Just want to give an overview of the highlights of my month in Greece.
One night 6 of us got to partner with A21 (stands for abolish slavery in the 21st century) they raise awareness about human trafficking and the vulnerable position they are in currently in the camps. They do one night where they show a movie with ads speaking in Arabic about the dangers of human trafficking. The next day they go back to the same camp and distribute pamphlets. I got to go on the night of the movie. They played Madagascar 2 with English subtitles. This was a smaller camp with only 800 refugees who were mostly Kurdish. They arrange camps based on country of origin. This refugee camp was like a small community looking out for one another kids. One young girl told me she had been there for 5 months. She was beautiful and tough, she had a tear in her leggings where she fell the day before and a fresh wound beneath. Her English was average as a lot of kids learn in the camps communicating with one another that way.
I also helped with product development of a jewelry collection the pastors daughter has kickstarted. They have been selling online to American distributers but have recently been able to sell to Greek vendors as well. They are in the stages to see what sells and what doesn’t while still keeping a Greek twist to it. The hopes of the project is to open a workshop where women can learn a trade. Here are a few pics of the process from buying to creating.
I made friends with a man that owned a stationary store and he gave me a free pack of yellow post it notes! So when we had a free day I decided to write “Jesus” on every single one and stick them around the city.
My teammate also bought chalk and went down to the square with a group and drew messages on the pavement. People would stop to read what was written and some even joined in to draw.
The church also acted as a drop-in center for refugees from the camps to be able to come and use the showers, sit in the AC, and relax while their children got to play. We held English classes as well for refugees who were set up in apartments and joined us with ministry by acting as translators.
We also visited the refugee camps a few different times. Once to help with a kids camps. Another few times to deliver beds to those who had been there for 5 months and had been sleeping still on the ground. It took two long hot days to deliver beds to 500+ people. They were generous with their food and hospitable, inviting us to sit under their tarps out of the sun and speak a little bit through a translator.
The next day at the camp a woman asked a volunteer we had been working with who we were because she noticed something different about us compared to other volunteers she’s met.
We also spent time in a park that was the home to multiple refugee families. They sat on cardboard and sleeping bags. Their kids ran around barefoot running around in the roads spending days in the heat. We delivered waters and watermelon as we tried to collect more information as to why they were there, where they had come from and how many people they were traveling with. The sad reality is that most of them are waiting to be smuggled to other countries. We were able to provide aid to a few of the families through showers at the drop-in center and trips for medical attention.
My teammate Lucie created a short video of the days we spent in the park with these families. Take a look:
