What Does It Look Like?
What does it look like to be a light? What does it look like to minister to refugees who are living the longest nightmare of their lives?
For us, it looks like sitting in people’s homes and partnering with local ministries, walking into tent cities and tiny, cold cinder block apartments where families live with almost nothing. There are bathrooms with squatty potties, mattresses laid on the floor that become couches by day and beds by night, and tea heated on a single propane burner fueled by one small tank. It’s bringing groceries, propane, toys for the children, and something sweet to share, usually cookies or cake, knowing that whatever we bring would become what they served us, and possibly all they would eat that day.
Middle Eastern hospitality is unlike anything else in the world. If a family had five cookies left and nothing else to eat, they would bring all five out for their guests. Every visit begins with hot tea, sometimes Arabic/Turkish coffee, thick and dark in tiny cups, and it never stops flowing. Even in extreme poverty, generosity pours out of them. We sit together in one room on those floor mattresses, with an interpreter beside us, and we listen. Truly listen. They share their stories, and we share ours. Their pain, their memories, their laughter, their questions, and their longing for peace all become the single focus of our attention. We listen to them and the Holy Spirit, knowing that we are in a truly special and precarious moment.
What impacts us deeply is who they were before they became refugees. Many were doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, farmers, and business owners. They often open their phones and show us pictures of their former lives. Olive orchards passed down for thousands of years. Beautiful homes. Lakes with small boats. Entire families living together on land their ancestors had cultivated.
But then the bombs came. Then ISIS came. Then everything was gone. Many fled at night under sniper fire, carrying children, running for the nearest border, leaving behind adult and teenaged sons who were killed trying to protect what little remained. Some of the stories they share are too horrific and too dangerous to ever tell publicly. But they have changed us forever.
We have typically visited three to four families a day, every day, for sometimes two months at a time. Many families. Many tears. Many hugs. Many cups of tea. And somehow, in the middle of unbearable loss, there is also moments of subtle joy in hosting again, processing with strangers who quickly become friends. Smiles. Children laughing over a balloon, a small toy or a handful of candy. This is mourning with those who mourn, being unexpected friends during a very dark time. Through this expression of compassion we have watched relationships form. We see people welcomed into community, making new friends, and coming into a new family they had never known before. We’ve watched healing begin simply because someone chose to sit, listen, and care. Emotional, spiritual, and even physical healing comes much easier than we have ever expected. God is with us, when we show His mercy to the lost.
The Middle East has forever changed us. The warmth, the hospitality, the courage, and the resilience of these families reshaped our understanding of faith and compassion. Their hardship is something we would never wish on anyone, yet their hearts are something we wish the whole world could experience.
