I played volleyball yesterday with a group of Iranian men in the narrow walkway between two makeshift tents set up to house stranded refugees at the Greece-Macedonia border. Two of my teammates and I jokingly decided to represent the USA. Our good-natured opponents chanted in favor of Iran even as they crossed over to our side of the court to assist three American girls who didn’t really know much about the game. Laughter and general comradery had replaced strict rules long before we were invited to play.
Nobody mentioned the letters addressed to “Prince Obama” taped to a nearby tent asking him why he was allowing Pakistani, Iranian, Bangladeshi, Moroccan, and Nigerian children to starve.
They knew we were Christians. One of my teammates had just finished praying over a little girl sick with the flu moments before joining the game. We knew they were Muslim. The child’s mother smiled at us from beneath her soft pink hijab as we dodged the wayward volleyball and offered enthusiastic high-fives to her fellow countrymen. Her and her daughter cheered for us.
For the past couple of weeks, thousands of refugees have called Idomeni, Greece their temporary home after Macedonia closed it borders to all nationalities they have labeled “economic migrants”. Graffiti, left over from recent riots, confronts world leaders, from the Queen of England to the UN and the Chancellor of Germany, asking why they have allowed the refugee’s voices to go unheard. Last Saturday, after learning the border was closed, a Moroccan man climbed on top of a train and grabbed one of the low-hanging electrical wires in a desperate attempt at suicide.
Moving forward isn’t an option for thousands of them, the Greek riot police continuously stationed in front of the barbed wire fence at the Macedonia border make that clear. Returning home seems equally impossible, and everywhere there’s a kind of desperation that the rest of the world has fundamentally misunderstood the people living inside the battered tents scattered across Greek train tracks.
My first day in at Idomeni, I listened as a friendly Moroccan man chatted with one of my teammates while we helped serve food from inside a stationary train car. He wanted her to know he was Muslim. He kept saying, “We aren’t terrorists. Did you know that?” It was the question at the end that broke my heart, as if this man was so convinced the rest of the world saw him as the enemy that it would be an act of revelation to learn otherwise.
They aren’t terrorists. Did you know that?
This morning we learned that local police had asked all volunteers to leave the camp as they forcibly began emptying tents and evacuating refugees on buses headed back towards Athens. I will likely never get coffee with the two sweet Pakistani boys who called me “Dear One” in their local tongue every time they saw me walking around camp. In a different world, I think we might have been friends.
Sometimes, I’m about as proud as anyone to be from the United States. After fielding four or five marriage proposals in a single afternoon from refugees who saw my American passport about as quickly as they saw my face, I can sense the weight of the privileges that were handed to me at birth. I never did anything to earn them. At other times, I resent any national narrative that would have us all believe we are anything other than humans, exactly alike the other billions of people who woke up this morning all over the world.
Yesterday, I played volleyball with a group of Iranian men who ignored my nationality, my religion, and my gender because, in the moment, our differences were irrelevant. The pretty woman in the pink hijab standing nearby was married and had her first child at fourteen years old. On paper, our lives appear dissimilar, but that didn’t stop us from smiling and laughing together when the volleyball went flying off-course.
It was one of the most beautiful afternoons I’ve ever had, and still I know there are people out there who want to call them terrorists. As somebody who will proclaim the name of Jesus wherever I go with everything that I have, I want you to know that Islam is not synonymous with terrorism. Refugees are not synonymous with fear.
When people need help, they need help regardless of their nation of origin or professed religious affiliation. We live in a world where borders and nationalities mean everything, but it would be foolish to think they are anything other than completely arbitrary. If they are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. If they are in need of clothes, clothe them. If they are a stranger, invite them in (Matthew 25:34-40).
