A few days after Christmas, while serving in one of the larger refugee camps on the island of Lesvos, something happened to me that left me spiritually and physically speechless.
Thousands of refugee families filled every square inch available on the property with their tents and belongings, where they waited for days — or even weeks — for legal documented approval to continue on.
A large portion of my eight hour shift that day was spent picking up trash. This meant I got to be outside in the sun while walking around the camp, picking up trash, and interacting with people. During my shift I picked up countless tea cups, banana peels, rice cups, and diapers. I did not do it all alone . . . but I’ll get to that later.
Just a little while into my shift, I hauled a huge bag of wet clothes to the dumpster with a teammate. We passed a family with six children on a small red blanket behind a food truck, eating from a few cans of tuna. Most of their daughters had dirty faces and dirty clothes; they were running around without shoes while the parents happily fed the rest of their children.
When my teammate and I returned from the dumpster, the father of the family waved us over and gestured for us to take a picture for him of his family. We took the picture for them and gave a few smiles, and then my teammate went on back to her station to work.
I stayed behind. There was something different about their family; their bright blue eyes, dirty faces, and shoeless girls made me want to know more.
So I sat down and asked what country they were from: Iraq. I told them them their children were beautiful and tried to ask if they needed any clothing or shoes. The father knew very little English, and kept saying, “No,” to the gesture to his daughters for shoes. His wife was beside him nursing their newborn as the other five girls ate more tuna and ran around us.
Okay, they probably have shoes somewhere then, I thought.
The father looked at me with a smile. Then it looked like something occurred to him and a light bulb went off in his head.
He picked up two small twigs and placed them in a perfect cross formation on the dirt between us. He pointed to the cross and then pointed at me. He pointed at the cross and pointed at himself. He pointed at the cross and then at me again with a questioning face.
Oh my gosh, is he asking me if I am Christian? I pointed at my heart and nodded with a smile. “Yes, yes, I am.”
He picked up the twigs still in a cross formation, smiled, and placed them back down. He pointed at himself and then moved his hand in the air around his family. He then pulled a hair out of his arm and showed it to me. At first I was not sure what the heck he was trying to say. He showed me the hair, then pointed at the hair on my arm.
I was still confused. He then put both of his pointer fingers side by side — sign language for “same”.
It clicked. He was telling me we are brother and sister in Christ!
I smiled and nodded because I finally understood. He said to me, “Muslim . . . no!” He pointed back at the cross, back at himself, and back at his family.
I smiled and pointed at my heart and said, “Me too!” I tried to ask how he came to know Christ. Somehow by using sets of fingers and broken English, he told me a missionary in Iraq led him to Christ when he was 25.
I smiled more and tried to give his family more clothes. He still said no.
By the end, when there was not much left to say but only smile at each other, I asked if I could pray for him and his family. I put my hands together like prayer hands and air circled his family asking if I could pray for them.
He nodded, very happy. Then he sat close to his family, touching his wife’s back as she held the newborn and placed his other hand on the blonde girl with no shoes, while the other children were all around the red blanket.
I prayed out loud thanking the Lord for this Christian refugee family from Iraq, for the father’s courage to bring his family there to start a life of freedom, for bringing them to Greece, and for safety. I prayed for the rest of their journey and I prayed these particular refugees could always find refuge in the Lord no matter what.
By the end of my prayer, I opened my watery eyes and saw him and his wife looking at me with faces of hope and soft smiles.
I swear that was one of the few times I have truly felt the presence of the Lord.
I eventually got up and went about my trash collecting duties. Their oldest girl, a blonde child around the age of seven, followed me. She skipped right behind me as I went around picking up more scattered garbage.
I was her new friend and she just wanted to hang out with me. She started picking up trash with her bare hands, running over to me and putting it in my trash bag. I laughed and smiled at her, giving her one of my gloves. She put it on and went after more.
Her kindness and joy spread even more after as I gave her a trash bag of her own. Gradually, a small group of children from the camp joined us. Trash collecting was like a game to them. I “high-fived” each little hand after they threw dirty orange peels and empty cups in my trash bag.
They brought me so much laughter and happiness. I will never forget them or that day, especially the joy of the father — and his family — even though they’d lost everything and the future was so uncertain. His faith was unshakeable.
May I live the same way.
