Wilkes punk rocker does 'a total 180;' now missionary to outcasts in Greece
By KIP BURKE

Dean Michalczyk (center) now plays his guitar in worship services at Glad Tidings Fellowship, the only English-speaking church in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Folks who grew up with Dean Michalczyk in Wilkes County remember a young man who just no longer exists - at least not the guy they knew.

"In high school and into college, I was in a punk rock band, and all I wanted to do was party, drink, and smoke," he said. "Finally, I got to the point where life got so empty. I was miserable."

Now, for the last year, he's been a freelance missionary, ministering to Muslims, street kids, outcasts, and expatriates in the large Greek city of Thessaloniki. He is, he says, a different person altogether, and gives the credit to God.

As a student at Augusta State, he said, God was dealing with him in ways he just couldn't ignore. "I gave up fighting God," he said. "I did a total one-eighty." He had been saved as a kid, wandered a long way off the path as a teen, and came back at 21. "For six months, I just opened my heart to what God wanted to do with me. When I went to Greece, my life changed completely. God just showed me the way He wanted to do things."

Thessaloniki is the second-largest city in Greece, and was first evangelized by the Apostle Paul, but many people there have never heard the Gospel.

At Augusta State, he was offered a chance to study abroad, and went to Greece. While he was studying in Thessaloniki - first evangelized by the Apostle Paul - he met Ernie Guiterrez, pastor of the only English speaking church in what has become a largely non-Christian nation. "He was ministering to people from 30 countries in Thessaloniki, Albanian street kids, Afghan refugees," Dean said. "He was the only full-time worker, and he really needed help reaching these folks with the message of salvation. Ninety-nine percent have never heard it."

During his study abroad, Dean found himself helping the pastor with things around the church, and then with an outreach in city parks. "We really hit it off, he's a great guy, and he's doing so much for all these people who just had never heard the Gospel."

Many of the people they ministered to were kids, he said, Albanian refugees who had been raised in Communism and had never heard the name of Jesus. There were also refugees from Afghanistan who were fleeing the Islamic conflict.

Outcast Albanian and Afghan kids respond to the love shown by Christian workers in Greece.

"Greece is a very racist country, so these foreign kids are outcasts, treated very badly by everybody," he said. "They're the very bottom of society, just the people that we Christians are called to love. So we just went with Pastor Ernie and helped out, organizing soccer games and playing music in the parks and just reaching out to these kids that nobody cared about."

The pastor had told Dean's friends that, since there were so many needs, he really needed somebody to help him. "I hadn't heard him say that, but my friend told me what he'd said. She said that if she didn't have so much to do, she would stay in Greece and help the church. Well, it was like a lightbulb going off in my head. I just knew that it what I was supposed to do. I had to stay and help."

To make sure, he prayed. "I really prayed about it, I prayed with my friends about it, and then I called my parents." His parents, Mark and Janice McAvoy, were unsure about it at first. "My mom said, 'you can't abandon your family, just come back and we'll talk about whether you're really called to do mission work'"

But he prevailed, and stayed. He stayed in Thessaloniki for a year, helping Pastor Ernie with the church, playing music for worship services, playing music in city parks to reach out to people, both Greeks and the foreign refugees in Greece.

Now, after a year, Dean Michalczyk, former punk rocker, retired drinker and hell-raiser, has come home for just a month before he goes back for another year. "There's still so much to do. We want to expand the church, we want to expand our outreach to the Greek people. There's a tremendous resistance in Greece to the real message of salvation. They say that they're the original Christians, and they're so proud that they're hard to reach. I need to work on my Greek language skills - it's a very hard language - and we want to teach English to the Muslim refugees from Afghanistan."

Everything they do in Greece, Dean said, is to show the love of Christ in practical ways. "So when people ask us why we're helping them, why we love them, we have the opportunity to share the reality of God's love for them. And there's a Baptist outreach to Muslims who come from the Greek capital of Athens and present the Gospel in their own language and from an Islamic perspective."

He asks that his friends and neighbors in Wilkes County keep him in their prayers. "I never would have made it the first year without my parents' support and prayers, but I need all the help I can get."

And can people and churches help support him financially? "Well, I'm going to need help - I'm not supported by any group, but God called me to this, and I've always seen him provide my needs. And all the glory has to go to God - He's the one who's orchestrating this. He's the one."

Contributions can be sent to Glad Tidings International Missions, in care of Marc McAvoy, P.O. Box 847, Washington 30673.

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