You’re probably wondering why I haven’t posted in a while. Well there are a few reasons. But the main one was that we were quite busy with helping at the border and things there changed quite often, so the every time that I wanted to blog something would change and I would have to rewrite it to keep you all up to date. Finally I decided to just wait until the end to write a summary of what we did. So without further ado, here it is:
I’d say this past month was the most challenging month of the Race so far, both physically and emotionally.
As I mentioned in my last blog, my team and one other team from our squad spent the month living in Thessaloniki, Greece and traveling an hour to a train station at the border of Greece/Macedonia where they had setup up a camp, to help out with the refugee crisis.
The first 2 days that we were there, the camp was full of around 3000 refugees from all over. Pakistan, Morocco, Iran, Nigeria to name a few. They were stuck there as they were only allowing refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to cross.
So for those two days we didn’t really have anything specific to do. We were free to walk around and talk with people or volunteer wherever they needed help.
So that’s what we did. We helped serve sandwiches and water with an organization called Praksis; we helped a team from Germany, who were serving hot food, move all of their equipment about 500 yards closer to the border as the train that they were serving out of was moved away from the border; and we moved our host’s small trailer about 100 yards back to the road so he could tow it closer to the border (with the help of a few refugees, as it was pretty heavy).
On the 3rd day we were supposed to go back to the border and do the same things were doing. But we come to find out that we can’t go back because the Greek police kicked out all of the volunteers so that they could forcibly remove all of the refugees who aren’t allowed to cross and relocate them to Athens (where there is a more permanent camp setup).
We were all heartbroken. Coming to the realization that we weren’t going to see anyone that we had built a small relationship with again. And we weren’t even sure if we’d be allowed to go back to the border again.
Later that night we found out that we were going to be allowed to return to the border and that it had been turned into a transition camp and that we would be handing out clothing to those who needed it. And that we would start working shifts, trading off with our other team. So for the rest of our time there that’s what we did.
My team started out working the overnight shifts, handing out clothes on the train tracks in the freezing cold, carrying boxes of clothes back and forth from the warehouse (about 3/4 of a mile away). We did that for a few days and then we were allowed to share a tent with another organization and handout clothes from there.
The last week came around and we were told that they had kicked all the volunteers out of the tent they were serving out of and that they had to be at least 500 yards away. So we thought we wouldn’t get to go back again since it would be impossible to handout clothes from there since they drop the refugees off about 100 yards from the border.
It turned out that they lifted the distance restriction so we were able to resume handing out clothing. But they wouldn’t let anyone back into their tents. So we had to handout just basic clothing (hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters) from 2 tables.
But that proved to not be very effective. So we decided to take our small trailer from earlier and load it with basic clothing and go handout clothes at a gas station down the road where buses full of refugees waited to be called to the border to cross.
Our other team got put in charge of that and got shutdown after the first day by the gas station because the gas station sells clothes and weren’t happy we were taking away their sales.
So the next and last day (also Christmas Eve) both our teams split up, with one group going to the border to try handing out clothes again and the other group going to the gas station to make friends and handout bibles.
I was in the latter group at the gas station. And that was one of my favorite days of the race so far! It was Me, Catherine and Victoria, and we spent the entire day there just hanging out with this group of guys who were very kind and fun! We got to chat with them, take pictures with them, hear their stories, we became friends on Facebook, and one of them even showed Victoria how to write a few things in Farsi! And then before leaving we got to give them a couple bibles and then pray for them and their journey.
Sorry this blog was so long, I probably should’ve just written a few blogs throughout my time there.
I want to end this blog by opening the floor for questions as I’m certain that I left out details somewhere. So feel free to ask me anything about my time spent in Greece.
Thanks for reading and for your patience! And for continuing to follow my journey!
God bless!
