Backyard Nations

Before I write this post let me be explicitly clear about something; This post is about refugees. This is not going to be shared for you to rant and rave about them being in America. If you comment with anything I consider xenophobic, racist, or derogatory I will delete it.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”-Revelation 7:9-10



I spent the last week in Clarkston/Conyers,Georgia working with refugee children at a day camp. I've done several mission trips over the last ten years, this, bar none, was my favorite I've ever done. With a desire to go to the nations and an inability to go without incredibly precise planning on my part this was one of the most amazing things, the nations were brought to me. This week I worked with children from Syria,Malaysia,Thailand,Nepal,Tanzania,Iraq, and others I've forgotten.

This trip was first mentioned several months ago. When it was first mentioned I was ready to go. At that point what we were doing wasn't concrete and there was the possibility of us essentially choosing what we'd be doing, daycamp/vbs, and manual labor. I had decided that if I was able to pick I'd do manual labor with the hopes of farming with some of these people. We didn't pick our positions we were given them, I wound up doing day camp at an apartment complex. To show the sovereignty of God, I was completely fine with that, despite it not being what I'd envisioned as my role on this trip. He knew what he was doing.

We arrived last Sunday, had an orientation and a short tour of some of the things Friends of Refugees does, learned a little of what we'd be doing this past week, and then we went back to the church we were staying at.

               This is outside one of the buildings refugees from several countries use for church.

The steps lead to the half of the leasing office we used. You can see some apartments in the background.

Monday dawned bright and early, we ate, and then we headed to our work sites. The day camp is run out of one half of the leasing office. Essentially how it works is kids walk out their doors and come right to us. Let me tell you it was quite shocking at the end of Monday to have Allie who is the head of the camp walk out on the front porch and tell the kids to go home the day was over and watch them just walk off. I'm used to parents coming in and signing out their kids, checking for a colored wristband at vbs, in general something orderly and precise. There was none of that here.

This was the first child I met. He was quite the introduction to what this week was going to be like. Dynamite in the form of a human. Things started out smoothly with a game of soccer that quickly turned into him grabbing me and telling me I was going to jail. He then proceeded to drag me, several students, and Terry Knecht against a fence so we were in jail. This game then became tag, which became piggies,backrides, and by Tuesday shoulders. They loved piggy-back rides. LOVED. THEM.

There was no shortage of children and we gave innumerable back rides and by the end of the week shoulder rides as well. If anyone ever tells you that taking care of children is easy I want you to look them in the face, laugh, and then walk away. This is not for the faint of heart. Unlike these students I do this for work, I'm used to running around chasing kids for several hours and I was done by three o'clock when the day finished. My calves were sore come Tuesday morning.

This was day two. One of my Nepali friends who I shared with John Robert and Jerron.

We did a little goofing off as seen here but my favorite part is how this looks like an awesome album cover.

Occasionally we were able to convince the kids to sit inside in the air conditioning and they loved checkers. I almost lost this game.

I will never be this cool or this relaxed. He was waiting for his turn to tie-dye a t-shirt and I looked over to see him doing this, with John Robert's sunglasses on.

There was a lot of crawfish "crab" and salamander catching. Boys are boys and we love to catch critters.

This was my boy. Catching him laughing was a hard thing because he just saw the phone and said cheese! I unfortunately did not see him Friday so I was not able to say goodbye.

My favorite shot I took. This was Monday after lunch. It rained a little and one of the boys decided to play in what was running off the roof. Proof that kids are kids no matter where they are from.

My other main boy. He was from Malaysia. From Tuesday to Friday he was with me most of the day (except for four-square he wasn't fond of that)

Let me tell you about this tiny ball of spunk. I spent five days getting a finger wagged at my face and told no any time I said so much as 'Hello' to her. Friday we had a block party and I was able to bribe her with cotton candy,popcorn, and snowcones(she had 4) and we were friends after that. She was an absolute mess and I loved it.

She wasn't believing my cotton candy picture story.

Very proud of her popcorn.

This little lady wore dresses every day until Thursday and she showed up in these awesome pajamas. Friday in 85 degree weather she had them on all day and was quite proud of this purple snowcone and the pajamas.

I don't remember who he got these glasses from but he was proud of them.

This is essentially how I spent from about nine-thirty to three every day Monday through Friday. You want to know why I took the shots that I did?  These are children. They deserved to be seen as such. I learned quickly on Monday that play is a universal language, whether that is tag, soccer, four-square, or piggy-back rides, kids are kids. I caught crawfish in a creek with a bunch of Malaysian and Nepali boys. This is a normal boy thing to do. We laughed, they paraded their catches around in a lunchable container they filled with water like they'd snagged a massive fish. Where they are from shouldn't matter. The world might see them as refugees but they are truly just children and they deserve the chance to have a childhood that doesn't involve eating rice and beans three meals a day for the rest of their lives, or spending their entire lives in a refugee camp.

I think that is why I love the shot of the boy playing in the rain so much. There is only a hand and that hand could belong to any child in the world and outside of where I took it you'd never know that it belonged to a refugee. They've had hard lives, those lives shouldn't be made harder. Listening to them laugh was one of the neatest things in the world because they were happy and I knew that for that moment at least they were just like every other kid in the world and they didn't have anything to worry about.

I learned quite a bit this week about these refugees, including their completely un-american trust in strangers. These people literally let their kids out the door to play with strange teenagers without a second thought. We had a two-year old little girl whose parents just opened their door and let her out to play with us while we were on the playground. She refused to go back home and cried when we walked her to her backdoor and gave her back to her mother during lunch who thanked us profusely for playing with her daughter. I don't know about you but my parents taught me not to play with strangers, these people don't worry about that. It's completely counter-cultural.

Wednesday we went to the community garden. 109 families have a 10x10 plot each where they grow their own vegetables. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Each plot was bordered with whatever that family could find to separate their garden from the next. Anything from branches to fencing, to pieces of plastic, they don't waste anything. I wish I'd been able to ask some of them what they were growing but no one was there when we stopped by.

This particular plot was made from branches tied together.

We also went to a refugee run coffee shop called Refuge Coffee. If you're ever in Clarkston I highly recommend it. They've got great coffee and the best croissant's I've ever had.

Despite what people like to say, what the media likes to say, these are people. They are no different from you and I aside from the fact that they weren't born here. This was their escape. This country is the reason they are alive. These kids especially deserve a chance to be kids. They could no more choose to be born anywhere else than you or I could. Where you live shouldn't determine if you live. .5% of the 19.4 million refugees in the world are resettled. That's it, just .5% the others stay in camps their entire lives, many for generations because they don't have the courage to leave or want to stay and hope that one day they can go home.

Aside from a lot of new knowledge on refugees and how they actually get to America and the resettlement process (it's quite complicated and there is a reason so few refugees actually apply for resettlement) I learned something vastly important Thursday night from Terry as we discussed the Rich Young Ruler;hard things are worth it.

The rich young ruler didn't want to give up his possessions to follow Jesus. How often are we like him? Chances are we aren't being asked to give up everything we own but how easy is it to say no when God calls us to something uncomfortable or hard? The rich young ruler didn't even attempt to do this, he just walked away from Jesus, grieving. We can't be like that. We have to be willing to do the hard things God calls us to do. They aren't going to be easy but they will be worth it in the end. These are the times we grow in our faith. When we stretch ourselves and allow God to work and do things in our lives or through us that normally wouldn't be on our agendas, we grow. It's like exercising, it's rarely comfortable and requires you to tear your muscles down so they can be rebuilt and strengthened. It's hard, but worth it in the end. A relationship with Christ is going to involve hard things. But, He isn't going to call you to something and then leave you alone. If He calls you He's going to be there, He will be how you have the strength to do whatever it is.

One of those hard things was getting attached to kids you might not ever see again. I've done this before. For some of these students this is the first time they've done anything like this. They didn't expect to get attached to these boys and girls and certainly not as quickly or as deeply as they did. Friday was a day of tears as goodbyes were said. So today I asked one of our students if now that she knew how much saying goodbye hurt if she would come back. She nodded and said she would love to come back. The hard things are worth it.

Our God is sovereign. Our God is all powerful. Our God is good. He will not waste the hard things.

I'm going to brag on the folks in this picture and the one's you can't see for a bit. You see these teenagers? They did exactly what the world seems to think they are incapable of, they worked, hard. They spent hours scraping paint, sanding, painting, priming, cleaning, running around, getting their hair pulled out by tiny girls who wanted to play hairdresser, being drawn on, giving every ounce of energy they had to glorify God and show these people what it means to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I've been working in Student Ministry for almost ten years now and I don't think I've ever been more proud of a group of students than I am of these after this week.

What they did wasn't easy. Few adults would have put up with what they did and wouldn't have paid to do it. Complaints were few and far between and I'm unaware of any drama (let me just tell you how rare that is). They stepped up big time. They showed the world that despite the general attitude toward teenagers that they can in fact be counted on, they know what it means to give of themselves, and they aren't afraid to do it, they just need the chance to do it.

Side note:My Middle School boys learned that despite my being twice most of their ages the more tired I get the more I laugh and revert to a twelve year old at night time when everyone is supposed to be in bed. If you fall off your air mattress, snore, or do anything remotely amusing I will laugh like a little girl and keep you awake.

Thanks to Eric Dill,Terry Knecht, and Chris Coats for giving me this opportunity of a lifetime. It was quite literally life-changing.

Thank you to Susan Doss, Katheron Latham, Becca Doss,Amy Stitts, and Jill O'Daniel for keeping me fed this week.

Side note two:The only regret I have from this week is not being able to try any international food because that would have been fantastic.

I cannot end this blog post without sharing this song. So read the post and then go and watch this video of one of my favorite songs ever.