It was another beautiful day in Lesvos.
The sun was shining and the temperature was comfortable. Thankful for this treat for our final day at
camp.
Today in camp, I was happy to have the opportunity to try a couple of
other new tasks. I started out on shoe
distribution. There is a large container
with many, many donated shoes of all sizes—men, women, and children. People are given a shoe ticket (what I
delivered a few days ago) to come pick up shoes on a certain date. They wait in line and after various check
points (in the system, ensuring their ID’s match and they ARE living in camp)
they get their shoes. There are several
volunteers working in the container packing orders. For most of the time while I was in shoes, I
was guarding one of the exit doors to not allow anyone back in (many try to
come back in and exchange shoes—we cannot exchange shoes). Several times, I had some shoes thrown at me
by unhappy people. That’s never happened
to me before.
I did have the opportunity to pack some orders and also do a lot of
clean up in the container, taking lots of empty boxes to the dumpsters.
Only got one photo today...inside shoe distribution
At one point during the day, I was pulled from shoes to help with
structure tear-down. Got to do some demo
work! That was hard work, but fun. When people leave the camp and go to Athens,
the structures are torn down to make space to rebuild another one. Not really sure why they don’t just keep the
structure and try to just house a family that will fit in it… I’m sure there is a good reason for it. Once the structure is down, we carry the
tarps, and all of the wood/scrap to the “hill” (main road) to be loaded in a
van to be taken to a dump. I had to
guard the pile of scrap until the van could get there to take it away. Why do we guard the trash? It would cause too much chaos and even fights
because there “isn’t enough of it to go to everyone.” And, many would take it to try to build
another structure that was not assigned by the government. Or, they would take wood for firewood, which could
be dangerous if burnt in the wrong place.
Never expected to be “guarding” so many things on this trip…
After doing the tear down, I was at the information desk for a
bit. While there, I took some coffee
orders for some of the volunteers and purchased some Palestinian coffee from
one of the people in camp. Several
people in camp build a small structure outside of their unit to sell coffee,
shine shoes, a barber shop, etc. I don’t
like coffee, but had to try the Palestinian coffee. I got a “mixed” which was cappuccino, hot
chocolate, and coffee. It wasn’t too
bad!
After the “coffee break,” I went back to shoes and was there for the
rest of the day. It was busy! And lots of time on your feet.
A couple cool things that happened today with the shoes… when we
started in the morning, we were out of many of the popular men size shoes. We didn’t know how we were even going to fill
any orders. The warehouse had sent all they had. I pulled a few of the volunteers together and
prayed over the shoes, asking God to multiply them, like the loaves and
fishes. You know what….God did it! Boxes and boxes of shoes kept showing up from
the warehouse throughout the day.
Somehow, the boxes were turning up in the warehouse where they were not
before. Praise God! We could fill many more orders today than we
expected. So fun to watch the faces of
the other volunteers as the shoes kept coming in…
The other cool thing that happened was I was there to greet Hakimullah
and Batoul (the couple I had tea with a few days ago, in the “guard house.”) Batoul greeted me with a big hug and she
seemed happy to have a friend “on her side” (not that she needed one…) It was fun to see that ticket delivery to shoe
pick up circle completed.
After completing our shift, we headed back to the hotel, cleaned up and
went for a final dinner with Kim, C, W, J and M. Me and W debriefed about our week a bit. Then, we were off to the airport to fly back
to Athens. We will be in Athens for the
day on Tuesday, connecting with some other ministries.
The second half of my trip will be a totally different experience than
my first half, being at camp. There is
so much I need to process. Just grasping
the paradox of the conditions in camp and the work being done in the camp and
then only a few miles away is the beautiful city of Mytilene and Panagiouda…a
tourist/resort town….it’s crazy! It just
seems wrong…
Honestly, I expected the camp experience to be much more challenging,
emotionally. Don’t get me wrong…it was
hard. But, I have had the opportunity to
see many different places in the world and I don’t feel like the conditions I
saw in camp were any worse than some other places I have been. Of course, the situation is much
different. I have never had this much of
an opportunity to interact and visit with so many people groups from the Middle
East. I really appreciated this part of
the experience as well.
I also loved meeting and interacting with so many other young adults
(volunteers) who are passionate about missions and serving. What an awesome mix of people! I had taken business cards with me to prepare
for the 2nd half of the trip with the various appointments and
meetings I will have—but I gave almost all of them out to young adults who were
serving and who were interested in learning more about BIC US World
Missions! I’ve got lots of thoughts and
ideas to process with the Leadership Team when I’m back in the US.
God has really burdened my heart for the unreached. How will they know? How will they hear? Matthew 25 is also more alive to me than ever
before. We can have access to more and
more unreached all of the time. I pray
that I will hear God’s voice clearly on ways I am to get involved.
I praise God for good health! I
have been resting very well the entire trip.
I have the energy I need for each day.
I praise God for the strong emotional health and for the sensitive
spirit I was able to have, even when we had unhappy customers for shoes. I still have quite a bit of travel
ahead. Thank you for your prayers.
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