Where do I begin? There’s always the begining but I honestly don’t know where that is. My days are jumbled and blended and all feel connected into one big long continous week. Our purpose here this month is to help and interact with refugees. I was terrified! But why? They are just people, people like you and like me. But also not like you and me because these people have had to pack up everything can can fit in a pack and leave their home and everything they love because they are being threatened, or killed, or forced to convert or believe something they don’t believe in. I’ve never had to go through that. Can you imagine coming home one day and not having a home to come home to because it had been ran sacked and distroyed? Now imagine taking what you can find and packing it up and jumping on a tiny boat or worse walking to another country, spending weeks upon weeks travelling. Yes. I was scared of those people, but why?
I stood back and asked myself why was I scared. The answer was the unknown. I don’t know these people, I didn’t know how to talk to them or how to be helpful to them, or how could i even understand what they have gone through. Also I was scared because I didnt want my heart to break again, because I thought my heart could only handle so much. I didn’t want to get to know these people, love them, hear their stories because deep down I knew it would break me and I didn’t want to be broken again. I wanted to spend this month working hard but being strictly volunteer. I wanted to hand out food and water and do whatever needed to get done and I didn’t want to actually interact.
“…This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that. “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up . You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”-Matthew 5:47-?48 MSG. Basically this verse rocked my world. I was being stupid and selfish. I was done skimming the surface, I was ready to dive in.
One day here I was handing out food and supplies at the park. As we went from family to family and blanket to blanket my heart got more soft and more exposed. I got to this one family that had 3 of the most beautiful boys I had ever seen, 2 of the boys had dark skin and the bluest eyes and I was easily puddy. It took all the strength I could find to not break down and cry right then and there because such sweet and beautiful boys with the kindest parents should not have to live on the streets of Greece, actually none of these people do. And to top it all off majority of the community here do not want to help any of these refugees.
With a heart breaking and aching for these people, I got to dig deeper and go to 2 different refugee camps this week to see what it’s like there. One camp we got to bring portable beds to each tent, It was so amazing to bring joy and comfort in the form of a bed to each family. The other camp I went to I got to go with A21 (Abolish slavery in the 21st century founded by Christine and Nick Cain) to hand out booklets and share awareness with refugees about trafficking and to play with the kids. On the race I think you didn’t have a day at ministry unless you have played with kids. Haha. I don’t fully know what experiencing all of this will do to me emotionally and spiritually because this is happening everyday and I have a new emotion to process every single day. But once I do it will be huge and grand. God has big things planned for me and they are coming soon, and I’m letting him do things in my life to mold me like clay and make me the woman he wants me to be. It’s crazy, scary and quite exciting to think about my future and what steps today will impact my future, but I’m ready to be more open to understand and jump into the unknown.
