Philemon Armenis is passionate about seeing change in his country, Greece, and is contributing to that goal by the work of Streetlights, which he leads with his wife Eva.

In 2004, Fusion Australia joined with Fusion International in reaching out to the Greek people during the Athens Olympics. Community festivals were run around the country, equipping Greek Christians to reach into their communities with God’s love.

During that time, Philemon was working in connection with a street drug addict ministry in the inner city of Athens. He says of the Olympics, and the Christian outreach that took place, “It was huge, and we weren’t really prepared for it. After the noise went off, it was important for Greeks to discover how we could meet the needs in our city.”

This process took some years, and, according to Philemon, his approach to Christian ministry in Greece has changed a great deal. “We used to have only the outreach in our mind; how to evangelise people and bring them to church. But after the community outreach during the Olympics, we started thinking about how we can develop a way to cover people’s needs. A seed came to Greece during the Olympics: a new concept of working and community,  a concept of community transformation.”

And in the eight years that have followed the Athens Olympics, Greece has become a very different place in which to live. “Greeks are changed,” says Philemon. “Now we need someone to stand up for justice and support the next generation.”

The Fusion office in Greece is based in Athens, 500 metres from the central Syntagma Square. They are therefore right in the thick of anything happening in Greece, geographically speaking. Philemon says, “What we are called to do is so different now. We’re working preventing riots, and helping with youth unemployment.”

As well as the changes to the stability of Greek lives, however, comes a greater willingness to hear the good news about Jesus. “Greeks are much more thirsty for hope and to get closer to God, and to find out the reason they are here. The dream of a nice house, car and job isn’t the focus as much anymore – now it’s finding out what we live for.”

When Philemon began the Greek arm of Fusion International in 2010, he says they wanted the young people to decide on the name of the movement. Their vote was to call it ‘Streetlights’. “This was a way for them to own the ministry,” says Philemon. “That was a different way of thinking. We wanted to start meeting the needs of our young people, rather than starting with solutions from overseas.”

One of the ministries of Streetlights is a youth cafe, which functions as a creative base in downtown Athens. There, young people can learn a new creative trade, developing new skills which help get them out of unemployment. “It’s easy to reach a person and tell them about God,” Philemon reflects, “but what can you do for them next? How can you help a person with their life?”

In the youth cafe, Philemon and his team aim to help young people emotionally, spiritually and practically. They develop computer skills, video skills, skills in graphics and animation. At the same time they’ve started some social enterprises – clothes design, and then sales of those clothes through a shop they run.

“Young people come without skills, learn and get little jobs. You need to see the excitement of young people who drop in after school. We have a huge problem with education – but they love the cafe because they are learning life skills there.”

As well as the work with youth unemployment, Philemon and his team work on projects which involve stopping people from freezing to death in the winter, and working with young mums.

Philemon says that prayer is vital for Greece, as they seek to change as a nation. “The whole mentality is changing,” he says. “We need to become creative; we’ve relied too much on the government and the public sector.”

“There’s a lot of injustice from the government, and police brutality at the moment. This makes it a challenge working with young people, who have a lot of anger.”

“It’s important for our country to change, and for the next generation to be creative. The creativity we see in the Bible, we want to have develop in the next generation. And God is giving us all these skills.”

Watch a Streetlights video here:

For more information on Streetlights, visit www.streetlights.gr. For more information on the work of Fusion International visit http://www.fusioninternational.org/.