It’s around 6:30 PM, my team has just arrived at the refugee transit point for our shift until midnight. The sun has long been gone and the rain has not stopped since we arrived in Lesvos earlier that morning. The wind is swirling the rain everywhere and all I can think is, “Cold, I am so cold. This is going to be a long night.”
We stood in the rain for about 10 minutes before we were given a task to help maintain the chaos – hand out tea to those who were even colder and more wet than we were. Upon entering the tent, which was only supposed to hold 200-300 people, I was struck with the faces of a number much more than 200. I navigated through out the crowd of hundreds trying not to knock over the small plastic cups of tea I was carrying as hands eagerly jumped out at me to grab something hot to drink.
Light was dimly streaming from small lamps around the room and headlamps, for those lucky enough to have one. I looked to the corner of the room and saw a large crowd huddled around one of the volunteers. All I could see were hands reaching desperately toward him illuminated by the small orange light coming from his headlamp. Reaching for bus tickets, their way to their next point and hopeful future asylum.
I emptied my tray of tea and went to replenish with more and was told to bring it to the medical tent. There I met a little girl who had already seen too much in her short life. I picked her up while the doctor was caring for her mother. I tried everything I would normally to cheer a child up, but she wasn’t having any of it.
Instead, she had a blank expression on her face, which told me she had not smiled in quite some time and some tall white lady wasn’t going to bring it back by playing peek-a-boo with her. So I just held her and choked back the tears. She could not have been more than 4 years old, and she had already lost her smile.
Up until this point I didn’t even realize it had not been hard. My transition to the Race was relatively easy enough. It felt like any other mission trip I would go on every year. I come, help people, love people, share Jesus, my heart is filled with joy, then get on an airplane and come home.
Then I entered this refugee transit point.
I didn’t even realize I was living from a place that was just in a waiting season to get to the airplane to come back home. Even if that plane wasn’t coming for another 10 months.
I was living in transition. Just waiting, listening to what the Lord wanted to teach me but not fully engaging, not fully letting myself feel or attach. Because what was the point? I was going to leave in a month. So my mindset, without me even realizing, had been I will help as much as I can and pour all I have out and love them, but not really attach myself. If I let them in, it would tear me apart to leave them in the end.
Then I experienced what I only had seen on TV or read about in magazines or newspapers. It no longer was just an issue going for people on the other side of the world. Now, I was on this side of the world and walking amongst these people.
This is when the Race got hard.
Pictures in magazines or on TV became people I handed hot tea or energy biscuits too.
They became hands desperately reaching out to get bus tickets for their family so they could move to their next point.
They became shivering soaking wet bodies walking 5 hours from the beach to our transit point to be given dry clothes and medical attention.
They became little girls who left their smiles behind as they’re crammed on a boat with 50 others praying the ominous waves don’t overtake them as they travel to a hope of safety.
It was no longer something my heart could not attach to. So not only did it attach, it ripped apart. Just as I feared it would when I let it all in.
My first night at the transit point I heard God say to me, “This is it, this is where I want you.” My heart exploded.
I asked, ‘Why my squad, Jesus?’ He gave me an answer through the super cheesy, but oh-so-true, Christian song by Matthew West that popped into my head:
“If not now, then when
Will we see an end
To all this pain
It’s not enough to do nothing
It’s time for us to do something.
I’m so tired of talking
About how we are God’s hands and feet
But it’s easier to say than to be
Live like angels of apathy who tell ourselves
It’s alright, “somebody else will do something”
Well, I don’t know about you
But I’m sick and tired of life with no desire
I don’t want a flame, I want a fire.”
We are a squad full of mobilizers and hands ready to do something. You could say we were in the right place at the right time being the closest squad in Europe, but I know specifically we are here as the result of prayers prayed and put into motion by our God who did not make us to be angels of apathy. Prayers work. We need your prayers.
Every day thousands of refugees are smuggled into Turkey from a number of neighboring countries and then smuggled across the Aegean Sea to Lesvos, Greece. It is only about a 4-mile boat ride to the beach front in Lesvos, but everyday boats are flipped or do not make the two hour journey. The smugglers well overcharge the refugees for a place in their boat, which they have no choice but to pay if they want passage. These inflatable rafts with their cheap motors are only supposed to hold 15-20 people, and they are crammed with 40-60 people. Those who survive the trek come soaking wet, cold, and on the verge of hypothermia.
Volunteers meet them on the beach and then they either walk or are bussed up to our transit point. At this transit point they are given dry clothes, a place of rest for a couple of hours, snacks, water, and a bus ticket to their next location. Each step along the way is an unsure location of whether they will be received or not, whether another border will close on them, whether they will have to separate from their families or not.
Also, now with winter coming there is even more of an urgency in the refugees to cross over before then. The increased pressure causes a spirit of unrest and anxiety that escalates the situation even further.
The transition these refugees are in will affect the course of their entire lives. Each step, each camp, each bus ride, and mile they cross will become a piece of what will make their story.
So pray. Pray for safety and shelter for these people. Pray for their families to find each other. Pray for life to be restored and hope to be found in their journeys. Pray for the weather to clear and the rain to not bring such detriment. Pray for their stories to mean something and for the world to wake up and take notice and not pull a blind eye and say it is somebody else’s problem. Pray for smiles to return to the faces of little girls who lost theirs along the way.
I don’t want a flame, I want a fire.
Disclaimer: I did not take any of these photos, but they are taken in the location where we are serving and good depictions of what we are experiencing. They asked us to not bring cameras or phones with us for sensitivity purposes. So these are all pulled off of the internet.
