We are all familiar with the setting having seen it now hundreds of broadcasts or web videos. Scores of tents, all carrying the “Brand” that is the United Nations. It was as if a great Blue and White floral desert blooming had taken place. The tents I gazed out over covered the sandy expanse separating the borders of Lebanon and Syria; tents that are home to about 25,000 Syrians.
A friend and I were invited in to one of these tents by a woman named Fatima. Fatima introduced us to her brother, Siad and three of her seven children. Their home consisted of a small tarped area that served as a indoor/outdoor kitchen and the main tent, which was a sturdy structure with reinforced sides. Both had carpets serving as flooring to keep the dirt down and they were warmed by the heat of a pot-bellied oil stove in a corner. The walls were lined with boxes holding the family’s clothing and with thin foam mattresses which they pull out every evening to sleep on. Surveying it all, as Fatima served us scalding mint tea, I thought this was quite cozy and much more comfortable than I had imagined it could be…but then, I hadn’t had to call this home for the last 5 years.
Siad told me his story. He was a recently discharged soldier back in civilian life again and he watched as the Syrian civil war broke out and how very quickly the army was beginning to call up its reserves, of which he was one. Siad, somehow intuitively, ascertained how bloody and long this conflict might become and fled for his life before his call up to an army fighting for a government he himself did not support. His sister, her husband and their family of seven children followed him shortly and together they had now lived in this “cozy” setting for the past five years and suddenly, it didn’t feel so cozy and comfortable to me anymore and I found myself staring more deeply and longer than I intended, into my tea.
For the next two hours, we talked about life in this camp.
Fatima told me of restrictions that meant she could only register 5 of her 7 children as asylum seeking refugees, which meant if a country accepted them, that country could also choose not to except their two unregistered children, who would have to be left behind. And my heart grew heavier and eye-sight cloudier, with tears.
Fatima told me how thrilled she was that one of her children got to go to school now because a Christian group had opened a school in their camp and one of her children had been selected to fill one of the forty-five slots available. And I tried to look joyful for this good news, all the while wondering about her other six kids and the literal thousands of other school-aged children in this camp, some of whom like hers, had now missed up to five years of school.
Siad now jumped into the conversation and in a distant voice described how soon his five-year refugee permit would expire, with no guarantee the Lebanese government would renew it. “What happens then I asked?” And looking deeply into his own cup of mint tea, he shrugged his shoulders and said, they may send me back across the border into the Syrian no-mans land which was only 20 kilometers from where we were sitting… and now suddenly, this tent felt safe and cozy again, in a way it hadn’t fifteen minutes earlier.
Back and forth Fatima and Siad spoke of their life in the last five years and their life before the civil war back in their beloved Syria. They spoke of how they longed for a return to safety for all and their desire to go home, but every sentence ended with an air of disbelief it would ever happen or an anxious comment in regards to their current situation. I listened, letting it bore deeply into my memory, while also fighting it off boring too deeply into my heart for the pain they endure had exhausted them and I felt it taking hold of me … “Where would hope ever be found?,” I asked. “You are people of faith, where is God in all of this?”
They both looked me in the eye and with resignation and beautiful honesty said, “We believe God cares, but it is hard and He is not close.” Quietly for the next 15 minutes we talked about a hope that can sustain. We talked about some of the Old Testament prophets that Muslims also believe in; Adam who walked with God, Noah who experienced God’s saving grace, David who was “a man after God’s own heart” and Abraham, who was called “Friend of God.”
And then we prayed together in the name of the second most honored prophet of Islam, the one the Koran calls, Isa al Masih, Jesus the Messiah. We prayed that the one sent to bring us ultimate hope, might be present in their tent-home, present in the lives of their children and family and that the One, who even the Koran refers to as God’s anointed, would bring life in the full, just as Jesus declared he would in the Gospels, the very Gospels which Muslims are instructed to read and believe.
And then we left.
And they stayed.
And today, they still remain in that same Blue Tent on that same patch of desert floor; as much in flux today, as then. Has Jesus heard our cry? Has he mysteriously entered that home and those lives in a new way…I don’t know. But Fatima and Siad have entered my life because for some reason, on a chilly February day, God decided to intertwine our two small stories in the midst of a very large story, which itself is only a part of the largest story:
For God so loved the world…
I send you as the Father sent me…
Go and make disciples…
Today my heart still remains heavy.
Today my brain is still conflicted.
And today, my faith is still strong.
But this is all so complicated…
“Lord lead your People; Lord lead your Church; Lord lead our church and our people, that we might be your hands and feet.”
Visit the On Air: Reaching Muslims through Media event online. For more information about Lake’s refugee efforts join us for a special luncheon and guest speaker on Sunday, April 2, 12:30 pm in HH 400 (Skyroom). Lunch $5/per person. No RSVP necessary. Questions? Contact or 626.844.4770.