Don’t Blink
Month 1
Location: Sombor, Serbia
Ministry: Relationship building
8pm
A guitar is screaming, Alex and Bogdan are slaying it.
Boom da boom!
I’m “slamming” away on the drums, a new discovered talent of mine.
This is ministry.
My first month, I had NO IDEA what I was doing (still don’t), what I had gotten myself into, and how much I would love it. Not just “it” but the people I’d meet along the way too.
God taught me a lot about trust this month. Trusting in Him and trusting these new people I’m doing life with. That opening up to people and letting them in my life doesn’t always end up badly. This gave me the ability to make great friends with my teammates and the folks I met in Serbia.
I have the ability to just stop walking and yell “DECIDE!” while I throw a random object in the air while simultaneously starting to fall over, knowing my team would literally have my back if they decided in time and realized what I was doing.
Saying goodbye to my friends there was hard.
And that was just the beginning.
BLINK
Month 3
Location: Sykaminia, Lesbos Island, Greece
Ministry: Syrian Refugee Crisis
3pm(ish)
“Hello, flower girl!”, Ernesto said to me as the team piled into the van. It was time to go to the camp. We make the 45 minute drive through the beautiful mountain side of the island. Us that were sitting in the front kill time by talking about various things, laughing at how Abel fell asleep so fast, or questioning the reason of the half car that’s around one of these bends.
3:44pm
We arrive and I can tell its gonna be a steady night. The queue is slightly full and there are lots of people milling around inside the chain link fence. As soon as we told the other team we were there and got everything shifted over, I was at my normal spot at the front gate with Amir. He is one of the Farsi translators and a friend of mine. We’d talk about life, make up stupid games when bored, or be super busy.
There we greet the people as they line up to come inside. We would let them through families at a time, or in groups of 10. All of them usually cold and wet or damp. November in Greece is no joke, once the sun goes down, it’s time to layer up.
Thomas and Amina, some fellow volunteers (note both of them are from Australia, so automatic BABE status 😉 ), show up. They liven everything up with their presence. Amina walks back and forth taking groups into the camp, while Thomas went to help with loading buses.
Despite the early busyness, it starts to slow down and camp starts to empty out. We have a little down time and so, we grab a snack (usually “High Energy Biscuits” [high energy meaning high calorie] dipped in Euro Cream {that’s Europe’s cheaper version of Nutella}).
10:17pm
Amina and I are now working the bus ticket line. But since the flow has slowed down so much, we’re basically just hanging out and talking with some of the refugees who are waiting for their bus to arrive. We get invited to go play volleyball with them. So we say why not and find others to take our spots at the ticket line.
This volleyball game isn’t like normal volleyball. It’s basically just passing the ball back and forth. We are playing with all guys and they are all so nice and try to make sure we got a chance to hit the ball. I think I ended up with a boyfriend/husband at the end of the game though… Don’t really know how it happened, but it did. He put his arm around my shoulder and I just rolled out from under and was like “uh no”. I then found my friend Yannis, another Farsi translator, and told him what happened while laughing about my situation. Yannis, being a great friend that he is, immediately was like “which one is he?” And put his arm around my shoulders, I just laugh. He ended up seeing the guy and in Farsi told him to go away or something. Amina came out unscathed I believe.
11:48pm
Crrruunncchhhh! Goes the gravel as Elton and Ernesto whip up in the vans, dropping off an overnight team and picking us up. The back of Elton’s van says in the dust,
“Elton AGAPE MU!” Meaning “Elton my love!” Put there by my squad mate Catherine I believe.
We go through the customary shift change ordeal, passing radios and torches to the new arrivals, saying goodbye to those who were staying and climbing into the vans again.
Speeding through the winding country side, we soon see the castle lit up in the distance and the twinkling lights of Molyvos.
Greece.
That was a more calm night I described. But a lot of the early days of my 5 weeks working there were not. We would have thousands of people coming through the camp in a day. All wanting food, dry clothes, blankets, and whatever else we could offer. Many people who were too old or too young to be making a journey like this. Many who had injuries or were injured on the way over. Many people who had loved ones that didn’t make it. They either died on the journey over to Turkey, or in the crossing of the 4 miles of treacherous, merciless sea, and that was hardly the end of their journey. Most were trying to make it to Germany. Once they stopped at our transition site, we set them to the next camp. Then to the ferry in Mytiline to Athens. Athens to Thessoloniki, Greece. Then they’d wait there to cross the border into Macedonia and eventually Germany. There is a lot more to the process that I don’t know about too. (For a video in site to our squads time in Greece, check out my talented squad mate, Aubrey’s, “No Man is an Island” video series here.)
Anyway, if you didn’t notice my reoccurring theme, it was the volunteers that I met. Yes, I believe God sent my squad to Greece to help with the refugees. Yes, I believe we did make an impact on the refugees we did meet. But I also believe for me, that God sent me to Greece for the volunteers. People who I could actually make lasting and impactful friendships with. Friends, who I still talk to now even though it’s been 7ish months since I’ve seen them.
God was teaching me a lot about loving those I was with while I had the chance to love them. To invest in them and give my all despite the pain that comes when it’s time to say goodbye. Yeah, it was hard leaving them. Yeah I miss them. But to quote my favorite superhero, Captain America, in The Winter Soldier, “Internet, so helpful”, meaning I can still connect with them through the internet. And that’s pretty rad.
BLINK
To be continued…
