The Logos School

by

Levon Yergatian

I have been asked to record something of the commencement and establishment of the Logos School, and as I have been intimately involved from the very beginning, to relate something of my own personal pilgrimage also. Some elements that are essential in recording history are dates, personalities and events; these are the material of which history is made. Here the history I shall seek to record is the founding of the Logos School of English Education at Limassol in Cyprus.

How did the Logos School get started? What was the motivation and what were the circumstances? Three dates are important in this story. The first of these was 26th May 1926 when two baby boys were born, the second was the summer of 1967 when the conception of a Christian School was formulated, September 1973 being the third date, when classes actually started under the banner of the ‘Logos School’.

~1~

May 26 1926. Two little boys whose adult lives were to be closely intertwined were born on that selfsame day, in different parts of the world and in very different circumstances. I am talking about Ian Ross and I am talking about myself. We were both born on that day. Ian was born into comfortable circumstances in England. I was born in Piraeus, Greece. In my case my parents were refugees from the Turkish genocide of the Armenian people that began in 1914. My mother was born in Tarsus, birthplace of Paul the apostle, and my father in Adana, both in Turkey. They were married and they had three children when my father was taken into the Turkish army, though not to fight.

He was not given arms but was used like many others as forced labour. Forced labour meant that he was out in the sun all day cracking stones to build roads, and doing other manual work. During that time the family of the soldier, in our case my father, received no pay, nothing at all, and my mother was given only one barley loaf a day by the military on which she and her three children were expected to survive until the war was over. My father was a tailor and my mother being a seamstress put his sewing machine to good use to earn the daily bread for the family during his absence.

My family were not deported when the rest of the Armenians were deported. They did not go into death marches into the Syrian Desert as thousands who did and who perished. Let me say here that according to the records over a million and a half Armenians perished in this period. They were forced to go into the Syrian Desert under military guards where many of them perished on the way. They don’t even have graves. Only a few years ago a certain clergyman went out into those desert places and collected the bones of people who had perished. Those bones and skulls are enshrined in a building in Lebanon today. There have been no apologies or explanation by the Turkish authorities regarding this event, although Armenians tried to get them to admit at least that something like this happened. A million and a half people, that is about a third of the whole Armenian race, perished at that time.

I am saying this because I am so grateful that my family was spared, and they were spared because at that time my father was in the army. When he was released and came back home, immediately word came from the authorities to the family that they must pack and leave the country. Mother, father and three children went down to the seaport at Mezsin on the Mediterranean coast along with another thousand Armenians. There they waited until a Greek ship, a cargo vessel, came along and picked up the thousand refugees. Not having found a place to land them in the Mediterranean area in the next forty days, the captain took them to Piraeus, landed them at the port there and informed the Greek authorities of their plight. The thousand refugees were kept in a railroad station for a while and then they were given a hillside next to Piraeus, a place called Cokinia. The Greek government had built a road to the place, they also brought water to the site and all still alive were left to fend for themselves. Along with the other refugees my father tried to work and make a home. People moved around trying to find building materials, wood, cardboard, a piece of sheet metal and anything else they could lay their hands on, and they built themselves shacks on the hillside to start life there. I wasn’t born then. This was a very difficult time for my parents but they worked hard and did their best for the family.

Then there came a time when my mother was very sick and the doctor advised that she should go to one of the islands near Piraeus. The whole family, for the summer at least, moved over to this island. It was a fishing island and the fishermen would come in the morning with their catches and sort them out on the beach. The large fish went to the market and to the hotels and the small ones would just be left on the shore. The fishermen would take their nets and shake them and all that they did not want was left lying there on the sand. My parents found out about this and every morning the three children would go down with a bucket and collect all the discarded fish, good fish even if small, edible and wholesome nourishment. For a whole summer this was God’s gracious provision for the family. We praise God for that time. I got all these stories from my mother who used to tell me these experiences and how the sea air helped her to improve in health. After the summer the family returned to Piraeus.

Mother became pregnant at that time but because of her ill health and weakness she gave birth to me when she was only seven months pregnant. After my birth she stayed at the hospital for a little time, but she was worried about her husband and the other three children and wanted to go home. The doctors said, ‘You can go but you will leave the child here. You can’t take care of the child yourself’ But she was strong willed and didn’t like to leave me behind, She said, ‘You just tell me what to do with the baby and I will take him home.’ So they advised her that she was not to give me a bath at all, but every day to clean my skin and anoint it with olive oil, and to wrap me up in cotton wool for the next two months. She brought me home, took good care of me, following what the doctors had said. My sister used to tell me that I was very, very tiny. God must have willed that I should grow.

~2~

When I was about eighteen months old the family decided to move to Cyprus. By that time most Armenian families were looking to see where their scattered relatives were and my mother discovered that all her relatives including her mother and three sisters were in Cyprus. She decided to pick up the family and go there to live with them. That is how we found ourselves in Cyprus in the year 1928.

Cyprus is where I grew up. As a young schoolboy I changed school many times because my family kept moving around. We were in Limassol for a while, we were at the asbestos mines at Amiantos for a while, we were in Nicosia the capital for a while. Eventually we settled in Nicosia, where after a year my father died of a heart attack when I was only twelve. This was a very big blow to me. One February morning I saw him slump and fall right in front of me. When at last I found a doctor and he came, it was too late, father had died already. We were very, very poor and had no money for the funeral. A funeral did not cost very much in those days but even buying a casket was a problem. Mother sold father’s sewing machine to get some money to bury him. We were so very poor as a family, but God gave us all that we needed.

When father died we moved up to the asbestos mines as a family because my two brothers were working there. The house the asbestos company eventually gave us had a history of flooding. The company said they were going to fix it so that the floods wouldn’t come into the house. But the floods came the very day the workmen arrived to do the necessary work. It was early September 1939, the Second World War had just started. The very day the workers came and removed the back door in order to do the work floods came. Everything was swept from the house into the riverbed and we lost practically all our possessions that day. It was such a traumatic time, we had lost everything and had to start all over again! My mother, brothers, my sister and I moved back to Nicosia, where we had several close relatives, to see how we could make a living. Our relatives took us in, comforted us, supported us and were a great help to us. There we started life once more.

In all these circumstances God has graciously provided. I had a loving and faithful mother. She was a believer, and as a believer she trusted God and she prayed much. She told me many times that when I was born prematurely she promised God that if I should survive she would devote me to His work. She prayed very earnestly that I would be saved. I would see her very often on her knees for a long time, maybe an hour sometimes, just pleading with God and talking to Him. Years passed, and I began to mix with other young people of my age, who were not believers, as there were hardly any other believers in Limassol at that time.

We had no church to go to but everybody knew that my mother’s house was always open for prayer, and whenever an evangelist, a missionary or a preacher came through he knew our home was open for him, so these visitors would come in and stay with us. Invariably they would also have a meeting in our home for the Armenian folk. As the youngest son in the home it was my responsibility to get on my bike and inform all the Armenian families that a certain man was going to speak in our home and invite them to come to the meeting. Many came and we had blessed times. Our home was always open, it was the only one that could claim to have Christ as its centre.

One of those times an Armenian missionary, brother Vahram came through from Palestine and stayed in our home, He witnessed to me, and as he witnessed I kept listening but I just was not ready. He was to come back in a couple of weeks. I knew that he was going to speak to me once more about the Lord, so I prepared an argument as to why I didn’t want to be saved just then. I said to him, I want to be saved, but when I do I want to be a good Christian, not like many of these hypocrites I see around me.’ That was my assessment of the situation. By this time I was twenty-three years old and working. So I told him all that, and I said, ‘I want to be saved one day, but only when I am good enough. I have some sins, some bad habits, I want to get rid of them, and then I will come to the Lord.’ He was very kind and he said to me, If you do that you won’t need the Lord any more, you will have been saved by your own efforts. But that is not the way.’ He left with me two verses to think about, Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9 ‘For by grace are ye saved by faith and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.’ He left, but those verses found a place in my heart, and my heart kept on repeating them day after day.

~3~

I still lived my sinful life with my friends and I used to go out to places of amusement with them. When we went out I usually came back late at night. No matter how late it was, mother would be awake and would ask if I was OK. I would say I was OK and go to bed, but I sometimes couldn’t sleep very well. One night I came home and she asked me the usual question, I gave the usual answer, went to bed, but for two hours I couldn’t sleep. About two o’clock in the morning I said, ‘Lord, that’s it!’ I got out of bed, got down on my knees and I gave my heart to the Lord. I said to Him, Up to now I have tried by myself, I see I can’t do it, now You take over, You take charge and make me what You want me to be.’ The following day when I told my mother what I had done, she was so very happy, Then I went to my friends on my bicycle and spoke to every one of them with whom I had been the night before, I said, Don’t look for me tonight, I won’t be there, but if you want to know the reason come to my house on Saturday afternoon when everybody is free and I will explain to you.’

They all came and I told them my testimony as to what the Lord had done for me the night before and I praise God that they listened to me, no objections at all! I understand that at least one of these young men got saved later, and I also know that one of them has died. I gave my testimony and I told them who I was, what I was doing and why. I still see some of them, I talk to them, they have no resentment against me. I love them and they love me, for which I praise God.

As a boy I attended four schools in two cities before I was fourteen. Because of frequent changes of residence and also of lack of money my early education suffered greatly. For two years I did not attend school at all but worked because there was no school for me to go to. Then when I was about 14 the American Academy in Larnaca agreed to take me in and I started school there. Because of my poor previous education I had considerable difficulty. I struggled for two years and then I had to finally quit as we had no more money for schooling. As you know I had no father to take care of me. I left the American Academy two years before graduation and went to work.

At first I worked with my brother in mechanics, welding, radiator repairs and so on. Then I became an apprentice in an electrical shop, and I learned the electrical trade in wiring and installations. After I had worked there for a number of years my boss one day called me and said, I cannot continue this job and I am going to stop, I am going to give up installations. But I like you, and I want to start a partnership with you and with another fellow in the firm, Christakis.’ By this time I was saved, I was a believer. I knew that it was wrong for me to become a partner with an unbeliever. So I refused the boss’s offer and I told him that it would be better if he could give Christakis part of the business and me the other part and so help us both. He agreed to that and I started a workshop for myself doing installations. I had no clientele but gradually I began to gather up a little business. My boss helped me with a lot of tools and money to buy equipment and gave me generous support.

~4~

After about a year in my own business, I was just getting well established, when my friend Levon Melkonian from American Academy days went to USA to Bob Jones University. He used to write and kept on corresponding with me, encouraging me also to come to Bob Jones. I did not know how I could, as I had no money for travel, and I had no basic education to speak of but he kept on encouraging me and saying, ‘Come, and we can work it out.’ One day he wrote and said, ‘You know Dr. Bob Jones Junior will be coming to Cyprus on such and such a date. Go and meet him, talk to him, and I am sure something can he arranged.’ I was grateful to my friend for his encouragement, but the day Dr. Bob was to be in Cyprus I couldn’t meet him, because I had a contract at work I needed to finish. I accepted it as from the Lord that I just couldn’t go.

Two days later there was an advertisement in the press saying that Dr. Jones would be speaking in the American Academy in Larnaca on the Thursday, and not on the Monday as was previously announced. I was free to go on Thursday because by that time I had finished my contract. So I went over to Larnaca at the time appointed. At the meeting I couldn’t see Dr. Bob because he was busy talking to others. I asked a friend how I could meet him. This friend said, ‘He is going to Nicosia immediately after this meeting and from there he will fly to Tel Aviv. The best thing is for you to come and ride with us the twenty-five miles to Nicosia. You can talk to him on the way.’ With this encouragement I got into the car and on the way talked things over with Dr. Bob. He said that as I hadn’t finished my high school work I could come to Bob Jones and enroll in the High School division until my high school studies were completed. I agreed.

~5~

He said, ‘Write to me and I will see what we can do.’ I wrote to him and he wrote back, ‘You come and we will arrange something.’ I had explained to him that I had no money for education. His reply was, ‘We have a work scholarship programme in the school and you can enter that and work your way through.’

So to make a long story short the same year my papers came from America for acceptance, I hastened to get a visa and went to the USA via London. I had to borrow the money for my travel expenses from my sister and when I got to London I didn’t have any reservations. In those days air travel was expensive, a boat being the cheapest form of travel, but I could not find a boat to take me to USA. After nine days I finally found a cargo ship going there. It was to leave one Sunday morning. I had not enough money to go to the ship. Somebody suggested that I take an underground train and then a bus to the ship’s berth. I got to the ship about ten minutes before it as due to pull out! The voyage was uneventful apart from being very stormy and because it was a small Liberty ship we had a very uncomfortable ride through the rough North Atlantic. It took ten days to get to New York.

There I was met by a girl who had been at the American Academy with me many years before, she has now gone to he with the Lord, she took me to the railroad station to get my train for South Carolina and gave me further instructions. I had no money to pay my train fare but as we were at the railway station she opened her bag and gave me an envelope saying, ‘I forgot to give you this. It is from your friend Levon Melkonian and from Bob Jones, he is expecting you.’ When I opened the envelope I praised God, for I found twenty-five dollars that Levon had sent. The twenty-five dollars were enough to buy a ticket which cost eighteen and a half, and I had a dollar or two left for a sandwich on the way. I got into the train and arrived at Greenville and thus to the School.

As I was twenty-five at the time and had embarked on quite an undertaking! According to the schedule at Bob Jones I had to complete two years in High School and then four at University, so I put my heart into the work. I had to work thirty five to forty hours each week to pay my expenses. I worked in the School and the first job I had was in the yard, difficult work, but I stuck it out. After a year in the yard word had got to the workshops that I knew how to do some metal work. So the following year they gave me a job in the workshops, welding and other types of metal work. I was also given responsibility for maintenance in one section of the classrooms. This duty was to be done in the afternoon, it consisted mainly of carpentry, plumbing, electricity, painting or anything else needing to be done. I really enjoyed it.

~6~

I was pleased to get my degree in Bible Studies in the summer of 1955 and a month or two afterwards I was on my way to Cyprus. I praise God that when I arrived there I was offered a job in the American Academy in Larnaca where I had been a student. The Director offered me a teaching job. I prayed about it, but not feeling peace in my heart that I should take it, I stayed in Limassol doing some evangelistic work, distribution of tracts, attending some meetings but I did not go back to Larnaca then. About that time my brothers were supporting me, and with my mother we started life again together, my sister was away somewhere working. About eighteen months after my graduation, I was again offered a job in the American Academy, Again I declined. During the year and a half following I got a job in Cyprus Cement Works at a new factory then being built. They needed electricians and as I was trained in that skill, I took the job. It was not a great job, but it was a job and it gave me a little income. I worked on electrical installation in the new factory for that year and a half or so and enjoyed it.

However when Dr. Weir once again approached me and asked if I would go and teach this time I accepted. I wasn’t married then and I took my mother to Larnaca where we rented a house. I started my seven years teaching experience in the American Academy, the very School where I had been a student some years before. Did I learn much there? I thought I did. Did I contribute much? I thought I did. But I found out that there was a problem in the School. It was supposed to be a Mission School, but a Mission School should have Christian teachers, that is my principle, and I looked around, and only about twenty five percent of the teachers were believers. The rest of them were not. There had been a time in the history of the American Academy when the School expanded suddenly, that was during the period when I was a student, and because it had expanded so quickly the Principal and the Directors needed to recruit more teachers. So they engaged just about anybody who came along. The result was that there were several teachers who did not share the Christian principles I expected to see in a Christian School or a Mission School. They were very worldly and they lived worldly lives and we all knew it.

Anyway I got into this situation and there I taught for seven years. After the fifth year I was presented with a contract, the terms of which I could not assent to, and I said I would rather resign than sign it. They persuaded me to stay on, They said they would take off some of those clauses to which I objected so I didn’t have to resign. I stayed on for a sixth year. At the end of the sixth year there was a war in Cyprus, as result of which some of the teachers fled. I was asked if I would continue teaching, which I did, I stayed on for another year. It was at that time I began to feel that I must start a literature work somewhere else, not in Larnaca, but maybe in Limassol. So I said to the Director ‘I am resigning at the end of the School year, please don’t ask me to come back, I am leaving Larnaca. I am going to Limassol,’

~7~

By that time I had also ordered some books, as I wanted to start a Christian bookshop. In the summer of 1964 my family and I moved back to Limassol. That is the city where I grew up and where I spent many happy years. In fact it was from Limassol that I went to Bob Jones University and to Limassol that I came back. After Larnaca and the American Academy I started a Christian literature ministry there. We rented a shop and started work and God was good to us. We procured books from Greece, from Britain, from the USA, and in two or three languages we had Christian books. For a time we were the only Christian bookshop on the Island. Well, we kept the bookshop open for many years until I felt I should get out of it because by this time other things were filling my mind. I had started a camp ministry in the mountains and was also involved in the meetings of the Gospel Hall in Limassol, A little later on the School started. With all these responsibilities I felt I should give up the bookshop. It still continues under Christian principles, but the new leaders in that ministry have moved it away from Limassol to the city of Larnaca. But it still continues.

We had some wonderful experiences in the bookshop dealing with all kinds of people and we made many good friends including certain Greek Orthodox clergy who used to come into the shop and buy our evangelical books. One of these clergymen, who was just one rank below bishop, one day came to me and said, ‘I think what we need in the Greek Orthodox Church is a Martin Luther.’ He had just read Luther’s biography. I replied, ‘Of course you never know, God might have His hand on you for such a move!’ He said, No I can’t do it.’ A few weeks later he came back again and said the same thing, ‘What we need is a Martin Luther!’ So I put it to him a second time, ‘Who knows that God may be raising you to be the Martin Luther of the Greek Orthodox Church,’ Well he was shaken by that, but he didn’t bite, he wouldn’t accept the challenge. I have stayed friends with that man for many years, we have communicated together and a number of times he would come to me and say, ‘I have no one with whom I can pray, could we pray together?’ And so we would go somewhere and spend a little time in prayer together. He found the need for fellowship of believers. The bookshop ministry was a blessed ministry and many souls were saved at that time in the bookshop. I could tell stories about different people who came in and were led to the Lord in the shop as we sold books. But that blessed time had to come to an end because something else was on the horizon. The Logos Bookshop became history for me and the Logos School became my main interest.

The School is now twenty-six years old. Who was the prime mover? Where did we get finance for the School? How did we find teachers? How was it started? Even though I have taken a very active part in the life in the School from the beginning, I can say that the prime mover was the Lord Himself. He put the burden upon my heart. Because I had already been in a School situation where I felt that there were some flaws and mistakes and weaknesses, it was my ambition that the School I envisaged should avoid such mistakes and flaws and come up with a straight charter and direction, That we should employ only believers in the School. That the School would have a daily chapel programme where the Gospel would be presented to the students. That every teacher being a born again believer would spend time with his or her students witnessing to them. This has produced over the years those who have trusted the Lord and who have gone on with Him in faithful service.

~8~

In the summer of 1967 a few of us met at Camp Saittas and there discussed the possibility of starting a Christian School in Cyprus. Among those present were Dick Knox, George CIark, Tony Charalambou and Samuel Chorbadjian. These men were a great help to me in the establishment of the School. Ian Ross also I met in Cyprus many years ago when he was a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force Regiment, a godly man, his wife Christa a godly woman. Ian and I began to have fellowship, we loved one another. Ten years after meeting we discovered that we shared a common birthday, down to the very day, month and year - the 26th day of May 1926! That discovery made our bond all the stronger! From the very initial planning of the School and on to its establishment Ian has been a great help and a tower of strength. In the UK he formed the ‘Logos Trust’, a charity whose purpose is to raise funds and to help the School financially. He has also greatly helped by representing the School in the UK and by recruiting teachers. We have had a very strong relationship with brother Ian Ross and his wife Christa and we love them in the Lord. They have put everything into the School that they could, and their input has been a major factor in its success.

Even before we got permission to start the School we began to look around for a suitable place One day when we were just thinking about a School my wife and the children and I went up on a hill right behind Limassol, beyond the village of Ayia Phyla. We parked the car down below at the foothill and climbed up the hill. From there we saw the beautiful scene of Limassol city before us from a height of about 700 feet. We liked the prospect below us and we decided that this hill would be an ideal place to start the School. On enquiry I found that one of the pieces of land on that hill belonged to a certain man called Petros Tsiros who was a land speculator, he used to buy land all the time. I went to his office and enquired whether he would give us a piece of the land he had up there. In those days Tony Charalambou was also involved with us and Tony, a good friend of mine for some years was in the Lands Office, where he could be helpful in land purchase. We went to Mr. Tsiros and asked him for a piece of land. He had a big piece there but he wouldn’t give it to us. He said, ‘I tell you what, I’ll buy some more land over there and give you a parcel.’ So we left him alone for a while and he bought or contracted to buy the whole mountain! Then he called me and we looked on the maps. We selected a nice piece at a height now known as Laiki Lefkothea and he allocated to us a property of 32 donums, which is roughly 10 acres, on which to build our School. The signatories for the purchase were Tony Charalambou, George Clarke, Dick Knox and myself We immediately went to an architect who drew up plans for the School on the mountain side, with all the facilities for classrooms, a gymnasium, playing fields, an auditorium as well as plans for faculty housing! All this was a dream, and we lived with that dream for a number of years. Now the agreement with Mr. Tsiros was, that he was going to bring a road up there with water, electricity and all the usual facilities. But Mr. Tsiros could not do all that, he was in trouble and was almost bankrupt. So all we had up there was just bare land and we began to look around for a more suitable place. We had got permission to start a School and the Ministry of Education was threatening to take the permit away if we did not get started soon.

To start a school one needed a committee. So we gathered together a number of believers and we called ourselves the ‘Logos Committee’. We consulted together, got advice and proceeded to submit an application to the Cyprus Government. The Ministry replied and informed us that we needed what they called an ‘analytical programme’ of what we proposed to teach. I sent something in which they said was not sufficient so we had to work on another document. Our good friend Mr. Christos Psiloinis who from the beginning had been a great help to us and who was in government service then, gave us an outline of what should be put on paper. With his help we prepared our ‘analytical programme’ and at the very top we put number one, ‘the teaching of the Bible’. God intervened and to our surprise this was approved by the Ministry and we got permission to start a School. A school needs premises and the Ministry was anxious for us to designate a definite spot where the School would be started. The chief inspector of Schools in Nicosia, Mr. Phanos Phonopoulos advised me that even a house would do. We looked around at houses and tried to find property to rent, as we didn’t have money to buy anything. We ultimately got the premises at Zakaki, near the port and that is where we started.

That was in itself a miracle. We managed to obtain two prefabricated buildings built three years previously by a Yugoslavian company which came to Limassol to construct the new Limassol harbour. Since they had completed the contract the prefabricated buildings were for sale. I saw an advertisement in the local newspapers that they were selling some of the contents of this property. I thought at first that some of these contents, blankets and beds and so on, could be used for camp as we were at camp that summer. So I arranged with the company to view these goods. They took me around to these prefabricated buildings. I liked what I saw of the things needed for camp, but at the same time I asked man who was showing me around, ‘What about these buildings?’ He replied, ‘They are also for sale.’ I asked, ‘Are they on the list yet?’ He said, ‘Yes, they are the last item, item 60, 540 square metres, recreation and 540 square metres of useful space’. I was interested in the building and I went further, enquiring what price they expected for the property. They asked what I wanted it for. I told them, for a school and the chief engineer remarked, ‘we will look favourably if it is for a school. It cost us thirteen thousand Cyprus pounds to build it. Now we are going to sell it. Make us a bid! Tell us how much you can offer.’

The Committee at that time included Mr. Christos Psiloinis, Dr. Michael Psiloinis, together with Mr. Anderson of MECO, Mr. Jim Roussos, Mr. Samuel Chorbadjian, Mr. Ian Ross and myself I took the proposition up to camp to the committee and we discussed it at considerable length and just didn’t know what to offer. First of all we didn’t have a penny, so what could we offer? Then what was its value? It had cost them thirteen thousand pounds three years previously.

We decided that each of us would write on a piece of paper what he thought our offer should be. The outcome was that we were all very close to the figure of two thousand Cyprus pounds for property that cost thirteen three years previously! We didn’t even have the two thousand! I wrote to the chief engineer and told him our offer! He called me by telephone and asked me to call and see him. When I saw him he told me, Your offer is very low, but we want to discuss it because we appreciate that you want the property for a school and not for a cafe or something like that. well, he brought a few more engineers and we got together. Only one of them spoke English, the rest of them did not. We discussed a sale and they asked. ‘Could you raise the figure you have offered?’ I pointed out that I had no authority, but said I would do it! We began to haggle, they came down in thousands. I went up in tens and we met at a point two thousand eight hundred and fifty pounds! I as offering eight hundred and fifty pounds more than the two thousand we had originally offered and even that we did not have! They agreed to it, we shook hands and they said, ‘We need some money to tie this over’. I went to the Bank and borrowed twenty pounds and took it to the engineer. I said, ‘This is to tie us, and in one month we will pay the rest and take delivery of the buildings’.

~9~

This was now August and September was very near, the committee got together. Ian Ross said, ‘I think we can manage it!’ He came up with some money he had by selling a house in Scotland, his father’s house. He brought three thousand pounds sterling, amounting to about two thousand eight hundred and fifty Cyprus pounds - just the very amount we needed! He gave this as a loan and we were able to take delivery of the building on 1st September. School was to start about the 20th September and we went to work getting the place ready. The good thing about these buildings was that we had all the chairs we needed, they came as part of the transaction, and all the tables could be used for desks. We only needed some blackboards. Other equipment like fridges, stoves and so on that we did not need we could sell. The only thing we had to do to those huts was to paint them. This, Ian Ross offered to do, so we got some paint and brushes and Ian painted the rooms. On the appointed date 20th September 1973 we were in business! Seven years had passed since we first started planning the School! It did not happen overnight! For about ten years we remained there in Zakaki.

~10~

In the Summer of the year 1974 the war broke out in Cyprus. The Turks invaded Cyprus and took forty percent of the land making two hundred thousand people refugees in their own country. The war meant that half of our 13 students fled the country for safety that summer and we had to battle with the question, ‘Were we wrong in starting the School. Should we now close down after just one year?’ We decided to stay open and to battle on. We advertised for the next School year and received applications from eighteen students. We praised God for that increase.

Due to the war Ian Ross and his family had to leave Cyprus. So we started September 1974 rather handicapped but the Lord knows what he is doing. One day I received a telegram from Athens from a couple I had never met, Darwin and Cheryl Brown. This couple had met Dick Knox in America and he had told them, ‘if you are in any problem in the Middle East, call Levon.’ They were on their way to Lebanon where they had a contract to work in a school, but when they got to Athens they discovered they could go no further. So they were desperate and contacted me by telegram to ask my advice. I received the telegram on a Thursday when we had a prayer meeting in the Assembly and I took the telegram to discuss it with some of the people available who were interested in the School. They said, ‘Lets ask them to come’. On the way home I sent a telegram to them saying, ‘Come!’ And they came! They were a great help, they filled a vacuum and stayed for a year until Darwin had to go back to USA. Later they came back for a further year. God supplied a full complement of teachers also for that second year of the School.

~11~

Thus the School has been going on year after year, step by step, as we trust the Lord and carry on. You know we are in the Lord’s hands, it is His work and He takes care of His own work. There have been problems from time to time. The authorities wanted to see what kind of a School we were running. They came and looked and to this day no inspector has come who has not been satisfied with the standards and practice of the Logos School.

Perhaps I should mention here something of our economic policies. From the beginning we have been very dependent on the support of the Lord’s people elsewhere for financial help in order to continue to operate. Costs have always exceeded monies received from the students in fees. The war in 1974 left many refugee children. At that time we adopted a policy of taking needy children without pay. Many of them had lost their loved ones and homes in the war. We made it our objective to support those in dire need. As we took in these refugee children the Lord provided and we just kept going. To this day it is our policy that no child will be denied help at the Logos School through inability of the parents to pay fees. In some cases the subsidy amounts to 100%. At various times we have also taken in refugees from Lebanon and other places for humanitarian reasons. On occasions we have offered free boarding as well as free tuition to needy students. In more recent times we have discovered some families who had problems in even feeding themselves, and the School under our new Principal, Mr. Peter Ross, has given humanitarian help to these. It is still our policy to give help where that help is needed.

Our first purchase of property posed the problem as to whose name or in what name the property of the School should be registered. I did not want it to be held in mine. I had seen too many societies and groups which had started work for the Lord placing property in the name of individuals, with the result that on their decease everything went to their heirs. This was not a good thing. My preference at that time, would have been for the property to be held in trust by a number of Trustees as a non profit making charitable institution under a suitable Trust Deed. To my regret under Cypriot law at that time this was not possible.

Instead a Company was formed of our supporters, it was called the ‘Logos Educational Institute Ltd’. A constitution drawn up by our lawyer, Mr. Riccos Michaelides, and approved by the government of Cyprus, incorporated my insistence that no dividends would ever be paid, and that no member in the Company or shareholder should be able to sell his or her shares to anyone. Further, that children of a shareholder could not inherit their parent’s shares in any way. On the death or resignation of a shareholder his shares would be divided or transferred to someone else to be chosen by the remaining shareholders. The first shareholders included Mr. Savvas Michaelides, Mr. Samuel Chorbadjian, Mr. Christos Psilionis, Dr. Michael Psilionis. Today some of the current fourteen shareholders are members of the School Board, others are not, a majority are local Cypriots, others are from UK. In spite of occasional difficulties we have stuck to our policy as set out in the Company constitution. All properties of the School are held in the name of the Logos Educational Institute Ltd. at the Limassol Registry Office. The School operates its Bank account under the auspices of the Logos Educational Institute Ltd.

~12~

A recent development has been information from our lawyer of a possibility of now of changing to the charitable status that I would have so much desired at the beginning. At the time of writing this possibility is being investigated. The image of a company to many minds is that of a profit making organisation and I would feel much happier to change to a more obviously non profit making and charitable image. Ours is not a profit making organisation, it is not now, and never has been. In fact as I have already indicated it is a ministry that depends very much upon outside financial support for its continuance and its development. Had it not been for those who over the years have so generously supported us financially we would not have the School today. I thank God for the friends in UK and USA and even locally who have helped us from time to time in supplying the ever recurring needs.

The School Board meets twice yearly in Cyprus to guide the School, to formulate policy, to deal with appointments and finances, and to review general management and progress. Some members are local Cypriots and some come from UK. The Board is ultimately responsible for the governance of the School. During the School year an Executive Committee meets at monthly intervals to implement the decisions of the Board and deal with any local problems. It is comprised of the Principal, senior members of staff and also of those Board members who are available. The School administration is responsible for the day to day running of the School, for preparing budgets and for general administration. Our Principal today is Mr. Peter Ross, who is aided by two Assistant Principals, Mr. Dimetrios Tsouloftas and Mr. John Ross. The Primary department has its own Head currently Miss Joanna McKeown, who is answerable to the Principal.

In accepting students we have a standard format. An application form has to be completed and obligations of new students are made clear. During my time as Principal a number of Moslem students began to come. We decided to accept them on the basis that they agree to accept the curriculum of the School, which includes the study of the Scriptures. I had one Moslem parent from Lebanon who came and said, I want my children to come to your School because I know your principles as a Christian institution, and I want them to learn the Christian principles you are teaching’. The following day he said, ‘I know you have Moslem students here, just like mine, and if there is any attempt by the other Moslem students to influence my children against Christianity I want to know about it. I want to tell you that I am opposed to that kind of thing. I want my children to learn the Christian way of life because I also as a young man went to a Christian School in Lebanon.’ This gentleman was a help to me, but another Moslem parent came and after a lot of discussion asked if I could excuse his children from the teaching of the Bible. I said to him, we are offering a package of education, and the teaching of the Bible is basic and number one on the list. We cannot do what you ask, you might as well ask me not to teach your child mathematics or history or whatever. Just as mathematics and history are an integral part of our educational system, so is the teaching of the Bible’. He went away and thought about it and came back the following day saying, I am not going to bring my child to your School’. I replied, well, it is your child. If you choose our School you have to take what we offer and our offer is a complete package. We don’t make excuses or even apologies for what we do.’ The first Moslem parent encouraged his children to learn the Scriptures and the other one did not, that is human nature. We have never forced anybody to do anything against his will.

We were confronted by another problem with Moslem students. Some of them wanted to participate in their holy tradition of fasting at Ramadan and so on. We said to them, ‘you are free not to partake of food, do what you want. You can come to the dining table or decline to come to the dining table, but we do not want you to ask us to make special concessions for you.’ Sometimes they were obedient to their traditions, sometimes they were not, but we never lowered our standards for any student. We just carry on our principles and our programme.

Our programme includes chapel attendance each morning. For the senior students in the Assembly Hall and separately for the primaries, when a member of staff gives a message from the Bible to each group. This programme lasts for fifteen to twenty minutes, including the singing of spiritual songs, and at the end announcements for the day are made. It is a great joy to see the children listening to the message or standing up singing. The programme is not diluted, the Gospel is given at chapel each day and the students take it in. The Lord has saved some over the years, and they have gone on with the Him for which we are so thankful. One of the refugee children whom we took in finished our School, went on to higher education and is today pastoring a Church here in Limassol. God saved him and God touched his heart and God took him out of what he had been before, to a life of service to the Lord. We praise God for him and others like him. Other students have been saved and have gone to foreign countries to serve the Lord fuithfully.

When we started the Logos School we needed a logo, something distinctive which would identify it so we set up a competition between the students as to who could provide the best logo. The winner was Sarkis Chorbadjian, son of a Board member at the time. We still use his basic design twenty-six years later. The official name of the School is the ‘Logos School of English Education’ or LSEE. We have incorporated in our banner the words, ‘In the beginning was the Word’, taken from John 1:1 in Greek. ‘Logos’ actually means ‘Word’ and what more appropriate name could one give a School. Our motto has always been the Word of God Jesus Christ and Him proclaimed to the students.

We spent about ten years in Zakaki, its disadvantage was that it was a bit out of the city. Then one day we needed boarding facilities because we had some prospective boarding students. Zakaki was not a suitable place for boarding so we looked around once again. We found a property for sale where the School stands today. It was a building on Yialousa Street used as offices by a construction company which had moved to bigger premises. We thought that it would be ideal for our purpose. At that time the Kellings, David and Laura Kelling were to come to Cyprus. Mr. Kelling is a Scotsman, Mrs. Kelling is a German lady. They coming as boarding house parents for us and so we bought that house.

How did we buy it? I went to the office to make enquiries and they gave me a price. Again we didn’t have any money! I asked if we could pay it over a period of time. We agreed on a down payment of two thousand pounds and a further ten thousand pounds to be paid in one year. When I reported this to the Board they nearly chewed my head off, ‘How are we going to pay £10,000 in one year?’ I said to them, I am not going to pay it and you are not going to pay it, we don’t have that kind of money. But since this is the Lord’s work the Lord will have to supply. It is not for you or me to fuss over this. We shall trust the Lord and pray and all of us will work together and within a year we will be able to pay £10,000.’ But we didn’t even have the £2000 down payment. I went to the Bank and borrowed £2000, took it to the people and made an agreement to pay the remainder in one year.

We made the purchase at a good time, because just then there was a slump in property values. Within a year we were able to pay the final ten thousand pounds. Next to that building there were three other building plots which we could have bought. But again the Board dragged their feet and did not want to get involved saying that we did not have the money and so on, so we didn’t buy them. But there was one plot right next to this building and we thought that we should buy it. Again the Board said, No. In those days we had a rule in our Board meetings that we had to have unanimous decisions. There was one Board member who was always opposing the purchase of any property Eventually he resigned from the Board and the rest of us agreed that we should get that property. It was a good thing we did because it became the site of the new boarding house we use today. The plot could have been bought for £5000 when we started negotiating, but prices began to go up and eventually we had to pay £7000, again to be paid over one year. But we bought it.

~13~

A few years ago before I reached my 60 birthday I felt that I should resign from the School administration and devote my time to other things, while continuing as a member of the School Board and also of the Company. On my resignation my assistant Miss Claire Sutcliffe became the Principal. For a year I acted as assistant Principal to give her support. Miss Sutcliffe continued as Principal for five years and after her resignation the Board invited me to come back. After some prayer and some consideration the Lord led me to agree on three conditions, first it would be for two years only, second that in that period I would be training Peter Ross to follow me, and third, that I should begin to receive a salary from the School. The Board agreed to these conditions and I stepped in to take over again as Principal for two years. Peter Ross became my assistant and I continued to groom him to take over after me and gave him an opportunity to benefit from my experience as I had more contacts and so on. I felt that this was a good and God glorifying arrangement. It worked very well, and I believe that it was God’s will for us and for the School at that time. At the end of the two years I finally retired and Peter Ross took over as Principal.

Regarding staff remuneration we had a happy situation for many years, when many teachers coming as volunteers would say, ‘We don’t need a salary’. In some cases they would be supported, or at least partly supported by their home Assembly or Church. This helped the School considerably in the early days. Others needed a salary and they received appropriate financial help. This policy went on for a number of years until the Board decided that every employee of the School should get a salary. That is the current policy, although by the standards of overseas or of Cyprus our staff salaries are very low. We praise God for the sacrifices made by many in service to the School over the many years.

I myself as founder and first Principal of the School for many years did not take a salary. My thinking was, we are trusting the Lord for our living, we have done it for years and can continue now.’ My wife was in agreement with me on this and until my approaching retirement we collected no salary. After retirement I have been receiving a pension which has been a great help to us. We can only praise God for His faithfulness in supplying our needs day by day

We praise Him too for His goodness in supplying the daily needs of the Logos School also for the His provision in the expansion programmes when we have had to build. We have had to add classrooms, we had to provide books and libraries and many other things besides every day operating costs. I must say that a great deal of gratitude goes to the efforts of Ian Ross and the Logos Trust in UK who publicise the work of the School, get support and channel that support to the School. Sometimes this support takes the form of finance forwarded directly to the School and sometimes by payment of some of our bills in UK for books, equipment or other items.

And so the School goes on in this manner to this day. What about the future? We need more classrooms and more teachers, but all this is being worked out in good manner by the new Principal and staff.

To visit the Logos School Website, click on the link below...

Logos School of English Education