Friday, August 19, 2016
A Decade
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| Us at Corinth. We're still this young and cute, obviously (or, the one on the right) |
It just passed me by a four months ago, but it's probably
worth pause for reflection. In May 2006,
we started serving refugees with ITeams in Athens. That was 10 years ago. Hard to believe, eh? In many ways Athens still feels close to me,
many of the friendships formed still feel real despite the distance thanks to the
wonders of the internet.
Cliché, I know, but There's a lot that I know now that I
wish that I knew back then. I sometimes
long for the enthusiasm I had when we first went to Greece, even though some of
that enthusiasm was down to lack of experience.
The picture looked a lot more simple: there were refugees in need and I
simply wanted to serve. Even if that
meant boiling 1,000 eggs in an Athenian kitchen in sweltering heat, scrubbing
toilets, staying behind on my own in the refugee centre so I could run the showers a bit longer, letting refugees (on reflection, both ill) that we met sleep in our extra room, and so on. Work in Athens tired me out in a way that I
find difficult to articulate. A lot of it was kicking against the reality of my limitations.
I'm far more limited than I thought I was and the needs (in every sense)
were far greater, and bewilderingly complex, than I could have ever imagined. The frustrations have been greater than I
could have imagined. The joys even
greater than that.
In ten years of this work, people sometimes ask if I have
been desensitised to the horrible stories I hear regularly. Probably.
I'm my current role supporting destitute asylum seekers, I have the
horrible job of trying to prioritise our resources for those who are most vulnerable. This involves saying "no" more
often than I'd like. Call it desensitisation,
callousness, shrewdness, or whatever, it just happens eventually and it's
painful, but it is what it is. I hope
it's not a cop-out, but I try to reality that the mission is God's. We're privileged enough to be involved in that,
but it doesn't depend on me. Or
you. Or rather, it isn't all about me or
you, but for that reason, we should be all about the mission.
Also, this week marks 8 years of living in Glasgow. Again, so much has happened in that
time. Too much to cram into one
post. Now that my dissertation is
submitted [picture me collapsed on the couch watching Countryfile with a vacant
look in my eyes] there is more time for writing on here. I'll try to make a series of some reflective
posts on what ten years of work with refugees has meant. So look out for that.
In the meantime, I want to express genuine thankfulness to all of you who have supported us and journeyed with us up to this point and that you continue with us into the future.
In the meantime, I want to express genuine thankfulness to all of you who have supported us and journeyed with us up to this point and that you continue with us into the future.
I'll close with the words of another Paul --
"When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not
come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you
except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And
I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling."
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