The concrete floor was icy cold beneath my feet, and I felt the chill straight through my socks. It didn’t stop there. I started shivering within minutes of entering her apartment, but I kept a straight face as we greeted and she welcomed me into her home. The entrance room was completely empty, and as Fatma ushered us into her main living room, I saw two beautiful little children, maybe 5 years old and 2 years old. This room was empty too, except for a few very thin sitting mattress pads on the floor. In the corner I saw a bundle of blankets, and as I stepped closer, I saw that there was another child, a tiny baby. I soon found out that he was 3 weeks old.
My heart immediately broke for this family. The cold was unbearable, and I had on several warm layers. But, the good news was, that the church that my team served with last month was able to purchase a gas heater for Fatma and her children. I was able to visit her with another girl on my team, Sam, and with David, a long-term volunteer at the church who had been building relationship with Fatma before my team arrived. I got to be there on the visit that he brought her the heater, and it was one of the happiest moments that I can remember experiencing. The joy in Fatma’s face was something I’ll never forget.
This is one story of dozens that I could tell you about the home visits to Syrian refugees that I went on with my team in Jordan as we served with our host church. I can’t tell you the name of the church or the city I was in, but when the Syrian war began in 2011, this city was flooded with Syrian refugees, and this church found itself right in the middle of it all. They had already been doing many outreaches to reach the Jordanians in their city, but when the Syrians arrived, God began using the church to serve and reach them too. The church recognizes that the Syrians are at a crossroads in their lives, and they are praying that they will realize that they are a crossroads spiritually too.
View of Jordan from a rooftop
The church body is only about 60 people, and when you don’t include the kids and elderly, it’s about 20 able-bodied people. And yet, God has used that church to provide over 30,000 mattresses to the almost 80,000 Syrian refugees living in their city! ….. that blows me away. That fact alone deepens my faith in God and His ability to do above and beyond anything I can imagine. Not only that, but they distribute food, heaters, clothes, diapers, blankets, and more.
Distribution of basic supplies is only one piece of the Church’s ministry to the Syrian refugees. They also:
-have English classes all week (and the English teachers are Christians who get to minister to them)
-run a Christian school for over 150 Syrian kids
-have counseling for the kids (many of whom have experienced trauma from the war)
-have sewing classes for women
-have “Sunday school” (not always on Sunday) all throughout the week for the kids
-have fun nights for families, including a Christmas carol event one night in which the sanctuary was packed with Muslim families
-dozens of home visits every day except Friday (about 10 long-term volunteers go out every day, and they bring short-terms like us with them on 2-4 house visits a day)
-girls soccer and boys soccer
And, of course, they do distribution of supplies every day, on top of all of that.
What the church realized was that they wanted to open their doors to any and every Christian willing to come and help. So that’s how we got to be there. They don’t advertise the need, they just say that God keeps bringing people to help :).
So the church in the last decade expanded, a LOT, in order to accommodate all of the needs. It has been around since the 1960’s as a one-story place. But now, it is 7 stories! It was like a mansion haha. It was very easy to get lost in, or to not see your team mates for a whole day, which made communication interesting haha. But it was absolutely beautiful, and such a wonderful refuge in the middle of a horrible crisis. And, it proudly displays crosses on the outside of the building. This was starkly different for me to experience in comparison to the secret house church that we served with in Morocco. Jordan is an officially Muslim country, but the church was not hidden at all.
My team mate snuck this photo of me lol. My favorite place in the church!
The huge amount of space in the church meant that it could 1. Accommodate all of the above activities I listed (except the school was at a different location) and 2. Host Christian teams like ours from all over the world. While we were there, there were also teams from Chile, Brazil, France, and Norway. Some teams stay for a week, some for a month like us, and some people are there for 2-3 months or longer.
This Church relied on God for everything, and God blessed their efforts. They are truly a bright shining light in an incredibly dark land and situation. God’s radiance and love is very evident there. (Our team name was Radiance, and we felt it was very fitting that we got to serve with this ministry host).
Because of all of the different outreaches and serving opportunities, honestly my team hardly got to see each other all together. There was someone gone from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM most days. We were all kept very, very busy. They assigned each of us to whatever need they had for that day. Over the course of the month I got to visit at least 2 dozen Syrian refugee families. I loved helping at the school and with the English classes. I even played guitar and sang Christmas carols for a crowd and directed a Christmas play haha, I‘ve never done that before! If the church volunteers asked you to do something, you just said yes and figured out how to do it along the way. 🙂
Some of the girls I got to meet and spend time with in the English classes.
The church says that their main ministry is the home visits. They explained that they aim for all of the other outreaches to lead to home visits. During the home visits, we would spend several hours with each family. The long-term volunteer almost always knew Arabic and English, so us short-term volunteers were able to ask the families questions and get to know them. I heard many, many heart-wrenching stories of what the families went through in the war. The thing that hurt the worst was the children who I got to know who had scars from bombs or other horrible things, on their faces, hands, arms, and heads. One little boy, Ottman, had an entire bald patch on his head because of a bomb exploding near him.
My team mate Meghan took these pictures of coffee and tea that she had at each family’s home… I didn’t think to take pictures like this, but this is also a very good representation of my experience too. Every visit, the family would serve us a coffee or tea. Each picture represents a family that we got to spend hours with.
What was wonderful about the home visits was that I got to see their faces and get to know each person. God loves each one of them, and they aren’t statistics to Him. And my team got to be there, day in and day out for a month, to see them, hear them, talk and laugh with them, love them. And the best part, was that on almost every single visit, the long-term volunteer would direct the conversation to Christ, or read directly out of the Bible. The Syrians refugees need a lot of help, but what they need most is to know the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ, and God opened doors every single day for the Gospel to be shared with them, or for Christ’s love to be shared with them. During the month we were there, one entire family came to know Christ, and another several people did too. It was truly a blessing to a be a part of the Church’s ministry to the Syrian refugees.
My impression of the Syrian people is that they are resilient and filled with love for their families. And they are searching for peace. They have lost their homes, and their country is war torn. They have lost all of their earthly possessions, and are now displaced. Many have lost family members. They are searching for peace, hope, and a new beginning. It is a privilege to have met them and to be an ambassador of Christ to them, the only One who can make all things new and bring true peace and hope.
If I could sum up last month, I would say that every day was different, every day was busy, and every day required flexibility, a happy heart, and faith in God. My team even faced an incredibly difficult situation where there was a lot of fear and panic spreading through the church because some long-term volunteers thought that there might be some kind of attack on the church. We even dealt with one day not being able to go outside because we are American, and with the decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, the whole Arab and Muslim worlds have been on edge. It was kind of a crazy time to be on an all girl team in the Middle East. Actually, it was like one of my worst fears coming true. At training camp I cried because someone mentioned forming an all girl team, and I thought that I didn’t want to travel to the Middle East without men on my team.
But, God taught me SO many lessons about trusting Him last month. We are totally fine, even with all of that fear and panic going around. God showed me even more about His sovereignty. Last month He also showed me just how much He desires to seek and save the lost. He is using that one, tiny church body in that city to make a huge difference in the lives of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees and Jordanians.
It makes me wonder what He wants to continue to do in and through my life, and yours. He is a God of miracles and love. How much more can He do? Will I trust Him? Will I put Him in a box, or will I open my heart and let Him show me more and more of His goodness? Will I let Him use me in the ways He wants to, or will I let fear rule me? How might He use my life as a blessing to others?
At the end of the month, my entire squad got to spend a week in Israel. It was a tremendous blessing. I saw Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and many other areas including Nazareth, Capernaum, and the Sea of Galilee, places where Jesus walked (even the Sea of Galilee haha). It was a time of rest and exploration for us before beginning the next section of our trip. We have officially hit the half-way mark! We just arrived in Georgia (the country) yesterday. Unfortunately, I got really sick while in Israel (bronchitis :/) and so I’ve been resting a lot and will rest the next few days, but my team is excited to follow the Lord directly while we’re in Georgia, since we don’t have a ministry host this month.
Also, while we were in Israel we had another team change, and I am now on Team Jubilee, still an all girl team! I’m very excited to serve alongside these amazing women, each with such a deep love for Christ! 🙂 I’ve heard that this is my team for the rest of the Race, but I’m not sure.
Team Jubilee
Thank you for reading this, and I hope that you enjoyed your Christmas and New Year’s!
Blessings,
Elaine
