Growing up, Elina Koufos found the idea of the Lord as a good father a difficult one to comprehend. “I struggled with the father image very much, because my father was not a perfect father, he was really not there for me, for his family. So, I struggled with that image.”
Despite this, Elina wanted to grow in her knowledge of Christ, and wanted to study the Bible. She wanted to know more about her faith, and grow in her faith so she could share the good news with people around her.
In seminary, Elina started to learn and understand what a father’s love should be, for the first time. She began to understand God as a good father, and had good Christian role models step into place as fatherly figures. “I think that really unlocked many areas of my brain. I could not believe I could be loved by my brothers in the church so much. I knew my sisters loved me, but I saw fatherly figures there, which was very healing,” Elina reflects.
Elina learnt she could not pour out of an empty cup. Her cup had to be filled, and her heart had to be healed. And Myrto Theocharous, a Langham Scholar who teaches Old Testament at the Greek Bible College, played a key role in that process for Elina.
A lived example to follow
“Her door was always open, she was always available to the students. She wanted to share her life, and we could ask her any question,” Elina remembers. Myrto is the president of Nea Zoi, an anti-trafficking ministry. Through this ministry, and her classes, Mytro taught Elina an ethos of caring for the whole person. Elina describes Myrto opening her house to girls having a tough time, praying with them, making them tea, and doing bible study together. Her presence in the lives of students when she could have been resting and relaxing had a profound effect on Elina.
Even the presence of so many girls at the Greek Bible College was due to Myrto’s impact. Previously, the expectation was that bible college was only for men, only for those who would become pastors. But Myrto’s example as the first evangelical female scholar for the church in Greece has started to change the culture, and doors have opened for women to study at bible college, and even go on to work in ministry roles.
“I don’t know many women like Myrto,” Elina says. “She is so humble. It wasn’t easy for her being the first woman teacher at the Greek Bible College. But she considers all these things as a privilege, as something God has given to her as a gift.”
For Elina, the presence of a woman teaching at college was an active demonstration to her of the value God has placed on women throughout history. “Women are even mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus!” Elina says. “The church needs both men and women of course, to be an image of God’s people in the world.”
Using that example to serve others
Now, Elina is working as the co-founder of the On The Way ministry in Athens, alongside her husband Christos. The ministry centres on the Thrift Store, which provides job opportunities for those who are homeless. On The Way also facilitates and coordinates donations for people in need, those who are homeless, and refugees that are new to the city, or might be stopping here on their way to elsewhere in Europe. The store also sells Christian gifts, like cards and frames, to raise money.
The ministry was born out of the First Evangelical Church of Athens, where Christos was working as an assistant pastor at a church plant, and Elina was working with the kids at the church. It started as a social breakfast to provide food to those in need once a week. This then evolved into providing help for those who needed to complete complicated paperwork associated with the tax declaration process. They brought some psychologists into the program to provide extra support as well. The church saw from the response from locals that there was a huge need for this kind of ministry, and so asked Christos and Elina to take it on.
They moved to the Metaxourgio area of Athens, with the biggest shelter in the city just two blocks away. They also began a program to provide one year of social housing to those in need. And they opened the Thrift Store. They also continued to provide help with the paperwork incoming refugees needed to provide to be able to sleep in shelters at night.
“We didn’t want to do something that the city already provides for the homeless, we wanted to do something that was lacking for them,” Elina explains. “We said, if the people of God do something, let it be the best it can be, and let it be something that’s really needed.”
Using the example of holistic care
The ministry has recently expanded into a prison ministry, particularly the nearby women’s prison in Thiva. They are working with women as they transition out of prison to prevent homelessness. On The Way also runs prenatal classes for pregnant women in prison.
This is a lot of ministry for Christos and Elina, and the five people employed by On The Way, to cover. “But there is a big circle of volunteers,” Elia explains “We are the people who started it, but not the only people who run it.”
The name came from Elina wanting this ministry to not just be seen as a project or a task to do – but to be centred around helping people. “These people are on the way, because they’re on the way to something better, they’re on the way to meet their Saviour. And we’re all on the way. We’re on the way to getting to know them, to help them,” Elina says.
Elina and Christos can both see how their time at Bible college equipped them with the tools and skills now needed to run this ministry, and how in particular, Myrto’s example and influence has shaped the holistic way they approach this ministry. “I don’t think Myrto ever understood how important the work she was doing was. She was there doing her best without realising the impact she had on us. I talked about fatherly figures at the college, but Myrto was the best sister I could ever have had there.”
“Myrto really taught us that if we don’t care for the vulnerable, if we don’t care for everybody, if we don’t fight for injustice, we are not completing what God wants from us. Myrto saw injustice, and she fought it. Now we do too.”