Meet the Local Church We Partner With in Greece

There's a moment on every Greece trip that shifts the energy of the whole group.

It isn't the Acropolis, although that will take your breath away. It isn't the boat day, though that's the one everyone brings up when they get home. It's the time we spend with the local church we partner with in Crete, a ministry called Anamnisi Chania, which means "remembrance," and the couple who have poured their lives into it.

I've been going back to these people for over a decade now so before I tell you who they are, let me tell you how I got here. Because this part of the trip isn't a line item on an itinerary for me. It's the reason I do any of this at all.

How Greece Got Ahold of Me

I first went to Greece when I was seventeen, on an educational tour of Italy and Greece. I was so excited for Italy but then we landed Greece and something in me just shifted. I remember sitting on the tour bus, watching the countryside roll by on the way to each site, completely undone by the land, the people, the dancing at dinner, the history, all of it. I didn't have words for it at the time. It just felt like a calling… like I was supposed to be there.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life back then, but I knew I wanted to get back to Greece. As a seventeen-year-old, the only path I could dream up was to become an archaeologist. I genuinely love history, so it made a kind of sense. When the time came, I went to the one university in my state that offered a classical archaeology major and dove straight into my major classes my very first year (sorry-not-sorry to every advisor who says to take core classes first).

I'm so glad I did, because I learned fast that I did not want to dig in the dirt for the rest of my life.

And then one ordinary afternoon, walking back to my dorm from class, I heard the still, small voice of the Lord for the first time in my life and He said, I” have so much more planned for you than you have for yourself.” It dropped this deep peace into me, and right alongside it, this wide-open sense of wonder. Okay, Lord. Then what's next?

That question sent me into a whole season of chasing after Him. It was the stretch of my life where my faith stopped being something I'd inherited and became my own. My prayer was basically, I'll do anything you want, Lord. Just tell me what. I ended up doing a year-long missions trip and working with a non-profit missions organization for a few years after that.

And somewhere in there, Greece quietly fell off my radar.

The Summer That Sent Me Back

About eight years after that first trip, I went back to school to finish my bachelor's in international business. Honestly, I only chose that major because it was the fastest one I could get done and made the most sense. I started looking for somewhere to volunteer my first summer off and got my heart set on a Christian hostel in Amsterdam. By the time I inquired in January, they were already full but they were kind enough to send me a list of a network of guesthouses and cafés and ministries that needed hands.

One of them was a family starting a guesthouse in Greece that summer called The Way Guesthouse.

I knew instantly that was where I was supposed to be.

I reached out to the oldest daughter, who was leading the whole thing. She had this beautiful heart for hospitality and travel and bringing people together, and we clicked immediately. Her family were Greek Americans who had been missionaries on Crete for ten years before moving back to the States. That summer, we started turning their home on Crete into a guesthouse: shared rooms, private rooms, travelers coming through from all over the world. The idea of it was that the volunteers were all believers and we built this Christ-centered community to be the heart behind the guesthouse.

We welcomed people from all over the world who might never in their lives step foot inside a church and simply invited them in. Into meals. Into devotions and reading the Bible together. Into beach days. Into our actual lives. All of it completely optional, but the door was always open. We did that for three summers, and some of the friendships from those years are still with me.

That first summer, back in 2015, I met Ilias and Nelly, a couple who had just moved to Crete to start a ministry: a coffee shop and a church. That ministry is Anamnisi Chania.

Who They Are

Ilias is Greek. Nelly is from Bulgaria. They are, without exaggeration, some of the hardest-working, servant-hearted people I have ever met, and they have spent the last decade-plus quietly building something remarkable.

Anamnisi is a church, yes, English and Greek speaking, but it's so much more than a Sunday service. There's a donation-based coffee shop where people have slowly become regulars, where folks tell me here we feel like we belong to a family. There's a space where people experiencing homelessness or hard times can come do their laundry and take a shower. They run English classes. They have a shop where people can get clothes and shoes for free. For years they served a large refugee population in the area, though some of that shifted through COVID. They have a growing prison ministry.

They've kept going through years of hard, unglamorous, faithful ministry, the kind nobody puts on a highlight reel.

I've been to Crete something like eight times now: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, (again this September) and every single time, the relationship with Ilias, Nelly, and this ministry has grown a little deeper.

Me, Nelly (center), and another volunteer at the Anamnisi Cafe

Free clothing shop and shower ministry for refugees and homeless.

Anamnisi Chania Church and Coffee Shop in Crete

Missional, Not a Missions Trip

Here's the heart behind everything we do at TravelherCo, and I want to be really clear about it: our trips are not missions trips but they are deeply missional.

There's a difference and it matters to me.

A missions trip has a project and a start and an end date. What I'm after building is something you carry into the rest of your life, a way of moving through the world with your eyes open. Missional isn't a week you sign up for; it's a heart posture. It's traveling in a way that connects instead of consumes. It's being genuinely present with the people whose home you're a guest in. It's letting the God who's already at work in a place get ahold of your heart while you're there.

So on our Greece trips, we do it all. We stand at real Biblical sites. We do devotions together and talk about the things that actually matter. We also have a ton of fun: long dinners, beach days, the boat, the laughing-until-you-cry stuff. You get the whole mix, on purpose.

And we set aside one day in Crete to simply be of service, connected to a local church, Anamnisi, and the community there. It looks a little different every time. Last year we put together hygiene kits for people experiencing homelessness and brought them to the church. Some years it's something else entirely. We hold that day loosely and stay open to what the Lord has for us. There's also the chance, on Sunday, to worship with the local church. Nobody is ever required to do any of it but the door is open: to build a real relationship, to hear what God is doing there, and to leave with a place and a people you can keep praying for and supporting long after you fly home.

That's the whole point for me. I never wanted these trips to be an in-and-out, you-came-you-saw-you-forgot kind of thing. I really believe travel can connect us to the world, to the Lord, and to other believers in a way everyday life at home rarely does, but only if we go looking for it. Prioritizing relationship is what I care about most…. creating that open door for others who travel with us to do the same is the reason we have and will keep going back to some of the destinations.

What This Changes About the Trip

I'll be honest about the fear: a church visit on an itinerary can sound, on paper, like a box being checked. A "ministry moment" wedged between a beach day and a nice dinner.

That is not what this is.

This time is the reason I can say, without flinching, that a TravelherCo Greece trip is more than a vacation. It's the thing that sets it apart from any other beautiful, well-run group tour to the same islands. We're not just passing through Greece. We're sitting down with the people who live there, who love God there, who are building something real there.

Every woman who's come on this trip has walked away with something from that time. A conversation she's still turning over months later. A face she can pray for now, because she finally has a name. A fresh reminder that the global church is alive and at work in places we don't often think to look.

Some of the most significant moments of your faith won't announce themselves ahead of time. They'll just show up in an afternoon in Crete, around a table, with people whose names you didn't know an hour before.

Church in Crete

Post church lunch fellowship

Packing hygiene kits for the church outreach ministry

Come to Greece With Us

If this is the kind of travel you've been longing for, where the beauty and the fun and the depth all get to coexist, I'd love to have you in Crete with us.

Our next women's trip to Greece is this September 2026, and as of now, we host this trip on a yearly basis, so if the timing isn't right for this one, there's another one coming. You'll see the Biblical sites, rest, adventure, connect with women who are after the same things you are, and share that unforgettable afternoon with our friends at Anamnisi.

See our upcoming Greece trips and reserve your spot →

Dream of Hosting Your Own Women's Trip?

Maybe you're reading this and something is stirring: not just to come on a trip, but to lead one. To gather your own community of women and take them somewhere that combines Biblical sites, real adventure, space to rest and retreat, and that missional posture of connecting with the local church and the God already at work there.

That's not a missions trip. It's a missional lifestyle, and it's exactly the kind of experience I love helping women create.

If you've ever pictured leading a trip like this for the women in your life, I'd love to talk. Tell me a little about you and what's on your heart, and let's dream it up together.

Reach out → hello@travelherco.com

Want to know more about Anamnisi, or feel led to support what they're doing in Chania? Reach out. I'd be honored to connect you.

- Ashley