MILAN — Pin trading is always a huge part of the Olympic experience for fans and athletes. It has become a cultural phenomenon around the Games and a rite of passage for thousands who attend. Around the globe, people bring different pins, including country flags, past Olympic Games and personalized ones of all shapes and sizes.
But Jerry Johnson is putting a whole new meaning to Olympic pin trading.
For Johnson, a native of Lexington, Ky., the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics are his seventh. His first one was back in 1996 in Atlanta at the Summer Olympics. Johnson originally began pin trading because his church, Porter Memorial Baptist Church, started making gospel pins. He wanted to be a part of the evangelizing after being a campus minister for more than three decades.
At first, it was just him trading pins at the Olympics, but now he isn’t the only one from his church going internationally to share the gospel at the Olympics. Danielle Banks and Ellie Ransdell are also from the same church and joined him this time around.
“We have an awesome mission-focused church that is just wanting to share the love of Jesus with the world around us,” Banks said.
Now it has grown to a much bigger mission work than when Johnson first started. These three have been walking around Milan carrying three different pins. Each one of them has a different phrase on it: “lo sono la via,” “la sono la vita,” and “lo sono la luce,” which translate to the Bible verse “I am the way, the truth and the life” in John 14:6.
They’ve already had conversations with fans from all over in the first week of these Olympics while walking through the Duomo, the main Olympic merchandise store and wandering around the venues.
“It’s been amazing also to hear just the stories from all over the world — from Lithuania or Latvia or Switzerland and all of these countries I would never have access to on my own,” Banks said. “To have the opportunity to come to one place and meet people from all over the world with different faiths and different beliefs and be able to discuss, it’s just been absolutely amazing.”
The church members put a QR code on the back of each pin that goes more into the three phrases and makes it accessible for fans who don’t speak English.
“Even if there’s a language barrier, we can have them scan that (a code) on their phone,” Banks said. “It immediately pops up, and they can select their language and immediately start to engage with what we’re saying because they can see it in their own language.”
Johnson isn’t just exchanging pins to spark deep conversation with fans, but also with athletes. At the start of these Olympics, he met Laila Edwards, a member of the U.S. women’s hockey team. The 22-year-old made history a week ago when she became the first African American woman to play on the U.S. Olympic hockey team.
Johnson talked with both Edwards and her mom in Milan when he ran into them in the city.
“Her story has inspired me,” he said. “So, I just talked to her about that and shared with her about the message of the pin. ... So that was a really cool experience.”
Not only have these three reached American athletes, but they have also interacted with Olympians from other countries.
“I talked to the Trinidad and Tobago bobsled team, and it was so funny, they were saying, ‘We’re really trying to be number one in the Caribbean,’ and I prayed with them,” Johnson said. “I think it was a God moment. It was such an encouragement both to me and to them.”
Since the Olympics continue until Feb. 23, Johnson, Banks and Ransdell are keeping their goal the same until then: exchange pins with whoever they meet on the street with hopes of starting a bible conversation from the words on their pins.
As hundreds of thousands cross Milan and Cortina during a two-week span, people coming from all backgrounds, races and countries, pin trading continues to unite and create life-changing conversations for people who interact with those from Porter Memorial Baptist church.
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