There is much publicity about Idomeni refugee camp but I’m going to share the good news report. It tells a different story, that God is amazing! Yes, I have sat in a tent thirty feet from where a tear gas bomb is going off, I have cried with a mother who lost her two sons in Syria, and I have seen families separated by time and distance due to closed borders but I have also seen God show His faithfulness to care for them and to love them through all these circumstances.
Just got home from the local market with a ton of shoes. God is truly amazing! We set off knowing that our personal funds would only get us so far in purchasing the one item they most often request. The vendor was quite kind to offer us a discounted price to buy several pair and then he asked us if they were for the refugees. Yes! Well, he started giving us more shoes for free “Take more, and here, have a bigger bag.” We came home with shoes for all of our new friends at the camp and some clothing as well because the vendor next door also wanted to share in the joy of generosity and started giving us clothing for them. I can’t wait to be back at the camp to tell our friends just how God provided for them, by way of their Macedonian neighbors.
A week ago I met a woman at the camp who asked for earrings. Later that day I passed by an accessory shop I had been to once before and the woman remembered me so she gave me a pair of earrings for free. I just about cried to know that the Lord was giving my Syrian friend the earrings she desperately wanted. It’s the little things that mean so much when surrounded by grief and sorrow, she lit up when I gave them to her. I got a big, warm hug and that was my special blessing.
Yesterday I woke up with terrible allergies and took a pill, it made me drowsy and I fell asleep on the way to the camp. When we arrived my contact was a mess, I couldn’t see out of that eye and I didn’t have solution. I wasn’t sure how I was going to be effective in ministry being distracted by this situation so my team prayed for me. I walked around with that eye closed for a short time and when I opened it, perfectly fine! Thank you, Jesus! Little did I know that a short time later the field I was in would be raining with tear gas bombs which was messing with all our eyes. My Syrian friends starting lighting up their cigarettes, taking heart medication and rubbing their eyes. It was then I told them about my prayer earlier in the day, the miraculous healing and the way in which God will take care of them too. There were laughs but to their amazement their eyes stopped watering which gave me a place from which to share more about Jesus! Many questions about were answered, the response I received was “I like, makes sense, maybe.” I’ll take a maybe, for now! In the meantime, God is still at work.
Please be praying for them to feel safe in the arms of Christ, we meet their immediate needs for clothing, shoes, and food but they most need the everlasting peace that comes from He who embodies it. They have commented that throughout their journey they have been met by Christians who are as angels, and yet their Muslim brothers are trying to kill them. Meeting them in the place of their struggles has peaked their curiosity about Christ.
The refugees most appreciate the time we give them; they just want to feel “normal” again. They show us their family photos, and talk about the careers they had as physicists, pharmacists, chemists, teachers…They ran from ISIS because if they denied recruitment they, too, would be executed. They showed pride in their lovely homes that were then bombed to bits. I mourn with them over their losses and the problems of the camp that plague them but we also talk about their hopes, dreams and share laughs about the children who still know how to giggle and play. As for the kids who have forgotten what joy looks like, well, we play till they remember! One little girl doing laundry stopped to show me every hand-clap game she knew. Soon after each child in the area came up slapping my hands, even the babies that knew how to give a high five.
It’s for the love of their families that the men become enraged by the ones that make everyone look bad. There are fights between the rebel rousers and all the dads who try to stop the nonsense because it endangers their wives and children when the bombs start dropping. At Idomeni I am witnessing it all as I witness with my whole heart.
Please consider being a part of this experience by funding me, I still owe $1000 to complete my fundraising and have two weeks to meet the deadline! I really want to continue this work; I’m getting to speak life. Think about how you’re helping the mom who has me hold one of her twins while she alone attends to her five other children because her husband is in Germany. You’re helping not only the man who is a translator who has had a conversation with me about Jesus but then all the people he shares this with who also speak Arabic. This has been a great four months and there are seven more! Help me make it to Montenegro next month. Love them, love you!
