When I think back to my month serving in the “refugee crisis” on the island of Lesvos, Greece, I think of the little faces, the small hands, the big smiles, and the hearts of the children who left a huge impact on my heart.
This month I realized that these refugee children will be the next generation to impact the whole world.
I think of the little Syrian girl not even two years old. I think of her shivering little fingers, her chattering teeth, and beautiful brown eyes as she patiently stood staring at me. I knelt on the ground and removed each layer of of her soaking wet clothes. She was literally soaked from head to toe. The risky voyage across the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece must have been rough. I breathed into her tiny ice cold hands to keep them warm as my teammates and I changed this beautiful girl into dry clothes. We even got her to eventually laugh using some holiday reindeer antlers.
It was Christmas at the refugee camp, but it was just another day of freedom for these children and families. This Christmas, my heart broke on the clothing tent floor as I changed and cared for children like her.
“Why would a parent ever risk the lives of their children like this? Why would a parent want to put their children through something so traumatic like this?”. These questions and a million similar ones ran through my heart and mind.
Most of these families and especially children have already seen and lived through more hardship than I have in my whole lifetime.
One day while serving in one of the larger refugee camps on the island specifically left me spiritually and physical speechless.
At this camp, thousands of refugees along with their families fill every square inch available with their tents and their belongings. These refugees wait from days to weeks at the camp for legal documented approval to continue on their journey.
A large portion of my eight-hour shift that day was picking up trash. This meant I got to be outside in the sun while walking around the camp picking up trash and interacting with refugees staying there. I got to do it with a smile on my face because that was what I was there for, helping in any way I could. During my shift I picked up countless tea cups, banana peels, rice cups, and diapers. I did not do it all alone though.
Just a little while into my shift, I was hauling a huge bag of wet clothes to the dumpster with a teammate. We passed by a family behind a food truck spread out on a small red blanket who were eating from a few cans of tuna. This was no small family; six children including a new born and the mother and father. Most of their girls had dirty faces and dirty clothes, they were running around without shoes on playing as the mother and father were happily feeding the rest of their children.
We came back from the dumpster and the father of the family waved my teammate and I down, and gestured for us to take a picture for him of his family. We took the picture for them, gave a few smiles, and then my teammate went on back to her station to work. I stayed behind. I stayed because there was something different about their family. The bright blue eyes, dirty faces, and shoeless girls had me wanting to know more. I thought at least I had an in on the clothing tent because a few of my teammates were stationed there. I could get their girls some shoes or jackets without any of the other refugees noticing.
I sat on the ground with them asking what country they were from, telling them their children were beautiful, and trying to ask them if they needed any clothing or shoes. The father knew very little English. and kept saying no to the gesture to his daughters for shoes. “Okay they probably have shoes somewhere then.” I thought. He looked at me with a smile and it was like a light bulb went off in his head. His wife was beside him nursing their newborn as the other five girls ate more tuna and ran around us.
He looked around the ground where he was sitting and picked up two small twigs. He placed them in a perfect cross formation on the dirt between us. He pointed to the cross and then pointed at me. He pointed at the cross and then pointed at him. He pointed at the cross and then at me again with a questioning face
.
“Oh my gosh, is he asking me if I am Christian right now?”
I pointed at my heart and nodded my head fast with a smile. “Yes, yes I am.” He picked up the twigs still in a cross formation, smiled and placed them back down. He pointed at himself and then moved his hand in the air around his family. He then pulled a hair out of his arm and showed it to me. At first I was not sure what the heck he was trying to say. He showed me the hair, then pointed at the hair on my arm. I was still confused. He then put both of his pointer fingers side by side.
It clicked. He was trying to tell me we are brother and sister in Christ. Duh.
I smiled and nodded because I finally understood. He said to me, “Muslim…no!” He pointed back at the cross, back at himself, and back at his family.
I smiled and pointed at my heart and said “Me too!” I tried to ask how he came to know Christ. Somehow by using sets of fingers and broken English he told me when he was twenty-five, from a missionary in Iraq.
I smiled more and tried to give his family more clothes. He still said no. By the end, when there was not much left to be said but smile, I asked him if I could pray for him and his family. I put my hands together like prayer hands and air circled his family asking if I could pray for them. He nodded very happy. He sat close to his family, touching his wife’s back as she held the newborn and his other hand on the blonde girl with no shoes, while the other children were all around the red blanket.
So I sat there on the corner of this blanket, with this refugee family from Iraq and prayed. I prayed out loud and thanked the Lord for them, for the Father’s courage for bringing his family there to start a life of freedom, for bringing them to Greece, and to safety. I prayed for the rest of their journey and I prayed these particular refugees could always find refuge in the Lord no matter what.
By the end of my prayer, I opened my watery eyes and saw him and his wife looking at me with faces of hope and soft smiles. I could feel my heart with their hearts. I swear that was one of the few times I have truly felt the presence of the Lord.
When I looked up from praying and saw their faces fixed on mine, I have never felt peace so true than I had in that moment.
I eventually got up and went about my trash picking duties. Their blonde oldest girl, about seven, followed me. She skipped right behind me as I went around picking up more scattered garbage.
It was like I was her new friend and she just wanted to hang out with me. She started picking up trash with her bare hands, running over to me and putting it in my trash bag. I laughed and smiled at her, I gave her one of my gloves and she put it on and went after more.
Her kindness and joy spread even more after as I gave her a trash bag of her own and eventually we had a small group of children from the camp join us. It was like a game to them. I would hi-five each little hand after they would throw dirty orange peels and empty cups in my trash bag.
They brought me so much laughter and happiness that day that I will never forget.
Just like the small interaction from the Iraqi father and his family will forever impact me, I think about how my new group of friends who picked trash with me and who they will one day impact.
Greece and serving the refugee crisis left an imprint on my heart but these children are the one one’s that are going to change the world one day. I have been blessed to see a glimpse of this future through them.
