The Prodigal Son My testimony

I did not publish my testimony here to glorify myself but God. Not to show that I am some great saint, because I am not and have not been, and I show it clearly in my testimony. As the Gospel says, in the Epistle of James the Apostle, 5:20, "Let it be known that he that turneth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins”. And I am a great sinner. And why did God do these things for me and not for another? Because another would be ashamed of his works. And I am ashamed of my works, but I would not keep my Lord's miracles secret to cover my shame, but I would publish them as I have done, that God may be glorified, and let my shame be made public, and let the world condemn me as much as it pleases. Not only that, the miracles God has done in my life, to me were a benefit, but they were not done for me but for you, to convince you that God is yesterday, is today, is tomorrow, and forever. And that He loves you so much that if you believe and trust Him, what He did for me He will do for you and for everyone who believes in Him. So have faith, all things are possible for those who believe Him.

***

"Mavroulis," called the guard from the hallway.

I turned and looked at him through the railing that separated the hallway from the six-cell unit that housed me.

"You have a visit from your lawyer," he said, and took the keys from his belt and walked over to the railing.

I turned around and put my hands in the tray slot. By now I was familiar with the routine. He handcuffed my wrists, took the door key from his belt and opened the door. I stepped out and he closed the door behind him. I proceeded to walk down the hallway under the stares of the prisoners housed inside the cell units we were passing.

The guard took me down to the first floor to the lawyers' room. He removed the handcuffs from my hands and walked out, closing the door behind him.

"How are you?" My lawyer asked me. He said it to break the ice between us.

"I could be better," I said.

"Here's the indictment. You've been charged with fifteen counts, interstate racketeering, etc., you know the story, maximum sentence of 105 years. If you are convicted on all the charges, the judge could give you the maximum."

I knew I had to be punished. I had committed a crime, but 105 years? It was heavy.

"What are my chances?" I asked him.

"Considering this is your first offense, I'd say fifty to sixty."

That sealed the coffin. My life was over.

"What's next?"

"We'll prepare for trial unless you decide to accept a plea bargain. But I have to tell you, they have so much evidence against you that we have no hope of winning the trial. If I were you, I would plead guilty. The judge would be willing to hear your side of the story and remorse and could be lenient."

I was guilty, regardless of the circumstances of my offense. I was a drywall subcontractor and was performing a drywall contract for a general contractor/owner. I worked for him for three years and we had an excellent relationship. He finished another large project and brought the supervisor of that project to the job I was working on. The first time I met him, I knew that problems had reached my backyard. We didn't connect mentally and I knew immediately that this man was not a good guy.

As I suspected, he was planning to fire me and bring his friend to finish the job. Which happened days later. However, he broke our contract after I had not received payment for the second month in a row. When general contractors intend to fire a subcontractor, they hold on to as much money as they can and refuse to pay him so they held on to about a hundred thousand and then fired me. At the same time, three other general contractors who had contracted me to do the drywall on their projects conveniently fired me from their jobs too. The money they all kept from me could have been as much as half a million dollars.

My career as a subcontractor was over, and in my distress, the state of Virginia put the icing on the cake. At the time they weren't paying me I continued to work believing I would be paid the following month. To have money to pay the staff, hoping they would pay me, I was withholding the taxes that I had withheld from the employees to keep funding the company, and I was not paying the federal government and the state of Virginia. I planned to pay them when the general contractors paid me. The state of Virginia sent me a notice to pay, but I didn't have the money. When I told them I didn't have the money, the government immediately issued a warrant for my arrest.

I had no idea that not paying the employee withholdings to the state of Virginia was a crime. I lost it. Here, I was going to jail for a crime I didn't believe I was responsible for. That money was invested in the projects of those owners/contractors who had just fired me from their jobs and were refusing to pay me. The amount I had not submitted to the state of Virginia was about one hundred thousand dollars and to the federal government, about four hundred. I begged each of them to pay me and none were willing to give me a dime.

I was desperate and scared, and my fear turned to anger first and then to hate. At the same time, the movie The Godfather was playing in theaters and I saw it. Vulnerable as I was, it made such an impression on me that it aggravated my situation and, thinking of the injustice I had been subjected to, prompted me to take the law into my own hands. To take legal action, I could not. I had invested everything in their jobs, and I had no money left for legal fees. I overflowed with rage. I was like the dog that doesn't bark but puts its head down and attacks. So I set explosives in my victim's house and called them to get out of there because their house was going to be blown up in ten minutes. Thank God, they got out and no one was hurt.

My lawyer left and a few hours later I had a visit from my wife.

"Darling, you might consider leaving me. It will be a long time," I said.

"I don't care. I'll wait for you," she said. "Even if they give you sixty, in twenty you can be free on parole. I'll wait for you."

I looked at her, frightened. And then feelings of pity filled my insides, but I said nothing to her.

She left and I went to my cell. When the prisoners working in the kitchen brought in the trays of food, I approached the one I knew and asked him if he could bring me a razor blade.

Sure enough, at dinner time, under my plate, on my tray, I found the razor blade. I placed the tray on the metal table lining the partition of the barrier, picked up my plate, took the razor blade, and put it in my pocket, then I sat down on the long metal bench where all the prisoners sat to eat. I ate and then I went into my cell, sat on my bunk, and started thinking. I had ruined my life, and not only my life but my wife's and my son's. She was determined to wait for me and I loved her too much to let her do that.

My thoughts were interrupted when the tray cart returned to pick up the empty trays. I got out of my bed and went and gave the empty tray to the prisoner who had brought me the razor and gave him a pack of cigarettes. Then I returned to my bunk, sat on my bed, and continued my thinking. The decision I had made was not only for my wife and son but also for me. I thought about the life I was entering into for the next sixty years, at least. Alfring, another prisoner who had been through the system a few times, had told me all sorts of stories about life in the American penitentiaries. I was entering an unknown hell, I was sure of it. I went back and sat on the floor in front of my cell and started watching the TV that was on the metal table. A few hours later, it was time for us to be locked in our cells. Each of us entered our cell and the police pulled the lever and the cell doors slammed shut with a loud bang as they banged against their metal frames.

II

I sat on my bed to execute my plan. Besides, I thought. What does it matter? I lived my life. I was thirty-one years old and had been through a few countries. I had lived my life with great speed. After all, what was the point of going through this hell to prolong life for a few more decades? Life ends here, I thought. It's like a car. You turn off the engine and the car stops dead. And look at the benefits: My wife is a beautiful young woman, she'll find someone to remarry, and my son won't grow up with an absentee father. It was a win-win plan. I took the razor out of my pocket, removed the thick security paper that surrounded the blade and it was time. It was strange. I was completely at peace with what I was about to do. I would feel some pain, but soon my blood would be spilling on the floor, and even if someone could see me from the hallway, by the time they brought the doctors to my cell, I would be dead. I held the razor tightly by the edge that wouldn't cut and raised my hand to strike my veins. I thought if I struck the edge of the razor against the veins hard I would cut my veins without the pain that would make me hesitate. I had to do it hard and fast. I did harbor the feeling that they may have found me on time and saved me. In that case, I thought, I may have gotten the pity of the judge. It was only wishful thinking. They would have taken over an hour before I would have been seen by a doctor, and by then I would have been bled to death.

Before the razor blade touched my veins I was outside my body, somewhere out in space in total darkness. I didn't know if I was dead. I couldn't think of anything at that moment. All I knew, I was in total darkness as black as a blackboard, and then a person appeared surrounded by a bright light. The darkness was replaced by His light and He pointed me down to the top of a mountain with no vegetation, where there was a statue that looked like the Statue of Liberty. He did not speak to me. He just showed me the statue and disappeared, and I returned to my body. I wasn't dead. Before I could understand what was happening to me, I immediately came out of my body again and found myself standing on a river bank. On both sides of the river were a multitude of people, and I knew in my heart that on one side were people of God, and on the other side of the river were people of the devil, and I was standing with the people of the devil.

Immediately afterward, I returned to reality, but this time a supernatural knowledge had settled in me. A knowledge that I could not question. It was too powerful to reject. And the knowledge was that there was a heaven and a hell, that God was real, that Christ was real, and that he died on the cross for my sins, and that God had raised him from the dead. Until then I had never believed in God. The last time I had gone to church was many years earlier to pick up girls. And now I was filled with this knowledge, contrary to what I knew. I didn't meditate on it because it hit me like I had been hit in the head with a hammer. I fell to my knees and began to cry and beg God to forgive me for my sins. At first, I felt dirty inside but immediately a sense of cleanliness flooded my being and I stood up. A joy mixed with love had flown through me and I felt so joyful. So happy that I loved everything with intense emotion: the prison in which I was incarcerated, the bars that held me locked me up, even the toilet that was only half a meter away from my bed. And now, I wanted to know about Jesus, this Jesus who saved my life. I needed a Bible, but there wasn't one. The next morning, a Baptist preacher came by talking to the prisoners behind the iron partition of the cells. I approached him and said, "Hey, can I have a Bible? Last night I had a meeting with Jesus Christ and I want to know more about Him. This caught his interest and he gave me a Bible. He kept a few with him in case a prisoner wanted one.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked me.

"Sure," I said. A few hours later, with my hands behind my back in handcuffs, I was taken downstairs to a counselor's office to meet him. I explained everything that had happened to me and he was very happy that I had come to know Jesus Christ and had found my salvation.

***

I began to read the Bible voraciously and what I was reading made sense now. When I had stayed in a hotel once, at the night table I had found a Bible. I tried to read it, but everything I was reading didn't make sense to me then and in a few minutes I had it closed and put it back in the drawer. This time, I understood everything I was reading. The preacher had told me to start reading the Bible from the Gospel of John, where I read John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." God loves me, I thought. Why? After what I had done, I had a low perspective on myself. They say that God loves the sinner but hates sin. It's like an old cliché. But for one thing, I was sure God loved me. He had appeared to me to save me from destruction.

I had read once that over 50,000 people commit suicide in the US every year. Why did he stop me; why me? And not the fifty thousand? I can only think of what Paul wrote about salvation by choice. Why did he choose to save me and not the others? I could only think that God knew that if I knew the truth, I would repent and accept Him as my Lord and savior.

Many years ago, I had a rich friend who had bought an expensive sports car. As he was speeding, he lost control and hit a power pole. The car crashed and the engine was pushed into the cab. They had to cut the car into pieces to get him out. He told me before the car hit the pole, two big hands grabbed his head and held it, as a result, he got out of the wreckage without a scratch. He believed in a superpower, but that Jesus Christ had died on the cross for his sins? No! Quite a tectonic belief, I'd say. His incident could add evidence to Paul's teaching on salvation by election. This happened many years ago and I don't know if this man found salvation. Only God knows.

One day, while sitting on the concrete floor leaning against the bars of my cell and watching the evening news on TV, I felt the presence of someone on my left. I turned and looked and there was no one there. I turned back to the TV and immediately felt his presence again. I looked again, nothing. What is happening to me I thought. I turned back to the TV and felt his presence again, but this time I decided not to look. Then the vision was completely formed in my mind. And I could see him, not with my physical eyes, but with my mind's eye. He was tall, even over six feet, a large man, dressed in the garb of an ancient monk, wearing sandals on his feet. He certainly had a Mediterranean look. He held one hand over the other and looked at me with a look of pity.

He stood beside me without moving, without saying anything. I thought he must be my guardian angel. As soon as I finished watching TV, I went into my cell and lay down on my bed. He followed me in and stood by the toilet. And he was with me day and night, and everywhere I went, he followed me and stood next to me. He stayed with me for about six months until I was settled and safe.

While I was waiting for my sentence, one day, I was lying in my bed. Not asleep, but, I would say, half asleep. I felt my body twist from right to left and then I fell out of my bed. The weird thing was that I slowly fell like a feather and landed gently on the concrete floor. My head touched the steel frame of the door and it felt strange. It didn't feel like flesh touching metal. Then I thought, oh, God, I must be out of my body. I was scared and with lightning speed I was back in my body. Wow, what was that? What is God trying to show me? Does He want me to feel confident that I am not a body but a spirit inhabiting this body?

III

Finally, the day of my sentencing arrived and I was brought before the judge. He considered the circumstances of my crime and the fact that it was my first offense, sentenced me to 15 years, and made me eligible for parole at any time. The vision of Christ with the Statue of Liberty on top of the mountain made sense now. Soon he was going to set me free. I was very happy and so was my wife.

     Shortly afterward, I was taken to the Lewisburg prison to serve my sentence. They kept me in solitary confinement for two weeks to complete all the medical tests they would do on me, and then I packed up my things and followed the guard to a dormitory. It was a dormitory with about fifteen beds. He took me to an empty bunk and then looked around for an empty closet. Next to my bunk was another empty bunk with a small closet in front of it. He tried to move it, but it wasn't easy. He opened it and looked inside. Then he closed the door.

     "Let's go empty it in the bathrooms," he said. Immediately and eagerly, I pushed the metal closed into the bathrooms and opened the door. Inside was a plastic bag filled with a yellow liquid.

     "What's this?" I asked him.

     "What do you think it is? Pruno, "he said and laughed. An expression of surprise formed on my face.

     "First time in prison, heh?" He asked me.

     "I've never set foot in a police station in my life. Let alone in a penitentiary."

     "Have fun," he said with a smile. I still didn't know what he meant. He poured the wine down the toilet and I dragged the metal wardrobe, placed it in front of my bed, and started putting my things in it. After the officer came out of the dormitory, a few minutes later, I was forcibly pulled into the middle of the dormitory. I didn't have a chance to get up from the squatting position I was in. I lay on the floor on my side, assumed a fetal position, put my arms around my head to protect it from the violent kicks I was being given by four prisoners wearing steel-toed shoes.

     "Lord Jesus Christ, into your hands I commend my spirit," I said because I knew this was for me, and that I was going to die that night. They were kicking me hard, but for some strange reason, I didn't feel the pain. Soon they stopped. I got up and walked over to my bunk, intending to continue putting my things in my closet. At that moment, four guards rushed into the dormitory. Looking at me and seeing me beaten, they said: "Let's go."

I was in shock, so I said nothing and followed them. Two guards went in front of me and two behind me. They took me to solitary confinement. The next day, I met the prison psychologist and the captain. They asked me what had happened, and I told them at least what I knew had happened.

     "Stay in solitary confinement for a week," the captain said, "and then we'll transfer you to a single cell where you'll be more protected. I thanked him and the guard took me back to the solitary confinement cell.

     The next day, my wife and my little boy visited me in prison. When they left and I returned to my cell, their voices echoed in my ears for days. A week later, I was put in a cell in a corridor where less violent prisoners lived. The next day a Greek prisoner came to visit me. He knew everything about what had happened to me. He asked me to let him know if I needed anything. I told him I was fine and he left.

     "I'll see you in the yard," he said as he walked away.

     I went out into the yard for a while, and there I met another prisoner, an old man.

     "Do you remember me?" he asked me.

     "Should I?"

     "I worked for you in the Place One apartments. I was a painter."

     "Wow!" I said. "What a small world."

     "God must love you."

     "Why do you say that?"

     "What a coincidence that I happened to live in the dormitory where you were attacked. I'm the one who stopped them from killing you."

     I couldn't believe what I was hearing. A former employee of mine was in the dormitory where I was attacked and had the influence and courage to stop them from killing me!

     This made me certain that God was with me and that I was under His protection.

     "Why did they attack me?"

     "Because you were the reason they found our wine. It was my wine, I was making it."

     Now I knew.

     "Be careful," he said and left.

     I kept walking around the field. Sometime later I met the Greek prisoner I had seen earlier.

     "Listen," he said to me. "You'd better go to the guards and ask them to put you in solitary confinement for protection. This place here is a madhouse. What if they didn't kill you at that time? Nothing tells me they won't stab you later. Besides, wherever they take you, it'll be better than here."

     I said goodbye to Vasilis (that was his name) and left. I went to the guards' counter and asked him to take me to solitary confinement because my life was in danger. I was immediately taken to solitary confinement. The next day I met the captain along with the prison psychologist and told them that I had heard from someone that they were planning to stab me. I lied, but I had to get out of that hellhole.

     "Okay," said the captain. "But no matter where we take you, you won't be anywhere near your home."

     "Is there any place I could go to college?"

     "There is, but it's 3,000 miles from here."

     I had to balance the three thousand miles away with getting an education that could help me make a better life for myself and my family after I got out of prison, or being closer to home so my wife could visit me. I decided on the former.

     The next day my wife visited me and I explained to her the situation. She agreed with me that it would be best for me to go to the McNeil Island prison in Washington State. After all, I had learned from a guard that the place there was much better than where I was because it was used to house prisoners who had cooperated with the government and, therefore safer than Lewisburg.

IV

A week later, I had arrived at McNeil Island. The prison was right on the water. Around it a wire fence prevented prisoners from leaving the prison grounds. The good thing was that there were no concrete fences seven twenty high and one could enjoy the view of the island and the water. That made me feel better immediately.

    After two weeks of orientation, I was taken to a dormitory where, on the first floor. Then I met a nice guy, an Italian, and we became friends. Without delay, I enrolled at the Lutheran University of the Pacific, which taught inside the prison and offered two degrees, sociology and psychology. I enrolled in the psychology program. I was excited about it. At the same time, I was assigned to the furniture factory and was making about $170.00 a month, of which I was sending 150 to my wife. In the meantime, Jesse, my Italian friend, asked me to join the Italian club.

    "But I'm not Italian," I told him.

    "Look, we have this club so we can all get together, but we need a cultural president to meet the demands of the prison. The fact that you're Greek and you're in the college program works."

    "Okay, I'll do it," I said. I did some research in the library and from then on I taught the Italian prisoners the history of Italy and started from the beginning of Rome.

    I had now made some friends. But I did not feel safe because of them, but because I believed without a doubt that I was under the Lord's protection. From that day on, I stopped seeing my guardian angel.

    I went to the chapel often and from a Christian group that visited the prison, I made friends with a family from the Puget Sound area and they visited me often.

    But Satan was about to test me. One day in the lunch line, I noticed a prisoner from Hawaii who was much more corpulent than I was, and who had to serve 99 years. He was four people ahead of me in the lunch line talking to another prisoner. By the way, they looked at me I knew he was talking to him about me. I didn't like it and activated my defenses. I picked up my tray and looked around. I didn't see any of my friends in the dining room. Then I decided to sit at a free table.

    A few minutes later, he comes to my table and tries to sit down. Without any hesitation and with an angry look on my face, I pushed my tray in front of him so he couldn't put his tray on the table and said in firm words, "I'm waiting for someone." It was an act of David and Goliath, but I knew God was protecting me and I didn't cower.

    "All right, Greek, all right," he said and got up and went to another table. After that, I didn't have another threatening incident.

    I was busy going to the gym at the stadium, and every night before dinner, I'd run around, around, around the stadium.

    My wife took a vacation every summer and she and my son would come and spend a week with me in the visiting room, from morning to night. Because the judge had given me a sentence that made me eligible for parole at any time, I had to go through a panel every year. My wife would arrange her vacations to be there when the committee was considering my release. The first year, I was denied as expected. Same with the second. The third year we held our breath, but I was rejected again.

    After the hearing, I went to my room. The prison had a unit with nice single rooms outside the fence, housing well-behaved prisoners who had demonstrated evidence of rehabilitation and were nearing their release date. They had approved me even though I did not yet have a release date. I went to my room in a state of depression.

    I sat in the chair next to my reading table and prayed.

    "Lord, I know what I did was a crime and I need to be punished, but I need you to tell me when I would be going home. I'm going to open my Bible and the first verse I see should tell me when I'm going home."

    The first verse I saw was Daniel 9-24-7. "Seventy weeks have been appointed ..." That's what I wanted to see. That was my response. I counted from that day the completion of seventy weeks, and it fell on December 19, 1979. I went to the visiting room and met my wife. She was looking at me eagerly.

    "I have good news and bad news," I said. "What do you want first? "

    "The bad."

    "They turned me down."

    "Then what's the good news? " She said downcast with sarcasm.

    "I'll be released on December 19, 1979," I told her.

    "And how do you know that?"

    "The Lord told me."

    "Yes, yes," she said and fell silent.

    The next year, I saw the parole board again, and this time they gave me my release date.

    My eyes welled up with tears, not because of my release date, but because the Lord had heard my prayer and had answered.

    I went to the visiting room and saw my wife. I pretended that I had been rejected again, but I couldn't hold it in for long.

    "Smile," I said. "They gave me my discharge date."

    "Really?" she said, surprised.

    "Guess when it is."

    "When?" she said anxiously.

    "December 19, 1979."

    She remained frozen with her mouth hanging open.

    "Learn not to doubt God."

    She did not answer. My wife had not yet given her life to Christ.

    In the spring of 1979, I graduated from college, too. The second year after I was at McNeil, the University of Puget Sound came and offered a degree in business administration and I immediately dropped my psychology studies and used the psychology courses as electives and graduated in the spring of 1979 with a degree in business administration.  

V

The next thing God did for me was to bring things in such a way that I would not be deported. The immigration office would come to the prison every year and hold hearings on detainees who were not American citizens. I was one of them, and for some strange reason, every year when they came to the jail to hear deportation cases of prisoners, they overlooked my case. And when the day came for my release and they had not heard my case, they were forced to release me to America and I went to my home and family. Immediately, I hired an immigration lawyer and posted bail in court.

Again, they moved very slowly. They adjudicated my case eight years later, in 1988. By then, all my children had been born and my family was complete. The judge, after reviewing my case, decided that it was in America's best interest to allow me to continue to be a permanent alien in the United States.

                                                     ***

Once I was released from prison and started working, the first thing that came to mind was the taxes I owed the federal government. So I decided to visit the IRS in Alexandria, VA. I met with Mr. Warren, who he told me that he knew all about my case.

"I came to talk to you about my debt," I said. "I'm betting fines and interest ..." I didn't finish my sentence. He looked at his computer and said:

"Not too bad. It's fifty-five thousand."

A lump came to my throat. The employee withholding form I had filed six years earlier was for almost four hundred thousand. But in no way did I want to persist.

"I've just been released. As you can see, I have no money now."

"Go home," he said. "I'll give you a year to get your feet on the ground."

I thanked him and left. I went home and into my living room, knelt and prayed: "Lord," I said, "I hope you will not expect me to repay this debt. If that is what you have in mind, you must bring me back to earth a few times; a lifetime is not enough to pay so much money." Although he told me I only owed fifty-five thousand, I thought it was only a matter of time before they found the rest.

***

1981. The drywall and paint business was progressing and in the spring of 1981, I had a subcontract to do the drywall work at the "K-B Five" theaters in Rockville MD. The General Contractor was a Jew named Bob Bleacher from New York, and so were the theater owners, Marvin and Steve Goldman, father and son, from Potomac, Maryland. The theaters were built inside the mall. One day, they had cut off our section of the mall roof to make an opening about 15x15 to raise the mezzanine to house the theater equipment. Before they had a chance to complete the project and seal the roof, it started to rain. Heavy thunderstorms were coming one after another. I get a call from the general contractor. By the way, he had a very filthy mouth. Every word that was coming out of his mouth was followed by a curse word.

     "Stan," he said, "I have cut off the ******** roof of the mall to raise the ******** mezzanine and the rain is pouring into the *******mall. Take as many men as you can and go to ********job and build a ******** enclosure to stop the ******** water from entering the ******** mall."    

"I'll see what I can do, Bob," I said, and we hung up the phone.    

I loaded my truck with 2x4s from 84 Lumber and bought plastic and other supplies, took four men with me and we went to the construction site. Shortly thereafter, the general contractor came from New York and came up on the roof, and so did the owners of the theaters. We were almost finished with the frame, and we needed another hour or so to cover it with plastic. But the storm wasn't waiting, the sky had darkened and the storm was approaching us menacingly. The Jews, desperate, watched us work as fast as we could. The rain that was coming was torrential, it would flood the mall and the shopkeepers would demand compensation from them. In a few minutes, large drops began to fall rapidly. I don't know what happened to me, but without thinking, completely spontaneously, I raised my hand and pointed my finger at the clouds, and shouted, "In the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to stop!"  My men stopped working and looked at me for a few seconds. So did the theater owners and the general contractor. I bet they thought I had flipped. But what happened next, no one expected to see. A bubble was created over the theaters. The rain was passing to the right and left, but above us, not a drop. I didn't look up to see the faces of the people on the roof. I kept working. I said only to my men: "Come on, move it." As soon as we finished and went inside the theatres, then the rain started to fall on the theatres.

The next day, I got a call from the general contractor. This time, not a single curse word came out of his mouth.     

"Stan,” he said, “I'll be in Rockville around noon tomorrow. I'd like to meet you and have lunch with you."    

"With pleasure, Bob. Call me when you get here."   

 We met and went to a restaurant in the mall. As soon as we were seated, he said, "Stan, who are you? "

I laughed and said, "I'm just a simple Christian who happens to love God..." and I gave him my testimony. A few days later, the owner's son invited me and my wife to have dinner at his house. Again I was asked the same question and gave the same answer. He asked me to write our life story in three pages and give it to him, and he would send it to Spielberg to make it a movie. My wife refused. She didn't want our personal life to be made public.

***

Two years after my release, I was thriving. I was building houses and everything seemed to be going well. Now I was worried that the government might go ahead and freeze my bank accounts. Meanwhile, Mr. Warren had not contacted me. So, what do I do now? Do I go back to him? No, I thought, I don't want to wake up a sleeping giant. Instead, I met with two Jewish tax lawyers and explained my situation to them.

"If the giant is asleep, please don't wake him," I said, "but if he's awake, then arrange for a payment agreement to repay my debt in monthly payments that I can afford, something I could live with."

Two weeks later, I was notified to go to their office. I did.

"What kind of news do you have for me?" I asked them.

"You don't owe the IRS anything," the lawyer told me.

"Are you kidding me?" I said.

"No, the IRS has no record that you owe them any money."

I got up and danced around their office and praised God. I told them about the prayer I had done and when I had done it. The man put his hands on the edge of his desk and sat upright in an attitude of amazement.

"It's strange," he told me, "Three months after you prayed, Congress passed a new law that set a statute of limitations on employee withholdings. Before that, the IRS could collect from you even forty years later. The new law states that if six years pass and the IRS does not file a lien against the debtor, take him to court, or force him to sign a debt service agreement in monthly payments, the debt is forgiven and the government cannot collect from the debtor. And in this case, the government did none of the three. I went home full of joy, not so much because of the money, but because I believed the Lord had intervened as a result of my prayer.

VI

In 1982, my wife was pregnant with my third son. We were invited to a Christian meeting in Bethesda MD, about 30 miles away from our home using the beltway. We got there around 9:00 pm. Before I turned off the engine, I noticed the gas gauge was on "E". Oh Lord, I thought, I have no gas, how am I going to get back home? I couldn't drive thirty miles on "E". Then, I thought, I'll go through town, take Connecticut Avenue, and go through Capitol Hill, Anacostia Park, Oxon Hill, and then Ft. Washington. I'll get gas at one of the gas stations that was on Connecticut Avenue. There are a lot of gas stations there.   

We finished around 1:00 in the morning and headed back. Every gas station we saw was closed. Now, what do I do? Behind Capitol Hill, at that time, the area was pretty rough. I had my pregnant wife in the car, my first son who was 11, and my second son who was not yet a year old. The story of Prophet Elijah and the widow came to mind. I put my right hand on the dashboard and prayed. "Lord, just like in the days of Prophet Elijah when he made the widow's oil and flour last until the famine was over, I pray that my car will not run out of gas until I get home. Car," I said, "in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ I command you to run even without gasoline."

We got home without any problem. The next day I was sure the car would not start. To my surprise, it started. The gas station from my house was about a mile away. I drove to the gas station and just as I was a few feet in front of the gas pump the engine shut off. I was so excited to experience God's love in this way, it was an amazing feeling.   

Another time, I was driving on the access road to Dulles Airport. At Dulles Airport, there are a few black glass office buildings. I was the drywall subcontractor in one of them. I got on the Dulles access road from 495 and a few miles up the freeway, I noticed the gas meter on "E". Now? I had to get there fast. I couldn't miss the meeting I had with the building owners. So, having had the experience of traveling more than thirty miles with an empty gas tank, I decided to do it again, besides I had no choice. I prayed again and arrived at my destination fine. After finishing my meeting, I filled up with gas from the gas station located at the airport and returned to my office. 

Then, another day, on 495, just before I entered the Dulles Airport access road, I noticed the gas gauge again on "E". This time I was in no hurry. It was more important for me to know if the gas tank had enough gas in reserve or was empty and God was supplying me to get to my destination on time. So I prayed. "Lord, this time, I ask you not to supply and if the tank is empty let the engine be turned off. I want to make sure that you provide the petrol in my need or there is still petrol in the tank."   

 About halfway down the road, my truck ran out of gas. I was so excited even though I had to walk about seven miles to the gas station to get gas. Still knowing what God was doing was more important to me than the hours it would take me to walk the seven miles to get there and seven miles back to my truck. But the most exciting part was, I hadn't walked more than a hundred yards when a car stopped on the shoulder of the opposite side of the road which was going in the opposite direction from where I was going. The driver gets out of his car and shouts at me: "Do you need help?"

I lifted up the gas can and nodded in the affirmative. He drove off, took the first exit, came back to the side of the highway I was walking on, picked me up, drove me to the gas station at the airport, and drove me back to my car. Look, I said to myself, my Father wouldn't even let me walk.

VII

During the first few months of her pregnancy, one day my wife fell down the basement stairs and was bleeding.   

"I think I lost the baby," she told me, crying.   

"Satan," I cried, "hands off my son!" I knew it would be a boy, how I knew, I don't know. I just knew it. My third son was born healthy.

   After all these things were happening to me, I wanted to know why God was doing all these things in my life. I wasn't someone special. So I decided to fast until God told me why. I shut myself up in my bedroom, and I stopped eating and only drank orange juice and water. I spent my time reading the Bible and praying.

    Three days into my fast, on the third night I had a dream.  I was in Greece in my Father's fields. It was a vast expanse that my eyes could not see the end. So I knew that this great expanse did not belong to my natural father. My natural father's property was no more than 50 acres. So I looked around, and the ground was plowed, but there was no seed, no water. I was sad and said, I will go learn how to build an irrigation system and go back and water my Father's fields. Still dreaming, I went somewhere and returned to the same spot. Then I saw piles of pipes, millions of them, and four pumps. I immediately went to work taking the pipes and connecting them to the pumps to make the irrigation system. And then I woke up. I didn't understand the meaning of the dream, so I kept fasting. Three days later I had another dream. I saw that I was in a place alone at night and I heard a voice, "Why are you fasting since I told you to?" I woke up and the dream was explained to my eyes. The fields represented the hearts of the people, the pumps, represented the four Gospels, and the pipes, the people. "Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water." And I had to connect the people to the four Gospel of Christ so that the Holy Spirit could flow through them.

VII

I had my answer and I was ready to go to Greece, but I had four children at the time. Three little boys, the oldest thirteen, and the other two, three and two, and my daughter had just been born. I just couldn't abandon them. I didn't think the Lord wanted me to do that either. But Timothy A 5:4 says, "But if he does not provide for himself, and even for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." The parent's place in the family is paramount and abandoning his young children is a great sin. When the Lord said whoever leaves mother, father, wife, and children for the sake of the gospel will find much more in heaven. I don't believe this is universal. There are exceptions. And in my case, I saw it as an exception. Not only that, if I did that my fifth child would never have been born. I had left my father's house by the age of 15. Everything I know today I learned by trial and error. My life has been extremely difficult. I sit now and look back and see that 70% of my life has been a life of pain and hardship. Eight of them in the dungeons of America. In no way would I want my children to experience what I experienced.

    I continued my business hoping that my business would do well because I would have God's blessing and raise enough money to move my family to Greece and begin my ministry as God had ordained.

    In fact, at that time, I was not doing subcontracting but building houses. A bank in Arlington, Virginia, offered me an excellent deal to develop a property they had in Clinton, MD. I didn't have the money necessary to develop a 35-lot property, but they sweet-talked me into the deal so much that I couldn't turn it down. They gave me the money to buy the property and on top of that, they gave me the loans to build the houses. What could go wrong? The property was combined with a house at Swan Creek Rd and Riverview Rd, in Ft Washington, MD. It was a fantastic deal. I couldn't have asked for more.

    It was an old house with two lots. Before I even moved in, I bought a riding lawn mower and went to cut the grass. The mower went over a wasp nest and a bunch of wasps flew out of the ground and attacked me. I jumped off the mower and ran to my car. I had over forty stings on my body. I went home to Parkton Street, sat in the recliner I had in the rec room and watched TV. A strip of itch wrapped around my stomach and neck. I felt dizzy. At that moment my phone that was on the counter behind my chair rang. I picked up the receiver and said, "Hi."   

"How are you?" A male voice on the other end of the line asked me.  

  "I just got stung by about fifty wasps and I'm itchy around my waist, stomach, and neck; I feel kind of dizzy."  

  "Run to the hospital or the nearest clinic. Now!"!!! he insisted and hung up the phone.

    I immediately got in the car and drove to a clinic in Oxon Hill. There they gave me an injection and put I.V’s in my veins and I felt better. About an hour later, I was allowed to leave. If that man hadn't called me, ten minutes later, my body would have gone into shock and I would have died. This man had saved my life. I don't know who he was, I didn't recognize his voice, and he never called me again. I like to think if it was a friend, knowing the situation I was in, he would have called me again to see how I was doing. Whoever it was, he was sent by God no doubt.

    But after that, everything changed. Everything turned to dust. The houses I was building, for one reason or another, were not profitable and brought me losses. I couldn't explain it. And then the bank gave me three construction loans to build the first three houses. It was a relief to have some money coming into my account. I dug the first two basements, and they were immediately filled with water. I had just discovered that the water level was about fifty inches below the surface of the ground. I discussed it with an engineer.

    "Would it be a good idea to build them with on floating slab?" I asked. I knew how to build houses, but I wasn't an experienced builder. "You can," he replied. But he didn't explain that it would be too difficult to waterproof the basements. I built the first two houses and I couldn't stop the water from getting into the basements. I had to install four bog pumps, one in each corner of the basement to make the basement watertight. Now, how could these houses be sold? I couldn't even use them as models. I convinced the bank to give me three more construction loans to build three more houses without basements. I sold them quickly before they were built. Before I had a chance to complete the second one, a female inspector from PG County found me at work.

    "My stars sent me here today," she said, savoring every poison-filled word that came out of her mouth.

    "What's the problem?" I asked her worriedly.

    "Your plans for sediment control please," she said sarcastically.

    I handed her the roll of plans and she unrolled them on the wall of my office trailer.

    "These plans have expired. You need to submit new plans to the county," she said, pulled out a red sticker, scrawled a stop work order, and stuck it on the construction trailer.

    Wow, I was stunned. Just when I was about to turn the corner and make the project profitable and survive, she stopped me in my tracks. I had almost no money, nothing beyond being able to buy food for my family and pay the mortgage. I went to the bank that had given me the construction loan for the project and explained to them that I could no longer service the construction loans until I could go to an engineer, draw new plans, and submit them to the county. The worst part was that I had no money to pay the engineer either.

    It took me almost a year before I received the new sediment control approvals and was able to continue construction. Just as I was about to start again, the bank was sold to Meritor Bank. The new bank immediately demanded that I bring the construction loans current. There was no way I could do that, so they foreclosed on the property and my house together.

    I had no choice but to file for bankruptcy. I hired an attorney and gave him three thousand dollars to do it. Then I got a small contract to install hardwood floors on a new house an attorney was building on the Chesapeake Bay. He was going to put in the materials and I was going to do the labor. He lived in a house he owned in Ford Washington, MD. The house in Chesapeake was finished and the following month he would be moving into his new residence. So we agreed that I would rent his house in Fort Washington. Since he was still living in it I didn't ask to see the house before I gave him the money. I finished the job and gave him $1800.00 for the first two months' rent. Once he moved into his new house he gave me the keys to go live in his old house.

    I put the key in the lockbox two days later and opened the door. Once inside, I was surprised, dirt everywhere, and cupboard doors broken. It was like a steamroller had been through. I couldn't move in this situation. I went home in utter despair. I asked him to fix it before I moved, and he refused. I asked him to return my money and again he refused. I sat in a chair in my kitchen totally lost. I expected to see the sheriff knocking on my door at any moment to throw me out. And when things were so bleak, I got a call from a Greek man I had met a while ago.

    "Stelios, how are you?"

    "George, I'm not doing well..." I said and explained to him my situation.

"The worst thing," I continued, "is that after the bankruptcy my credit is shut, and who will give me a lease?"

    I suppose he was touched by my situation and said: "Go and find a house, and I will take the lease in my name."

    I thanked him and felt better, but my faith had been tested too much. I didn’t even realize that God had sent George to get me out of this difficult situation. I found a house in Virginia and moved there.

VIII

At that time the same contractor who had built the K-B Five theaters was also the builder of twelve theaters in Alexandria Virginia on Route One. I bid there to do the concrete work as well. I thought I had gained a lot of experience in concrete work by doing that particular job on the houses I had built and I thought I could get that project done as well. I hired two experienced foremen and we proceeded with the project. But the job wasn't going well, mainly due to a lack of labor. I was threatened that I would be fired from the job for breach of contract. I was stressed to the extreme. Finally, we had the forms up on all the lower-level walls and were ready to pour the concrete. Things seemed to be getting better. My foremen checked all the latches that connected the panels to each other and we started pouring. In one place the technicians forgot to check a latch and the panels opened and the concrete was poured into the basement. This was a huge mistake and very painful. Now, I knew I was done. I'd lost it. I turned around and blamed God for my misfortunes and started cursing like a drunken sailor.

    From that day on, I stopped going to church. I didn't stop believing in God, I continued to believe. But I was like a son whose father tells him to do something and he does the exact opposite. Now that I think about it, I feel so ashamed. After everything God had done for me, I turned my back on Him. I can't believe I did it, and yes I did. Even thirty-five years later, I have a hard time forgiving myself.

    The years that followed were very difficult for me, but especially for my wife. We had five children and my wife had to work to help us survive. It was quite difficult for her and our financial problems caused us to argue quite often. Our relationship was on the verge of falling apart, but we both loved our children very much that we couldn't think about divorce. It wasn't just bad times but horrible times.

***

    In 1986 my father-in-law died and left a house with no mortgage to his four children. Since no one wanted to move there, I suggested to my wife that we move in ourselves. She agreed and we did. Her one brother who owned 50% of the property and her sister who owned 25% didn't ask us for rent and it was a huge relief for us.

     In mid-1991, I got a job as a mortgage loan officer, and I went to training for it. Once I was fully trained, things seemed to change. Since we were having a financial meltdown and I needed a car, I bought a 1973 Pontiac Firebird for three hundred dollars. It was in bad shape and I had started repairing it. It was a sight to behold. I finally got it drivable, but I still had a lot of things to fix.

    One day, I had left an appointment I had in Columbia, Maryland, and was driving down Highway 32. It was raining and I was driving about 60-65 miles per hour. Just under a bridge, the tires slipped and I suddenly faced the concrete wall of the bridge I was under. I quickly turned the steering wheel in the opposite direction and the car began to spin on the highway and ended up in the middle of the highway, between the on-ramp and the off-ramp. There was a ditch there with plenty of grass. I slowly tried to get it out of there, but the tires were spinning, and couldn't get enough traction to get the car out.

So I prayed for the first time in about five years. God, I said, the police will come now and give me a repair order a mile long. Lord Jesus, please send someone to help me get the car out of the ditch. Now, it was raining and who would stop in the rain to help me? Almost immediately a truck stopped in the highway safety lane. Two men got out and approached me. They looked at me soaked as I was and didn't hesitate to get themselves wet too.   

"What happened to you?" They asked me.  

"I slipped under the bridge and ended up here," I said.   

"Get in and start and go slow," one of them said to me.   

I did, and they pushed the car, and it went out of the ditch and back onto the roadway. I thanked them and left. The fact that I was soaked now didn't matter. I felt the hand of God intervening on my behalf and I had a spiritual rebirth that day. The next day, I deposited my paycheck in the bank and drove down Highway 495 to Greenbelt. Next to the Marriott Hotel. I was in the right lane and next to me, a ten-wheeler was grunting from the load. At that critical moment, my right front tire blew out. I could have easily lost control and slid under the ten-wheeler. I maintained control and drove the car into the safety lane, stopped, and changed the tire.

The next day, again, same location, same situation, driving next to another ten-wheeler, my other tire blew out. Satan was determined to finish me off. But God helped me again. I drove the car on the safety lane and sat behind the wheel not knowing what to do. I had no insurance to call for roadside assistance. And I hadn't fixed the spare tire from yesterday's blowout. My paycheck hadn't cleared to go to the bank to get money. We were living in Baltimore and my wife was at work, besides we didn’t have a second car at that time. I got out of the car and went to the Marriott Hotel to get a phone. I thought I would call the office in Camp Springs where I was working to see if any of my co-workers would be kind enough to come pick me up. I was hoping to get some money from my boss and come back and get the tire fixed. The tire was not repairable, I would need a new one.

    No one was willing to help me. So now what do I do? Camp Springs was about twenty to twenty-five miles away from there. At this moment my thoughts were completely muddled. My next thought made no sense. I said I'd walk to Camp Springs. I had the key to the office, I would sleep there, and the next morning I would get a deposit from my boss and go back to fix the car. Further, my first paycheck was about five thousand dollars, and the day I got my paycheck, the IRS had garnished it for what I owed from the construction business I had before I became a loan officer. My debt to the IRS was about four and a half thousand. It was a shock to me. My boss, a nice lady, understood how much I needed that money, so she paid the withholding and gave me my paycheck. Of course, I paid her with my next paycheck, but it saved the day.

Going back to her now and asking her for an extra advance, she could have very easily refused me. My car was parked in the northbound lane heading north. Camp Springs was to the south. I crossed the highway and with my jacket over my shoulder and my briefcase hanging, one hand over the other, I started walking down the safety lane heading toward Camp Springs. Then it occurred to me to pray again. "Lord," I said, "please send someone to pick me up." I hadn't walked fifty yards and a black man in a pickup truck stopped and yelled from inside, "Where are you going? Do you need help?"

"Are you kidding?"

"Where are you going?" He asked.

 "Camp Springs," I said.

"Get in," he said.

I got in and he started driving towards Camp Springs.

"God is good," I told him.

"I just prayed that he would send someone to pick me up, and here you are."

 He laughed and said, "Believe it. I'm not going to Camp Springs, I'm going to Rockville, but every time I take the exit to go north, I end up at the wrong exit going south. That's the third time that's happened to me. Let me give you a ride to Camp Springs and maybe I can find my way home."

What could I say; I was stunned. As we drove, I explained the situation with my car and the situation with my paycheck.

"Even better," he said, "let's go get your car fixed."

"I don't think you heard me, I only have ten dollars in cash on me and my checkbook, but my pay hasn't cleared yet, so I can't withdraw from the bank."

    "Don't worry, I have money," he said.

    I couldn't find words to express myself. He got out at the first exit, turned around, and got on 495 going north. We got to my car and he parked in the security strip behind him. He took his jack out of his truck, took the tire off my car, put it in his truck, drove to the next exit, which is Maryland's "Rout  One,” and as soon as we got on the road, immediately to the right, there was a gas station that did repairs as well. We got in and out of his pickup and I approached the mechanic in the gas station repair bay. I asked him if he had a tire the size of mine. He walked over to my friend's pickup, read the numbers on the side of the tire, went back to the repair bay, and looked at the rack of new tires he had there.

    He turned around and said to me: "Yeah, I got it."

    "How much?"

    "Sixty-five," he said.

    "Do you take checks?" I asked him.

    "No, I'm sorry."

    "Let's go to another gas station," I said to the man with me. And we turned to leave.

    "Hold on a minute," said the mechanic, "show me your check."

    I took my checkbook out of the inside pocket of my jacket and showed it to him.

    "I'll fix it for you," he said.

    He was not the owner of the gas station, the owner was in his office watching through a glass partition that separated the office and the repair area. He comes out and in a stern voice says to his mechanic: "I told you we don't take checks."

    The mechanic turns around and replies to his boss, "If that check comes back, take the money out of my paycheck," and proceeds to take the old tire off the rim and put the new one on.

    I was stunned. I had never seen these men in my life, one volunteered to drive me fifty miles out of his way, even to give me money to fix the tire, and the other was willing to cover my check out of his paycheck. There was no doubt that the Holy Spirit was behind it. I was in the clouds floating somewhere. The Lord had taken me back, and this time I would cling to him like a poplar. I would never be angry with him no matter how hard he tested me again.

Χ

And another test came, far more painful than the one I failed.  Returning from my rebellion against my Heavenly Father, I feel nothing but shame. How could I do this after all that God had done for me? Who had shown the overwhelming love He had, and has for me, and I had done nothing but to hurt Him. I still can't understand it.

I had a friend in New Jersey, and in the days of my rebellion, he begged me to repent and turn back to my Lord Jesus Christ, but I would not listen to him for anything. After I, the prodigal son, returned to my Father, I went to New Jersey to visit my friend again. To my surprise, he too was now going through some difficulties and had rebelled against God, and now it was my turn to plead with him to repent and return to our Heavenly Father, as I did, he did not want to hear this. I left and returned to Baltimore. A short time later I was told that he had died of a heart attack. Had he repented before he died? I don't know. I hope he had.

***

My career as a loan officer took off, my wife quit her job to devote herself to raising our children and things were looking great. The next year I started my own small mortgage company. Before I left the company I was working for and started my own business, I prayed and said, "Lord, I know you have destined me for Greece. So if I start this company and you bless it, I can make enough money to go to Greece and start the ministry that will fulfill the dream you gave me when we were living on Parkton Street in Ft. Washington, MD.

To start a mortgage brokerage, you must have correspondence agreements with banks that will agree to buy your loans. I had a list of seven or eight banks and was in my bedroom in our Baltimore home when I asked God about it. I kept praying and I said, "Lord, if you want me to start this business, give me a sign, and the sign I want is that the next lender I call, he would agree to sign me up."  So far I had called four or five of them and none of them was willing to sign such an agreement with a beginner. So the next lender I called was Loan America. The representative replied, "Send me your loans, I'll buy them, and I'll send you the agreements in the mail."

It was my sign. I immediately filed the paperwork with the government to get my license.

The company took off and for the first time in our marriage, my wife and I had enough money. Our fights were over and we began to have a happy family. We went back to church and became quite active at St. Nicholas Church in Baltimore.

It was now 1992, and one day I lined up my little ones in front of me, the oldest was eleven, the youngest five. The oldest was twenty-one and he was alone. I said to them, "Do you kids know that me and Mom are working to raise you and even save enough money to send you to college when you grow up?"   

"Yes, Dad," the older two replied.

"So what do you guys do for us?"

They shrugged their little shoulders and tilted their heads to show they had no idea.    

"From now on you're going to do something for us."

"Yes, Daddy," they replied enthusiastically.

"Every Sunday afternoon, you won't go out to play with your friends, you'll stay home, we'll eat our dinner, and then we'll study the Gospel, pray, and by the time we're done, it'll be time for bed."

"Yes, Daddy," they answered almost unanimously in excitement.

We started that and kept it up until my second son and daughter were married in 2007. The impact has been a tremendous blessing to my children and my family.

***

  In 1994, my third son from toddlerhood was lactose intolerant. He couldn't eat anything without taking pills. If he ate anything that had milk, cheese, or eggs in it he would immediately get a tummy ache and diarrhea. When he was about twelve years old, I went home one day and his mother said, "You need to talk to Alex"

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

"He'll tell you," she replied.

I took the child and we went upstairs to my room and I sat him on the edge of the bed.  

"What's wrong, son?" I asked him.

He began to cry and said, "Dad, I believe, why doesn't God heal me?"

  What an answer you give now to a 12-year-old child. And I explained to him what the "Sacrifice of praise" means we say in church. He accepted it and stopped crying. I put my hand on his head and prayed to God to make him well.

He continued to take his pill before he ate. Two weeks later we sat down to eat and he said, "I'm not going to take my pill today."

Whoa, I thought, but I thought to myself, I better not say anything and weaken his faith. He had seen the difference and that's why he did it. He didn't take his pills and he never took them again, and he ate his cheeses, milks, and pizzas without any problem. Hallelujah!

    In 2002, my second son was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He was 20 years old. The whole family was in for a terrible shock, but I was devastated. I remembered my mother. When I was 10 years old I got rheumatic fever and it gave me a severe case of tachycardia. I was her only boy and she loved me too much. When my father told her that the doctor told him I would never get better, she fainted four times. Immediately afterward she grabbed the bottle of oil and every afternoon she would go to the four churches around my village, light the candles, and prostrate herself before the icon of the Virgin Mary and Christ and cry and ask them to make me well. A month later I was playing soccer. God had seen her pain and her tears and had made me completely well.

    Following my mother's example, I began to weep and wail before the Lord and begged Him to make my son well. One day as I was driving at around sixty-five miles per hour on Highway 83 in Baltimore, a pickup truck pulled in sharply in front of me, and on the back door was written in English of course, "The Lord is in control, everything will be alright." I believed it was a message from God and went home and told my wife. Twenty years later my son is in perfect health and I have two grandchildren by him. There is no doubt that this inscription was from the Lord. Time has proven it. Hallelujah, which you interpret as "Praise the Lord!”

***

In 1998 I saw a picture in a Greek newspaper that shocked me. A Turkish soldier had cut off the heads of two Kurds and was holding a head of hair in each hand. He posed in front of the camera, laughing with pride at his achievement. He had taken that photo in a Turkish armory and was selling it to the soldiers there. A soldier bought one photo and mailed it to a newspaper in Europe and almost all the newspapers in Europe covered it widely. What scared me was that none of the media in America covered it. I felt that our democracy had been trampled on because if the media did not cover any event that did not look favorable to the White House, then our freedom of speech and our democracy had gone bye-bye.

So, I cut that photo out of the newspaper with scissors, took it to a printer in Kensington, MD, and asked him to print it on eight-by-eleven hard copy paper. I put the picture in the center and at the top, I wrote, "This is your trophy for your support of the Turkish government for allowing such horrific acts." And at the bottom, I wrote: "Hang it high, you deserve it". I made two holes in the top and tied a small ribbon for someone to hang on their wall. I then wrote a letter to the US Congress complaining that my tax money was being used to help the Turkish government. And I closed my letter with the following: "This is not the great American democracy but the great American hypocrisy."

I sent a copy to every senator and congressman, the President, and the military chiefs. The President, Mr. Clinton, did not receive it because I received a call from the White House protocol office, a Cypriot-American lady who worked there called me and said, excuse me, but I cannot give this to the President. I could have insisted, but I agreed with her and we got into a long conversation about the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in which she revealed to me that the Turkish invasion was a plot by Mr. Kissinger.

A week to two weeks later, I received thirteen letters from Congressmen and Senators applauding my action. I also received a letter from Mr. Trend Lot, then Republican Whip inviting me to join the Republican Inner Circle Club. His letter was followed by a letter from Chairman Mr. Mitch McConnell giving me instructions on what I was to do, and what my role would be. I liked the invitation and appreciated it, but did not follow it because neither my wife nor I had any political standing.

Among the responses I received, I also got a call from the Secret Service. He called my company’s office and my secretary took the call.

"Do you have an employee named Stan Mavroulis?"

"Yes," she answered.

"May I speak to his boss?"

"Sure" she replied.

She came to my office which was a few feet away from her office and said: "The Secret Service wants to speak with Stan Mavroulis' employer."

Immediately I knew what this was, but I could not understand the depth of this call.

"Hello," I replied. "Are you the employer of Stan Mavroulis?" He asked me sternly.

"I'm Stan Mavroulis," I said.

He didn't expect that and was surprised.

"You sent a letter to the White House and we want to question you."

"Gladly, let me know when, so I can have my lawyer present," I replied.

When I mentioned a lawyer, he paused for a split second and then said,

"We'll take care of you!" And hung up the phone.

A few months later, I got a HUD (Department of Welfare) audit. A HUD auditor walked into the office with an obvious chip on his shoulder. Two weeks later he had finished the audit and gave me a fine of one hundred and forty-five thousand dollars. I refused to pay it because I hadn't done anything illegal. I hired a lawyer and finally, I agreed to a twenty-seven thousand fine. Considering the legal fees I was paying for this, if I had kept fighting it would have cost me a lot more than that.

The company grew significantly. From a broker, I had become a full lender and loan servicer. Then, starting in 2002, I began trading GNMA bonds on the exchange. As of December 31, 2003, I had about one hundred and twenty million worth of bonds in my portfolio. On the first Friday of every month, the Department of Labor publishes the jobs report. I had estimated on the first Friday of 2004, the economy would have created one hundred and fifty thousand jobs. If I was right, I would have gained a few million. Well, the bad news came, the economy lost a thousand jobs. Within ten minutes I had lost over a million and a half and my total loss was over $1.8 million. This was a heavy blow to the company and forced me to change plans. What surprised me was that in the February report the government revised the December 2003 report and published that the economy had created eighty-nine thousand jobs and in the March report they revised it again stating that the economy in December 2003 had created 159 thousand jobs.

My calculation was correct, but the way they published it cost me almost two million dollars and I almost lost my company. Now, I began to wonder how the Department of Labor could have made such a big mistake in their calculation. One would think that the bond market is so huge that my little bond portfolio counted for nothing. However, keep in mind that the Department of Labor is independent of the bond market and every month the publication they make is not based on what the bond market will bet on. So, could the Secret Service have had their finger in this? After all, they promised me they would take care of me.

XI

In early 2004, I was visited by the Justice Department with a subpoena for all my financial records. The IRS had been investigating me since the end of 2003 for possible tax fraud covering the years 1998-2003. We gave them boxes and boxes of files, and that's all I heard from them for the next four years. In two thousand three, I had made the decision to fire my independent accountant because he was a shady character. I kept him for several years because he had helped me grow the company. Once the company became a lender, we needed to borrow money from the banks to fund the loans we were making to clients. To do that I needed a warehouse loan facility from banking institutions. These are short-term loans that we received from the banks to fund the real estate loans and once we sold the loan, we paid off the bank. The banks were not at any risk because the loans they gave us were secured by the houses we had financed.

    For the banks to decide to extend us credit, they relied on the company's financial statements. They would give us a five-to-one credit limit. If our financial statements showed a net worth of one million dollars, they would give us a five million credit to fund loans. To increase the financing, every six months, I would have to provide financial statements to the banks showing them that the net worth of the company had increased, and based on the new numbers the banks would increase our credit line accordingly. That's where the shady accountant came into the picture. If I needed a thirty million credit line, I would have to provide them with financial statements showing that the net worth of the company had increased to six million. In truth, that made me a shady character as well. But because I was not causing any damage to the banks I was justifying myself with the law that says without damage there is no crime.

    By the end of 2003, the actual net worth of the company exceeded seven million and I could get the company on its feet and meet its credit needs without the accountant having to clown around with the company's financial statements, so I no longer needed him. Then late in the fall of 2003, when he brought me the third quarter statements I told him that I needed to turn the company's accounting over to a large accounting firm to prepare the company to go public and its stock to be sold on the stock exchange. He understood but asked me to allow him to finish the year to prepare year-end returns and correct the books so the next company wouldn't find things out of line. I agreed. But when I lost all that money in the bond market, if the banks knew about that, they would have to reduce the company's credit line, and they could have felt that I had mismanaged the company and made it unreliable, and they could have canceled our credit agreement altogether.

    In that case, my company would have been forced into bankruptcy. As a result, I canceled my plans to let him go and he continued to prepare my financial statements.

    I got through those difficult times, and by 2007 the company had grown again and we were operating in forty-three states.

    In December 2007, I got a call from my attorney that the government was going to issue an arrest warrant for me. They remained silent for four years. While my company was small, no one bothered us. When the company finally took off, four years later, the government decided to file an indictment against me. Not only that but in the summer of 2006, the whistleblower asked the Justice Department to pay him the 25 percent the government pays the whistleblowers out of what they collect. The government replied, they no longer had any interest in this case. However, in February 2008 they indicted me and my second son. The indictment covered the years 1999-2003. They did not include 1998 because the statute had expired. That's what my lawyer told me. In the same indictment, they named my entire family as co-conspirators without a warrant.

    My attorney tried to get them to allow me to pay whatever tax they felt I owed them as well as fraud penalties, but they refused. The First Assistant District Attorney who handled my case told my attorney that normally in cases like this, they would not go criminal, but because of my history, they would. And they did. My accountant and I were charged with conspiracy to defraud the government and filing false financial statements with the IRS.

    My lawyer who was also a friend of the prosecutor tried to get me to plead guilty. I refused and we began preparing for trial. Then one day my lawyer told me that if I didn't fall on the knife, the government would issue an arrest warrant against my family as well. I kicked and screamed and tried to hire a higher-quality lawyer to make sure that if I went to court, I would win. That move cost me $300,000. And in the end, I was told that the government would charge me with willful blindness and I could still be convicted. At that point, I threw my hands up in the air. I accepted an indictment for filing false tax returns.

    My accountant went to trial and said in his defense that because I had signed personal guarantees with the bank for the credit agreements, the law gave me the basis to get the money the government claimed I hadn't paid taxes on. This law exists but it applies to privately owned companies. And because my company was an LLC, he incorrectly assumed that the law applied to me as well. He assumed responsibility for his error and admitted that he alone had filed the tax returns based on his incorrect assumption. The court found him guilty of filing false tax returns but not guilty of the conspiracy charge. Which acquitted me, but because I had already pleaded guilty I could not take it back and go to trial.

    I have to say there is a lot more to this case, but I am not writing my biography, but my testimony. So what I am writing is what matters in how God has been guiding my life for His purposes. Every day since the indictment was issued, I thank God. I went to jail and thanked God. I was deported to Greece in September 2013 and I thank God for that. I have lived in Greece since then away from my wife and my five children and grandchildren, and I thank God for that. This time, no matter how hard or how hot things got, I didn't get upset or blame God because I knew that everything that was happening to me was His will.

    And the White House Secret Service with its relentless persecution - unknowingly served God's will. The so-called whistleblower the government used to build an indictment against me served God's will, the prison officials who kept me locked up served God's will, and the immigration judge who ordered my deportation served God's will. So I thank God for all that has happened to me.

                                                        ***

    A few months before I started writing my testimony, it occurred to me: God has done so much for me, what I have done for God. Am I becoming like the servant with the one talent he hid on earth? God has done so many miracles in my life, and all these years I have been silent, except for talking to people one by one, otherwise? Nothing. Had I become like the servant with one talent? This prompted me to write my testimony and publish it. I had to start sowing the seed, that is, the Word of God. Everyone needs to know that God loves and cares for them, and that what He did for me, a terrible sinner, how much more He would do for them. So I began a campaign to serve God with all my strength, and all my being. Time will prove the rest.

I knew, according to my dream, that I would end up in Greece and serve Him here. And now I am here. It's true, if my company had survived and I hadn't been deported, I wouldn't be here. Besides, if the company had become a billion-dollar company, I would have bought a television station in Greece and made it a Christian station, so that I could serve God in that way. But that would be my way, not His way. I would be full of pride in what a great thing "I" was doing for the Lord. But God said: Zechariah 4:6 Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, said the Lord of Hosts."

    Praise be to Almighty God who loved us so much that He put His own Son on the Cross to die for the sins of all who believe in Him, and those who believe will have eternal life.

    John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Epilogue

What I want to emphasize in my testimony is that God did not do these things in my life because I am better than others, I am worse than everyone, but to show everyone who reads my testimony that if they believe they will receive much more than what I received because I am exceedingly sinful, hence I write this in my testimony. Let no one be deceived, God is real, He is exactly as the Scriptures describe Him, and life does not end in the grave, but passes into eternity. The question is where will your soul be in eternity, in the darkness beyond, i.e. hell, or with God, i.e. heaven? That depends on you and each person individually. It is the choice of each individual. And lest anyone believes that God took our sins upon Himself on the cross, he/she will not be saved. He allowed them to put Him to death by this horrible death so that we might live. As it is written, "That by grace ye are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, the gift of God, not of works lest ye should boast." we have only to believe it.  As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 10:10 "Near to you is the word in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved."

    And what is meant by believing in your heart, in other words, to believe, not to doubt or waver in your faith.  Do not be timid to confess that you believe that Christ died on the Cross for your sins, (For if you believe that Christ paid for your sins on the Cross, what sin will separate you from God?) And God raised him from the dead. And in Isaiah 53:11 says, "My righteous servant shall justify many by his merits." Christ will not come to the knowledge of Himself, but we come to the knowledge of Him. That is, to know Christ from the depths of our soul, to accept Him as our Savior, Lord and King of our lives, and then we will build a relationship with Him, and we will feel so close to Him that we will never doubt our salvation.

    So start with the first step, pray and ask Him to give you forgiveness of sins and ask Him to be the leader and king of your life, He will do it because He has promised it to us, and He doesn't take it back for anyone.  And start going to church regularly and you will see the difference in your life. How is it possible for Christ to be the Lord and King of your life and you not going to church?

    And to do this, make a decision now and get down on your knees and beg Christ to be the Head and King of your life. Let not Satan deceive thee, and put it off. The scripture says, Behold, now is the time of salvation!   

Your comments are welcome.

    If my confession has helped you feel closer to God and know that God is real and is with you even in the worst of circumstances then forward it to a friend or relative because he/she too needs to come to a knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.