A Greek Encounter

In my mind’s eye, the statue looked like a horse standing on its hind legs with a rider screaming a battle cry. After saying amen and closing my time in prayer, I had my group leader add this to our prayer journal. I was in a team meeting in Kona, Hawaii going through a prayer time with the five others that would be going with me to Germany and Greece in about a month and half’s time.

During my time at Youth With A Mission (YWAM), we spent countless hours in prayer. Prayer was a key pillar to everything that we did and we sought after the Lord as we were preparing to go overseas. We asked God to give us wisdom as to what to pray for before we began our trip. We prayed for each other that we would be prepared and would stay safe during our 10-week excursion. We asked God for pictures, anything that we should be looking for during our time. It was the response to that question that I had our team scribe pen down that picture in our team outreach journal.

I had never been overseas. I was 23 years old. The only thing I’d really done in my life up until that point was hit and throw a baseball. So, I was stepping into some unchartered territory. A quick aside, putting yourself in positions where you must depend on the Lord truly are some of the most beautifully, frightening, amazing experiences you can have – at least that’s been my experience.

Our first four weeks would be spent in Berlin, Germany. We partnered with a local YWAM base there and spent a large chunk of our time visiting refugee camps. Fresh out of sunny Santa Barbara County, I found myself talking to refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. My worldview was expanding at exponential speeds.

We then traveled to Greece for six weeks. We split our time with the first three up north in Thessaloniki and the final three down in Athens. There’s a night in Thessaloniki I want to bring you in to for a moment.

The ministry we were partnering with served the local schools in educating students on the dangers of local human trafficking – pretty heavy stuff. They also had a church and a young adults ministry. One evening we walked down by the water towards what is called the White Tower – built sometime in the 1400’s as a sort of ancient lighthouse.

We met up with our ministry hosts at an expansive lawn just up from the waterfront. They had two guitars and about seven of their young adults to go along with our team of six. We sat in a circle and began signing worship songs. They mentioned that this has been a practice of theirs during the spring and summer months that tends to attract strangers like a magnet.

In Greece, there weren’t many who spoke English and this evening in particular I was a little discouraged because I was having a hard time communicating with people. I was tired of things getting lost in translation and I found myself asking the Lord for an English speaker to show up to our circle. It was one of those prayers you don’t really think is going to be answered when you say the words, but I said them anyway.

I see a man in his early 30’s walk up to one of the Greek speakers. He had a hard face, and the conversation didn’t last very long and due to his non-reaction, he didn’t seem super thrilled with whatever was spoken to him. I continued to pray for an English-speaking stranger to wander over.

This man and his friend sat right behind me, and I was almost bothered because I knew he was another local who I wasn’t going to be able to talk to. I continued to pray. After about five minutes, I get a tap on the shoulder from the man, and he asks me in decent English what my name is. I immediately light up inside and begin to talk to him. Is his English perfect, no, but I can understand him.

After about three or four quick small-talk question, he turns to his friend — slightly befuddled — and turns to me and asks me if I can understand him and I say of course I can! He says back to me, I can’t speak English that well.

We continue with our conversation and I begin to tell him we’re there to tell people about Jesus. He’s never heard of Him. After a few more minutes he stops me, looks at his friend, and asks me again if I can understand him, I say yes, and he says again, I can’t speak English that well. His face begins to soften, and I see this light of excitement begin to enter his eyes.

I started to share the Gospel with Him and he was hanging on every word. Again, he stopped me, looked at his friend in wonder, turned back to me and asked if I knew what he was saying, I said yes, and he replied, no I don’t think you get it I can’t speak English that well. It was the third time that got my attention. This guy doesn’t speak English and here we were talking.

This is when I got excited. I went ahead and took the opportunity to pray with him and at the end of the prayer his eyes were wide open and fixed on me. The expression on his face now compared to when he first walked up to our group was undeniably different. He was experiencing the love of the Lord in a special way.

We hugged and he said thank you many times over before our night concluded and we went our separate ways. I never saw him again. As we wrapped up and began our walk home, I was awestruck at what just happened. Had God really given this guy the ability to communicate in a language he either didn’t know or barely knew in order for him to hear the Gospel?

We hadn’t gotten more than 50 yards from where our worship circle was when I looked over to my right and there it was – a statue of a horse standing on its hind legs with a rider screaming a battle cry. The exact image I’d seen two months prior during a prayer time at a coffee shop in Kona, Hawaii.

My smile was touching both my ears as I shared the story with my team. We prayed prayers of thanksgiving and worship on our way back to our flat. Does God still move in power today? Yes. Does He use us to do it? Yes. God is looking for people to partner with Him in the Grand Narrative of life. It starts with personal prayer and seeking after God. He wants to use you too, friend. If you don’t know where or how, ask him. “Lord how would You like to use me today?” Continue that plea and keep your ears open because we serve a God who is still working and speaking – today.

He Stayed

Hope Against Hope