Mission Makers
The International Mission Board (IMB) and their missionary teams in Italy have been planning for the 2026 Winter Olympics for two years. The world would be coming to Milan and Cortina so how could they not use this opportunity to spread the Good News of Jesus? I never dreamed that I would be joining them! I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Milan, Italy with five close friends to share the Gospel with people from all around the world. The six of us joined about 45 others from around the US and were hosted by the missionary teams in Italy for the first week of the Olympics with a second team arriving for the second week.
with a QR code. When someone scans the code itwillopentoapage with a Gospel message in their language. This was especially helpful in overcoming the language barrier.
Our main purpose was to talk to people and make connections which then lead to Gospel conversations. It helps to have a tool so the IMB provided us with a scarf and specially designed pins to hand out. Pin trading is a popular activity at the Olympics. We had three different pins to hand out and each pin is on a card that has a QR code. When you scan the code it takes you to a website with the Gospel message in your language. We were surprised at how many people pulled out their phones and scanned the code immediately! During the week I was there, our team of 50 people gave away about 10,000 pins to people from many, many countries on six continents! Seven people prayed to accept Christ and many more were open to the conversation and took the pin and Gospel message back home with them.
of Milan. Construction began in 1386 and was completed in 1965. Catholic mass is still held here every day. Our evangelism team started each day here. It’s a popular tourist spot and talking to people as they were taking photos was a great way to make connections.
Milan is such a beautiful city! We spent a lot of time around the Duomo Cathedral, and the Sforza Castle where people were seeing the sights and taking photos. An easy way to engage conversation was to simply spot a group trying to take a selfie and offer to take their photo. For the most part, we were met with friendly faces and the pins we were handing out were very popular. We met a young man on the first day who was working security at one of the Olympic visitor booths. We chatted with him, and prayed with him and every day after when we saw him he would just light up and give us a big hug. We went to a few Olympic events including the Opening Ceremonies and an Ice Skating event. Wearing the scarves with the pins gave us the opportunity to open up a Gospel conversation everywhere we went!
What a joy to serve the Lord and be a part of this once in a lifetime opportunity in the beautiful city of Milan with my best friends!
— Wendy Satterwhite
Art Director, Birmingham Christian Family
