Welcome Home!
- kostastrigkas
- Apr 23
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 26
Signs of God’s faithfulness and work amid our recent challenge
My GPS app knows where my home is, and often when I arrive, I hear that unexpected voice say, “Welcome home”.
Well, this time, that welcome home took a little longer—eight months, to be precise.
Here’s a summary of what happened and how God used it:
In July, we flew to Greece, thinking we’d combine a short vacation (and a special family celebration) with a visit to the embassy to renew my visa. However, the application number I needed to receive wasn’t coming.
Almost every day, I was expecting to hear something, but nothing.
One month gave way to another, and in October, we learned that we received an unexpected result—a denial.
At the same time, because the Visa had expired, we had no income, no health insurance in either country, and we were like foreigners in two countries. Yes, even our own.
When the church (my employer) inquired about the reasons for the denial, they discovered the issue wasn’t anything illegal—just missing paperwork. The solution seemed pretty straightforward. We booked the earliest available appointment at the American embassy for February 20th, but we thought that was too far.
Looking back, here are some ways God used this time:
The day I was not allowed to fly, grey clouds filled the sky, as a large fire spread to our suburb, with one person tragically dying. My grandmother was alone in that same area while the rest of my family was at our summer house, three hours away. She was very scared. Thanks to God’s timing, I was there with her that very day and the next.
September was a more joyful time with my brother and I being the best men for a friend’s wedding at Alkiviadou- the main Free Evangelical Church in Athens.
I also had the privilege of translating at another wedding at the 1st Greek Evangelical Church of Athens, a historic church Gavin Ortlund visited last year for a dialogue between a Protestant and an Orthodox priest. I have a funny story from that day—but I’ll save it for the end.
“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” —Luke 10:2
Nothing could be truer. In the following months, our schedule was packed.
I first led a series in 1 Thessalonians at our local Free Evangelical Church. Then came a Bible Study with young adults, whom we knew from the time we were leading the youth group. I also had the chance to do a four-week series on the book of Jonah, truly a highlight for me. Equally enjoyable and edifying was a one-on-one online Bible study in 2 Peter with a young adult named N***. Finally, I preached a short sermon series from the Book of Psalms titled: “Finding Rest in Stormy Seasons.”
By God’s grace, in the eight months we were stuck in Greece, I taught or preached at nine different churches, most of which more than once, and during some periods I had at least one preaching or teaching every week. People commented on how much my preaching had improved as a result of my training at the Orchard School of Ministry, and I am grateful to see the impact the teachers and this training have had on me. All praise be to God! I am also grateful to see how much people were encouraged by our newsletters and how God was at work through weak vessels like us.
Prayers Answered
I deeply appreciated it when people gave up their time, their lunch breaks, to join an online prayer meeting we held at the beginning of March.
Exactly a week later, I had an online class and the pastor who was teaching that session (not our regular instructor) let us finish the class early but gave us a task: TO PRAY.
And that’s what I did. Earlier, we had discussed, among other things, about God calling us to ministry.
Therefore, that night my No. 1 request to Him was “make certain my calling”. With the time being past 10 pm, I wanted to ask the Lord to respond in the next two hours. But I thought, who was I to test God? So, the prayer became less prescriptive and more like: Lord, if your will is,… I would like some form of confirmation by Friday (the next day).
After this time of prayer and pleading, I had to sleep. However, a thought came. I had to send one more email. So, I opened the laptop, and then for some strange reason another thought came: why not check if I could find anything online, any change to our case? Checking the department of immigration’s page at the beginning, there seemed to be an error with the case number I had received, so I almost gave up. Then, after one last try, I read “Approved”. In all these eight months I had rarely checked that page because I was not the applicant (the church was), and besides, I had never found anything helpful there in the past. I am certain this thought was planted by God to prove to me once again His faithfulness and confirm my calling. Needless to say, that night both Erini and I stayed up very late. Home was waiting for us.
He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. 1 Thessalonians 5:24
P.S: Briefly, the funny (but I suppose very Greek) story from the wedding I promised:
Ten minutes before the ceremony was to start, I was told that I would have to translate the vows too. Vows are always very formal and hard to translate on the spot. So, I had made sure to ask if I would have to do anything like that in advance. Thankfully, AI helped us here because I was not ready for such a translation. Thanks, ChatGPT 😉
N*** (Name hidden for privacy)
