Its my second day at Moria, a refugee camp turned detention facility. There are tents everywhere. They start as soon as we walked past the barbed wire topped gate and Greek police officers standing watch we saw a group of Pakistani men protesting the recent EU decision.
Under this decision anyone comes to Greece who isn’t seeking asylum in Greece will be sent back to Turkey. For those who are Syrian or in another country officially fight a war of some kind, there is a possibility of being granted asylum somewhere in the EU as long as Greece continues to send Syrians to Turkey and the countries in the EU accept the petitions for asylum. Those who are not Syrian or in a declared war country, they will most likely be sent to their home of origin. For most, this in itself is a death sentence. The fact that they left is an act of treason.
For me, all this information are just things someone told me. I’m struck by the sheer amount of people but it’s not personal. I’ve been told there are over 25 different nationalities represented. I’ve been told that the camp is over capacity and can see the excess of tents but that’s all I see—tents and not the people that hold them.
Camp when the majority of people are awake is a completely different beast. There are hundreds of people. Kids are running around, families sit in the shade of their tents, men wait in line for the next meal, and linked-armed women walk up and down the giant hill on which Moria is situated. I wish you could see a picture of it but cameras and photos are banned both inside and outside the camp.
Today, I got completely split from all the other women on our team. I was placed in a group of mostly Greek Samaritan’s Purse volunteers and one American Euro-Relief volunteer I’ve never met. I remembered my teammate, Becca, and how she seems to connect with strangers so easily. Her love of people and love of God seems to pour out of her. I want that. I’ve even practiced talking to new people but I never thought that God giving me the opportunity to do this would mean shoving me in a group of people who are speaking Greek and Spanish all around me.
We spend the morning going from each of the big housing tents (called RHU’s) to the next asking how many people are living in it, where they’re from, how many families, men, women, children, babies, and if the women are pregnant. And by we, I actually mean two or three of the Samaritan’s Purse volunteers not me. I say very little, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people. At each RHU, the volunteers started by asking if anyone speaks English, do you know anyone who can speak English, what language do you speak… Though most speak at least some English the rest of the interaction is spoke in a new language made up of select nouns, pantomimes and gestures, and random Arabic words.
At every turn, there is a new language, a new set of people, and a new sense of how big the world really is. I’m sure people were staring at our group, and at me (I’ve been told how unusually pale I am many times in my life), but honestly I don’t even notice. At some point, a two-month old baby is gently placed in my arms, showing me I am a valued and respected person. What I notice is the hospitality of the people, and how they honestly try to answer our questions. I see their mismatched clothing, their seasonally unreasonable shoes, their makeshift clotheslines. I see the scars from bombings, and the injuries from muggings in Turkey.
As I sit at lunch, making small talk, the gravity of what’s going on should hit me but it doesn’t. To be completely transparent, I struggle a lot with doubt. My head knows that God is good. My head knows that he fills people with a sense of supernatural hope and a joy that surpasses understanding but usually my heart doesn’t make it there. The things I witnessed that morning should hit me like a ton of bricks. There’s so much hurt here in the camp. It would be so easy for my fragile faith to shatter.
But as we head back into camp, we see a line of very nice looking government cars pulling into camp. The man owns one of the food trucks is walking towards the American Euro-Relief volunteer and I and says something to the effect of that they are from the ministry of police here to see the camp before the pope goes on. He continues to say that this is why he is an atheist. How could there be a God when things like this happen? His question is more than a commentary on how the government is making the camp look nice for the pope. It’s one that has echoed in my soul so many times I don’t really want to count. His question seems to grow from the same place that my heart usually does.
It would be so easy for his questions to spark a new bout of disbelief. But something different happens this time. The words fall out of my mouth before I have time to catch them. I tell him that I’ve felt that way too at points of my life but that’s not what God is. My heart speaks the words out loud worlds that previously only lived in my head. I say that God is the good things. He doesn’t love the hurt that here and he didn’t cause the evil that hurt these people. A lack of God’s love is why things like this happen.
The man acknowledges my vocalized stance with a nod and a statement about how his mother is one of the good Christians. She does a lot of good. The conversation trails of from there, ends with a short introduction, and we part ways. As we head back into Moria, I turn to the American volunteer I’ve spent the morning and tell him that I’ve been a missionary for three months and that’s the first time I’ve shared my faith.
We pass the barbed wire fence and Greek police and continue on with our shift.
God has big things in the last month of my life. He’s worked in my heart like in this story, and he’s working in Moria. In the camp, there are incredible stories of healing. I’ve heard them from people present. There are slow stories of seeds being planted. There’s no way I can possibly share them all. The thing that I want you, the reader of this blog post to take away, is two fold. One, I want you to understand that things are good things happening despite the incredible injustices that the people that are being forced to live there have to deal with. The second is that God is doing big things in my life and its only possible because God moved mountains and hearts to get me here. I would not be here to tell you this simple story if it wasn’t for the inspiration the spirit gave my supporters and the ears that my supporters had to listen. Thank you.
