Working at the refugee camp is challenging and taxing, but at the end of the day, it's still Greece and the surroundings are beautiful with a culture that is focused on hospitality and food.
Psalm 46:10 has been one of my favorite verses for a while, but this week it has a deeper meaning. I (Mari) was able to spend a long weekend over 4 th of July with loved ones and was reminded of how blessed I am to live in a country where I can freely and openly worship our Lord. I got home Sunday evening and was immediately overwhelmed with anxiety thinking about all that had to be done over the next 5 days before we left and all that we may encounter during our time on the island. Will I make enough progress on my projects at work? Will I forget to pack something important? Will anything bad happen at home while I’m away? Will we be safe at the camp? What if I get sick? What if we miss a flight? How quickly I had gone from thankfulness to crushing fear and anxiousness. Why? I’m an enneagram 6w5 (shout out fellow enneagram lovers J ) But really, I’d taken my eyes off Jesus. I'd temporarily forgotten that our God is sovereign, that He is seated on H...
"Faith is living as though the Bible is true despite circumstances (what is happening), emotions (how I feel about it), or cultural trends (what others have to say about it)." The Eurorelief Chaplin, Tim, would share this faith principle with us every day before we started a shift along with a couple of verses by which we could apply this. How can we walk intentionally through camp interacting with so many people and cultures and demonstrate this? As I (Aubrey) reflect on the past week, I am looking for those moments and needing those moments to balance the hardship and disappointment I saw in so many faces as they wander through each day. So where did I see God show up? In providing basic needs such as meals, clothes, and bedding to families who just arrived in Europe In sharing laughter with Deca from Somalia as we kicked around a latex glove balloon one night, even while we faced ridicule from a man of a different culture because I chose to believe that I...
Communicating though a closed chain link gate with a woman from Afghanistan who speaks Farsi, trying to convince her that she must sleep one night in this crowded section of camp among a few hundred strangers, seeing the frustration on her face from confusion, exhaustion, and discomfort, it’s hard to acknowledge that there is still compassion in this act. This is the safest place for her until her paperwork is completed and she can be “housed” in camp. She had arrived with 100 others that morning after crossing the water on an overcrowded raft from Turkey. Our team was able to provide limited supplies: two sets of clothes, one pair of shoes, basic hygiene products, and a foam mat to sleep on. Then the refugee’s indefinite waiting continues. Even though this woman and her family did get placed in a tent among the olive trees at the top of the hill in camp the next day where she could experience a small sense of freedom, it’s that feeling from the night before and seeing that ...
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