The Chief of
Police
When my wife, my five-year-old son and I
went to Greece for the first time in 1978 to visit my "dying" mother-in-law,
(who had moved back to their little farm in the mountains of the Peloponnesus
with her husband after twenty years in Canada, where they had learned the
truth. By the way, my mother-in-law lived another twenty years) we had
stopped by at the newly build
Bethel in Athens first. The brother behind the reception desk
took an interest in us, showed us around the Bethel and asked us where in the
Peloponnesus my wife's parents were living. When my wife told him he gave kind
of a short whistle and said that that particular area was one of the two worst
provinces in all of Greece for the Witnesses. The other being on the island of
Crete. The brothers had a particularly hard time there during the ban and
things weren’t much better now. Even the Circuit Overseer usually had to sneak
in to visit the brothers and then leave after a day or two. He made us promise
that before we returned to Canada we would come by the Bethel again and report
any experiences we may have in the short three weeks we were going to stay.
And what pleasant experiences we had. We returned to the Bethel before our
departure back home and the brother was expecting us. He made notes, laughed
and wiped his eyes as he got involved with what my wife was telling him. He
told us that if we love Jehovah we would move to Greece as he was sure Jehovah
had send us, since we could be used in an area not readily accessible to
others. We too had come to that conclusion.
Sorry for the long intro but there are a few details I need to share to
appreciate about the chief of police. Back home I made this situation a matter
of fervent prayer to Jehovah. I asked him how I could possibly be of any use
to him in a foreign country as I did not know the language nor had the talent
to learn. Like a baby I would have to learn to speak again. I was blessed with
many privileges where I was living, had a good job and a comfortable house and
it would be a huge move to uproot my family. But I was willing to move
anywhere in the world if I was sure that is what Jehovah wanted. So, I asked
him for one sign to make sure the moving to Greece had his blessing. I needed
a car once we were in Greece. We would be staying with my in-laws and they
lived in a small mountainous village. Without transportation we would be stuck
to the village and surrounding area and not accomplish much, and in a short
time would get discouraged and want to go home again. Since I had no money to
buy a car in Greece, which were very expensive as they were considered luxury
items and heavily taxed, I asked Jehovah that if we had his blessing on the
move to Greece he would have to provide us with a car once we were there. And
he did. A 1967(?) Volkswagon Bus. It turned out to be the ideal means of
transportation. It had previously belonged to a journalist and had a desk and
sleeping facility, and we could stay away from our home base overnight and
also transport the brothers to our meetings. (How we were able to get the VW,
keep it running and fixed up when necessary, on our modest special pioneer
allowance is an amazing story in itself.) And this VW bus turned out to be a
huge blessing, as we will see.
We had a couple of zealous brothers who lived an hour walk from where we lived
and who regularly joined the five of us for our Sunday meetings. I would drive
to pick them up and along the way give any villager we saw walking also a ride
into town. Sometimes my VW was cramped beyond capacity. The priests got to see
that and imagined that all those people were coming to our meetings. I should
mention that in our area there was a famous monastery and thus had quite a few
priests residing there, and always others visiting. Our presence became well
known in a short time. And remember this was one of the two worst areas for
the Witnesses in all of Greece. Daily they went to the chief of police in the
principal town for our district and a twenty minute drive from us, to complain
about us and our meetings we were having at my father-in-law's home. And as we
discovered later, were sending letters of complaints about us to the Minister
of Immigration and Interior in Athens. They were complaining about us stealing
their sheep. In Greece there was a law against proselytizing.
I was having problems with the steering box of our VW and had noticed a
wrecked older VW abandoned off the side of the road. So, one day my wife and I
decided to go to the police to see if we could find out who the old VW
belonged to that maybe I could buy the gear box. We were ushered into the
office of the chief of police who ordered us a cup of Greek coffee. We talked
small talk. He wanted to know how it is that my wife had married a non-Greek,
and if she had changed her religion from the Greek Orthodox Faith, as is often
the case. And that is when he discovered that we were the ones the priests
were daily complaining to him about (that's how we found out). He confided in
us that he had no respect for the priests. Valuable icons were going missing
from the monastery and there was a big fight among the priests as they were
accusing each other of stealing the icons in order to sell them for the gold
frames. He inquired about our meetings, wanting to know what they were about,
and expressed the desire to attend one sometime. He was a little familiar with
the Witnesses as they had been banned for many years. We had some literature
with us which we left with him.
This town was the main shopping center for the entire district and so we would
occasionally drive there to do our shopping. We also had a kind, elderly
brother there, a blacksmith, who had endured much persecution in previous
years and we would always visit him. We soon learned that the chief of police
would often look out the window of his little office, overlooking the plaza,
hoping he would catch sight of us. And when he did he would come down to the
little plaza with a friendly smile and tell us that he wanted to see us in his
office in about ten minutes. Coffee would be waiting for us as he warmly
welcomed us. He would inform us about the latest news and be full of questions
about the Bible. He was so hungry for the truth. We would sometimes spend
almost an hour in his office and leave with him the latest literature we’d
have with us.
He learned that we were driving to Athens once a month (to pick up our
allowance at the Bethel) and he would arrange his schedule so he could come
with us. He would wait for us just outside the town early in the morning, hop
into our VW bus and we would spend the whole trip, six hours, talking about
the truth. He assured us we did not need to worry about the priests as all
they could do was complain, although sometimes he had to caution us about not
doing something on a particular day or in a certain village. He surely must
have been provided by Jehovah. The brothers in Bethel were amazed at how we
were able to function in that area and the studies we had. Even the circuit
overseer enjoyed accompanying us in our territory. And he took me along on his
circuit tour as I had a vehicle while he didn't.
In a short time the chief of police was promoted to four stars. He told us a
few times that once he was retired, in another five years, he would study the
Bible in earnest with the Witnesses. His actual home was in a large seaport on
the northern coast of the Peloponnesus and that is where he would retire. What
happened to him? I am certain that Jehovah remembers the loving-kindness of
this man towards us and has blessed him accordingly. We felt a sense of
gratitude and deep affection for this humble man. After about a year we were
reassigned by the Bethel to work with a tiny congregation in a different
province further south and so did not have much contact with him anymore. He
came to visit us once in our new home.
But no matter how helpful and protective the chief of police had been to us he
could not prevent all those letters of complaint from the priests being send
to the Minster responsible for immigration. We were to discover that they had
a thick file on us. We had to renew our visa every three months. It would have
been easy for the government to get rid of us simply by not renewing our visa.
That was about to happen, but again Jehovah's angel had found someone to help
us, and what was about to become a curse turned into a blessing. But that is
another story.