If you are looking for a short, happy blog about what a positive month I had in Greece you may wish to click on one of my team mates pages to the left of the screen. I’m sorry to say you won’t find what your looking for in this blog.
I have sat down numerous times in an attempt to write a blog about the month i’ve had in Greece serving the Syrian refugees. I’ve tried to turn the heart ache and pain i’ve seen and felt into a positive spin. The fact is, I can’t muster up a blog of good news for you. I can’t contort all i’ve seen into…well into whatever you’re wanting to hear.
This is the truth as I have seen it. Please remember my view is only from one month in Greece, two days in Softex, a Syrian refugee camp, and the little knowledge that I have of the refugee crisis.
Millions of Syrians (many middle class-this means people just like YOU) are fleeing their homes due to civil war. Husbands and sons have been kidnapped, forced to join either the rebellion or army. Few countries have tried to bring peace to Syria and even those few have failed. Bombs demolish homes, livelihoods, schools and inevitably demolish futures.
Imagine for a moment…
YOU see the doors of many EU borders swinging open and closed, open and closed, open and closed. Where do you and millions of Syrians go? When a border finally opens your family begins the months often years long journey to finding peace. You ‘squat’ in the streets, fields and local parks near train stations. Finally, a smuggler contacts you in hopes to move your family across the border into the neighboring country.
(One of the families living in the park before the police did a raid and removed people. Those with papers went to camp and those without back home.)
But wait! The smuggler offers you $700-$1000 for your young daughter or small child so they might have a better life apart from your family. Sometimes unknowingly, sometimes not, you sold your daughter or child into the sex slave trade. Your family now has funds to get across the border where you can find a refugee camp and no longer sleep in the streets. You move into a government owned camp, they must treat you well. Right? Wrong!
Here’s a tent for you and your whole extended family. You want beds? Sorry we have none. Health services? Yes, I know we said we had that butttt, we really don’t. Showers? Yeah, go stand in line in 100 degree weather and you’ll get a shower in a few hours. But don’t worry we have wifi, you just have to share it with 1,500 other refugees your living with. All the new friends, sometimes enemies, you get to make! By the way, you like scorpions right?
Don’t forget, your children will be forever affected by these traumatic events occurring in their young life. Growing up and playing with children from all over the Middle East in one small confined camp sounds like fun, I know. The children will get along fine I’m sure. Your babies will just have to learn how to walk on dirt and rocky gravel, sorry (that is if they survive the “hike” to get to Greece or a refugee camp). But wait, where are your children attending school? How do they learn violence, stealing, rape and abuse are wrong when they are constantly exposed to these factors in a refugee camp?
After many, many months of waiting for residency or proper documentation to travel without the fear of being sent back to Syria (where the war is still in full swing) you finally begin the search for your loved ones you’ve lost along your journey. What if you never find your husband and you have 7 children to feed? You’re living in a country that doesn’t really want you there and isn’t willing to help you. No job, with little knowledge of the local language you find survival in selling your body for $7-$13. You may be “lucky” and “marry” into an illegal polygamy relationship and spend your life with no identity, only the image that you are dispensable and unwanted. Your children are forever changed and your future forever altered.
Seriously!? This is real life. Can you even imagine living life this way? It is not living. Surviving isn’t living.
As Americans we easily have hope for a better future. My only hope is these refugees find what necessities they need to get through another day. My only hope is they get what they need. My hope is they find Jesus.
I know God’s presence is here. I know He is working and moving here. I know His plan is in motion. I wish I knew what His plan was. I wish I could see it. The upsetting fact is I am only here one month. I wish I could continue serving in Greece because Christians are needed here.
This is what we are called to do. We are called to serve the hopeless. We are called to love and show compassion. Refugees need us. So my question is, where are all the Christians? Where are God’s people?
It was exceedingly difficult for me to write this blog. I wrestled with anger, bitterness, immense sadness and honestly a loss of hope in what God’s doing in the lives of the refugees. Thankfully I have a God that never leaves and never gives up on me. He continue to press faith, hope and trust in me. To remember He is faithful in all He does. To remember to have hope, because hope brings happiness and joy knowing something better is to come. To remember to have trust in all He is doing. Even when I don’t feel these things to remember He is working and He is moving.
He is teaching me this not only in the lives of millions of Syrian refugees, but in my life as well. I remember THE BEST IS YET TO COME.
“She holds onto hope because He is forever faithful.” 1 Corinthians 1:9
