Choices. We make choices. And we encounter the results.
Engaging with the refugees in our small transit camp is a choice. You whether serve them silently or you choose to engage.
Sometimes you forget. Sometimes you need to get a reminder. Yesterday night was a quite quiet (see what I did there? :P) night. Not thousands of people, not even hundreds. Not extreme conditions. Just the usual. Everything was under control. Refugees coming from the boats, waiting to step into their buses that will take them to their next point of this journey. There were a lot of volunteers around so the tasks were completed easily and fast. Not so many things to ''do''. I was just walking around when my shift leader came to me and told me ''If you don't have anything to do, just go and talk with people, mingle...''. Sometimes you need to get a reminder. I knew that this was why I was here for, I just had forgotten for a while. I lost focus. I went from ''people'' to ''completing tasks for people''.
I immediately passed the ''point of no return'' as we like to call it, the point that people are not allowed to come back. I was with them. In their territory. I joined some people talking and I just asked them questions. The usual stuff. Where are you from. How long have you been travelling? Where are you heading? The not-so-usual answers are almost every time heartbreaking....
Its a choice.
Later on I was giving a tour to some Norwegian volunteers from stage 1 (the seashore where they get the refugees out of their boats). At some point I told them that our main goal, besides feeding people, keeping them dry, cleaning the camp and putting them into buses, is that we try to talk with them. Engage with them. Listen to them. Make them feel like humans again. Play with the children, laugh.... For a moment I stumbled. I knew I had forgot earlier. It took another man to remind me. But it was true. That's the choice we make every day. However tired or sleepy you might be, you don't only have hands and feet (of Jesus as we like to say) but you also have ears. You have a mouth and you have eyes.
You choose to see, you choose to listen and you choose to talk. Sometimes you might cry. Sometimes you might laugh. It's always result of a simple choice.
Reality has hit all of us really hard here. We try to balance between the brokeness of this world that gives us frustration, anxiety and pain, and the joy and life of the Gospel.
Now, that's what amazes me! Nothing is fake. Nothing. Jesus is real, the Gospel is real news and what we live is reality. Reality of living in a broken world but not belonging in this world. This is how you can be sorrowful and happy at the same time. Broken and joyful. Feeling pain and relief.
Engaging with the refugees in our small transit camp is a choice. You whether serve them silently or you choose to engage.
Sometimes you forget. Sometimes you need to get a reminder. Yesterday night was a quite quiet (see what I did there? :P) night. Not thousands of people, not even hundreds. Not extreme conditions. Just the usual. Everything was under control. Refugees coming from the boats, waiting to step into their buses that will take them to their next point of this journey. There were a lot of volunteers around so the tasks were completed easily and fast. Not so many things to ''do''. I was just walking around when my shift leader came to me and told me ''If you don't have anything to do, just go and talk with people, mingle...''. Sometimes you need to get a reminder. I knew that this was why I was here for, I just had forgotten for a while. I lost focus. I went from ''people'' to ''completing tasks for people''.
I immediately passed the ''point of no return'' as we like to call it, the point that people are not allowed to come back. I was with them. In their territory. I joined some people talking and I just asked them questions. The usual stuff. Where are you from. How long have you been travelling? Where are you heading? The not-so-usual answers are almost every time heartbreaking....
Its a choice.
Later on I was giving a tour to some Norwegian volunteers from stage 1 (the seashore where they get the refugees out of their boats). At some point I told them that our main goal, besides feeding people, keeping them dry, cleaning the camp and putting them into buses, is that we try to talk with them. Engage with them. Listen to them. Make them feel like humans again. Play with the children, laugh.... For a moment I stumbled. I knew I had forgot earlier. It took another man to remind me. But it was true. That's the choice we make every day. However tired or sleepy you might be, you don't only have hands and feet (of Jesus as we like to say) but you also have ears. You have a mouth and you have eyes.
You choose to see, you choose to listen and you choose to talk. Sometimes you might cry. Sometimes you might laugh. It's always result of a simple choice.
Reality has hit all of us really hard here. We try to balance between the brokeness of this world that gives us frustration, anxiety and pain, and the joy and life of the Gospel.
Now, that's what amazes me! Nothing is fake. Nothing. Jesus is real, the Gospel is real news and what we live is reality. Reality of living in a broken world but not belonging in this world. This is how you can be sorrowful and happy at the same time. Broken and joyful. Feeling pain and relief.
Look at us!
Silver or gold we do not have.
But what we do have, we give you
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