thanks to a goat ministry started by OM Mozambique.

God is working to transform lives in Mozambique through the efforts of the local OM team.

Lives are transformed in Mozambique as OM’s Tabitha Project gives local women training in sustainable handiwork skills.

Limardes Domingo, an OM worker in Mecula, Mozambique, has seen church growth over two years through God's faithful answers to prayer.

The OM Mozambique team builds a library in Mocuba to support and provide resources for the local community.

Antonio Nipueda (Mozambique) recollects his journey to ministry with OM in Mozambique and the ways their prayers have impacted one village there.

Focusing on one person at a time, John uses everyday life as a way to meet people where they are and journey alongside them.

“God is working in this community,” James said. He and other Christians in his village are challenging the culture by living their lives for Christ.

"...if they don’t believe you, you have to keep on talking and talking and talking until it gets stuck in their head," said Lansipe.

People in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe are still recovering from Cyclone Idai. OM is responding to the needs in different communities in these countries.

Lima, Peru, May 9, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Peruvian congresswoman Luz Milagros Cayguaray Gambini has demanded the country’s health minister provide the legal and scientific basis for a directive that would allow abortion when a pregnant woman is infected with the novel coronavirus.

Abortion is illegal in Peru except when pregnancy would cause death or permanent harm to a pregnant woman.

On April 22, Peru’s Minister of Health Victor Zamora issued a directive calling for provision of emergency contraception in the country, and allowing abortion for pregnant women who test positive for the coronavirus.

In a May 5 letter, Cayguaray demanded Zamora to “Indicate what the legal basis” is for the directive that allows doctors to “end the pregnancy,” if the mother has contracted COVID-19.

The legislator also challenged Zamora to indicate “the scientific and medical basis the norm is based upon.”

At issue is whether a positive test for coronavirus is sufficient to establish that a pregnancy threatens the life of a woman. Gambini says that assertion is unproven and unfounded.

Cayguaray has also written to Dr. Enrique Guevara Ríos, director of the country’s Perinatal Maternal Institute, asking him to report how many pregnant women with COVID-19 have been treated to date, “how many have had their pregnancies terminated,” “on what grounds,” and “what current regulation has been applied to carry out the interruption of those pregnancies.”

The Arequipa Doctors for Life Association has criticized the health directive in a statement.

"At this time in which all our efforts as a nation should be aimed at improving our precarious health system to mitigate the serious impact of the pandemic, the circumstances are being used to dictate measures that threaten the lives of Peruvians in their most vulnerable stage, life in the womb,” the group said.

Regarding the “morning after pill,” the group expressed surprise and concern “that the Ministry of Health promotes the irresponsible and reckless use of this drug in the general population and particularly for minors, and even worse, dispenses with obtaining the person’s medical history, which is an essential tool for the responsible practice of medicine, thus seriously exposing the users to danger."

Aborting a child because the mother has COVID-19, the doctors said “is contrary to the principles that govern medical practice, which must always be based on the application of therapies that are based on rigorous scientific studies and with respect to elementary ethical principles” which guide medical science in providing the best strategies to protect patients.

When a woman is pregnant “we have two patients to take care of, the mother and the unborn child," the doctors association stressed.

Concerning the babies themselves, five newborns whose mothers have COVID-19 were recently discharged from a government hospital in Peru. A sixth, also born of a coronavirus patient who is in serious condition in the intensive care unit, was born prematurely and remains hospitalized. None of the babies have tested positive for COVID-19.

In a May 5 interview with the El Comercio daily, Dr. César García Aste, who heads the hospital’s neonatology department, explained that there are strict protocols as to how the baby is to be fed in order to avoid infecting it.

A doctor from the hospital is assigned to follow up daily by phone on the baby’s condition for an average of 14 days, and “so far we haven’t had a problem with any of the five babies,” Garcia said.

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news agency. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

In this second update from the Serbia/Croatia border, OM leader Volker Sachse describes moments of God’s peace that transforms people in a dire situation.