Team shares love of Christ with refugees on Germany mission trip

Students will return to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) this fall with stories of what they did over the summer. For one group of students, their stories will tell of their efforts to spread the Gospel overseas.

Seven SWBTS and Texas Baptist College (TBC) students and two faculty traveled to Cologne, Germany, this summer to share the love of Christ with refugees in that city.

Dean Sieberhagen, interim dean of the Roy J. Fish School of Evangelism and Missions and professor of missions, and TBC Dean and Assistant Professor of Evangelism Carl Bradford led the students in working with refugees from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, and Turkey – countries with a high rate of religious persecution. Sieberhagen noted that while there is freedom of religion in Germany, the refugees still may face family and cultural opposition to the Gospel of Christ.

Sieberhagen led training seminars for students on ways to reach refugees and teamed with Bradford during the second half of the trip to train refugees who had come to Christ.

One of the key ways team members performed outreach was setting up volleyball nets in a park. As people in the area joined the games, it gave team members the opportunity to start spiritual conversations with them. Cameron Wormack, a Connellsville, Penn., native in the 5-year program, said it was the most memorable part of the trip for him.

Wormack said he struck up a conversation with one young man after enjoying a game of volleyball. The man told Wormack he had “been waiting to learn about Christianity because he’d heard a lot of good things about it. And while in the conversation, he was looking around, making sure that his family wasn’t there to hear him saying that. And I thought that was pretty powerful,” Wormack said.

Gary Lee*, a SWBTS alumnus (MDiv ’23) and seminary staff member from Long Beach, Calif., said he most enjoyed “seeing the different peoples of the world there in Germany and that we were able to meet some of them at the park and build friendships with them that led to Gospel conversations.”

The group also conducted prayer walks, walking outside the gates of the refugee housing and talking with people in the area.

“God opened doors,” said Ariel Martinez, a Master of Theological Studies in Spanish (MET) student from Dallas. Martinez said he learned a new way of doing evangelism on the trip and is interested in the seminary’s mission trip to Spain scheduled in December.

Sisters Julia and Lily Dion of Quinlan, Texas, said a desire to share Christ with Muslims was a key factor in their decision to make the trip.

Julia, who was the 2023 recipient of the TBC Presidential Scholarship and is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in intercultural studies, said she believes God has called her to missions and she wanted a place to start.

“God has put the nations on my heart,” she said. “I prayed a lot about where I should start, and when I heard that there were still spots available to go to Germany, I prayed that God would provide a way for me to go. He provided!”

Lily, who is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in humanities, also has a heart for sharing Christ with Muslims and wanted to “see how God is at work in the global church.”

The sisters said one of their most memorable experiences on the trip was sharing the Gospel with a teacher of the Quran.

“He was very open to having spiritual conversations,” Julia said, adding they asked the man about the 99 names of God in Islam.

Lily continued, “I asked if we could share one of our favorite names of God with him found in Matthew 1:23. He said yes, and I expounded on the name Immanuel, God with us, and how, before Jesus, I was trying to make my way to God, but because of Jesus, God made a way to come to us.”

Julia said they asked the man if they could pray that God would reveal Himself to him, “and he said, ‘Yes, pray now!’ and held out his hands.”

“We got to pray over him,” Julia added, “and I continue to pray for him that God will reveal the truth of the Gospel to him and his wife.”

Team members also listed fellowship with Middle Eastern believers among the memorable parts of the trip.

“They had a lot of pure joy on their faces, and it was nice seeing them and meeting them and seeing how much they love the Lord and seeing them grow in that, too, through the seminars,” said Noah Turrubiate, an intercultural studies student at TBC from Anahuac, Texas.

Nate Childs, a Master of Divinity in apologetics student from Oklahoma City, Okla., brought a gift from the United States: a handmade cross he gave to one of the believers who invited the team to dinner. Childs said it “put a smile to my face as they told me in their native tongue, ‘I really love this and will put it in the best place in the home.’”

He said another incident nearly brought tears to his eyes.

During a discussion with other believers at the Köin Ostheim church, despite the language barrier, Childs said, “I could tell they were getting engaged in discussion when Dr. Bradford was teaching a lecture on faith versus works. When it came time to talk about the five solas of the Reformation, the whole group was talking nonstop, which I loved seeing.”

Reflecting on the experience after their return home, team members talked about the impact the trip had on them.

“During our time in Germany, we worshiped with the German and Persian church,” Lily Dion said. “I enjoyed this more than I expected to. Even though I could not understand a word they were saying, it was beautiful to see how God is working with all tribes and tongues of people for His glory. As someone who had never been out of the States before, it was eye opening to see this and begin to understand the weight of what the word ‘church’ means.”

Wormack said team members went to Germany to serve, “and we did a lot of good work, but also … grew in our relationship with the Lord a lot.” For him, he said, “It taught me how to abide in Christ.”

Martinez said he was leaning toward a pastoral focus with his degree, but after the trip is considering a focus on missions.

Turrubiate’s thoughts turned to the future of mission work.

“There’s a lot of hope for missions,” he said, noting that missionaries are reaching international people not just in their native countries, but it “seems that God is even sending the people to us also, as … a lot of the Middle Eastern refugees lived in countries that are hard for Christians to get into, but God ended up, through the way He works, they found their way to Germany, … allowing for easier access for us Christians to reach them. So there’s always a hope for a way for the Gospel to be given.”

*Name changed for security reasons and to protect future mission work.