Part 2: A Refugee Camp in Athens

The refugee issue is connected to the issue of trafficking in many ways. First of all, these refugees are actually trafficked persons in many cases. They have been financially exploited to illegally cross borders. The refugee issue relates more specifically to sex-trafficking in that this is a population vulnerable to sex-traffickers. We heard stories of sex-traffickers volunteering in the camps in order to identify those who would be most vulnerable to sexual exploitation. These issues of exploitation are closely linked. 

The camp we volunteered in looked nothing like what I'd seen in the news. The camps reflected in the news stories I'd seen were primarily on the islands where traffickers who have sold a vision of a large, safe ship to cross the sea to Greece for exorbitant amounts of money disgorge their passengers dozens of miles from the intake camps. Cold, wet, hungry and potentially devastated from the loss of family members in the sea voyage, the refugees must then traverse many miles to then wait in lines at the intake camps. 

In contrast, the camp we worked at was an overflow camp outside of Athens that was located in a massive and eerily-abandoned complex that was part of the 2004 Olympics. We drove for several minutes past the old, abandoned airport and several empty stadiums and desolate parking lots to arrive at the former field-hockey venue. Every few days hundreds of refugees are dropped off there. This is not a popular camp. The refugees would much rather be at one of the more centrally located camps with easier transportation and access to government services. 

We were there on a Wednesday and already the 500-600 refugees that had arrived on Sunday evening had dwindled to less than a hundred. The refugees remaining at our camp were generally not Syrian. The Syrian refugees tend to arrive in Greece with money. They have the funds to pay for the next leg of the journey, so they are only in each camp long enough to secure transportation to get one step closer to northern Europe. The Afghan and Pakistani refugees are lacking in funds which means they have to remain in each camp longer before finding a means to move on. Our camp was an open camp, so refugees could come and go at will. 

Our team's main responsibility at the camp was sorting through hundreds of bags of donated clothing. We divided out summer clothes from winter clothes and then broke those down into types of clothing and age and gender appropriateness. The summer clothes were boxed up for storage. The winter clothes were moved immediately into the press box (behind us in the photo) for distribution. You can see some of the line of refugees along the front of the box. Any toys were pulled out and taken to the entrance of the stadium so that children could have something comforting immediately upon arrival.

The refugees sleep in the empty inside of the building on the right of the photo. There are no beds, just pallets they make on the floor. Meals are provided through the concession stand windows. One bit of silver lining to this refugee shelter is that there's a big, open field for the kids to run around on and where they can play soccer.

Two women came up to me as I was boxing up a batch of clothing odds and ends before we left for the day. They started digging through the box I was attempting to transfer to the press box where it would be ready for distribution. That kind of thing is frustrating for a task-oriented, rule follower like me. I really wanted to finish up this task before we had to leave, and the refugees had been told multiple times that they should go to the window where they would be provided with clothes that matched their needs. It was easy for me to lose sight of the compassion that should be driving this venture, and my distracted and diverted heart was brought into sharp focus as I realized what these two ladies were looking for. They were looking at the handful of bras we had come across from dozens and dozens of bags of clothing. And that's when their situation struck me in a more personal way. I can't really fathom what they've been through in crossing war-torn continents. And I was at a place that was providing them food, and shelter (such as it was), and warm clothes for the impending cold weather, but fleeing your home with just a few items means that you most likely don't have much in the way of clean underwear. Watching them dig through a box of someone else's donated underwear brought home the reality of what it means to have nothing and to be entirely dependent on the generosity of strangers in order for basic needs to be met. And this is precisely where the church needs to be, standing in the gap to offer kindness and generosity to strangers.

The local church we partnered with in Greece has volunteers at this camp almost every day doing everything from serving meals to cleaning bathrooms. Please pray for them as they're invested in ministering there for as long as needed.

Other posts in this series -
Part 1: Brothels and Safehouses

Part 1: Brothels and Safehouses

Our group stood huddled in an abandoned alcove that wreaked of urine. As we gingerly placed our feet on the concrete to avoid the abandoned hypodermic needles littering the ground, we received further information on the area we were about to prayer walk through - an area filled with legal brothels. Brothels are legal in Greece, but only one person at a time can work in the brothel. One woman in a room working an 8 -10 hour shift servicing whoever walks in and can pay or being forced to stand for the perusal of those who don't have the money. There are literally hundreds of these small brothels. The area we're in is one of the most desperate, where the clients are often the ones who've just discarded the needles that we're dancing around. Because the women are inside, the outreach team of Nea Zoi (New Life) Ministry goes into the brothels to build relationships. They come face to face with the men inside waiting their turn. They take tea with the madam who oversees the financial transactions. They hope to get a few minutes with the girl if she gets a break and can come into the kitchen. They bring with them a basket of goodies including reading material in a variety of languages, tea, and hopefully a special snack or candy from the home country of the girl being exploited. Please pray for these outreach teams as they faithfully pursue these relationships week after week. Pray for the girls, and even the madams and the men, to recognize the dignity and worth they have in Christ and to begin longing for something different than their current reality. 

I praise God that in both Bulgaria and Greece, safe house projects are underway which will provide long-term transitional housing, counseling, therapy, life skill training, job training, childcare, safety and love for women freed from trafficking. This is a huge development since we visited each of these countries two years ago. We were so excited to see that outreach has progressed to the point where women are trusting these ministry teams to help them pursue a better life. 

Here are links to the ministries we partnered with in each country.

Nea Zoi Ministry in Athens - http://neazoi.org/

Daughter of Bulgaria in Sofia - http://www.mtwbg.com/DOB.html

We also had an opportunity to go and work at one of the refugee camps in Athens for an afternoon, so I'll write more about that in another post. 

Return to Europe: Anti-Trafficking 2015

Hi Friends,

I just wanted to send out an update on how things are progressing for my upcoming trip to Bulgaria and Greece to work with anti-trafficking ministries. We leave in 12 days which is so exciting!! I'm very eager to go and visit again the ministries that we worked with two years ago on our first trip. There have been such amazing developments in the ministries, and I can't wait to see how God is pushing back the darkness of trafficking in these places. 

In Bulgaria, in addition to prayer walking, helping with outreach, and learning about sustainable livelihood projects, we'll also have an opportunity to go and visit a Roma village in the countryside. Bulgarian woman are trafficked outside of Bulgaria, generally to western Europe. Within Bulgaria, Roma (Gypsy) women are sent by their husbands/boyfriends into the city to earn money so that the men can sit around and gamble instead of work. We'll have the opportunity to do prevention work alongside our partners there. We're going to be able to work with the children in the village - to hopefully bring them joy and hope and acknowledge the worth that they have as children of God. Please pray that these little lives will never know what it is to be sold by those who should cherish them.

Artwork in the MTW Bulgaria Office to represent freedom

In Athens, we'll be able to do many of the same things as in Bulgaria such as prayer walk and learn about sustainable livelihood, but we'll also have the opportunity to do an Ikea trip to help outfit a brand new home that will serve as transitional housing for women who have been freed from slavery. Also, just today we learned of an exciting possibility, so would you please pray with us that it would come to fruition? We've been told there may be an opportunity to go and work in one of the refugee camps for an afternoon. Already, traffickers have started working and volunteering in these camps in order to identify the vulnerable and easily exploited. Please pray for the protection of the vulnerable in these camps. Prevention is so critical in this battle. 

Thank you so much for your support and encouragement along this journey. Your prayers are incredibly precious to me. A huge praise is that my financial goal has almost been met. I'm short of my target by just $110. Additionally, excess funds that are received can go towards things games and crafts for the Roma children or nail polish and lotion for outreach care packages for women in brothels. The information on financial contributions is below. 

Please let me know if you have any questions. And thank you so much for walking alongside me in this endeavor!

Blessings, 

Jen

Here are the options if you would like to give financially:

1.     Click this link  https://donations.mtw.org/donate/AddDesignation.aspx?No=14901 to donate online to account 14901.

2.     Send a check to the following address with 14901 in the memo line

Mission to the World

PO Box 2589

Suwanee, GA 30024-0982

Spring Reading List 2015

I'm quite delayed on posts, so here's the first in an attempt to catch up.

This summer I did a Bible study looking at the life of David, and reflecting on the books I read this summer, I'm reminded of 2 Samuel 11:1 - "In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war..."  I really feel like my spring reading was all about war which meant lots of tears. Here's a look at what I was reading:

Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - This was a gorgeous book written about two very different sisters during World War II. The atrocities of what they survived during that time period are incredible, and heartbreaking, and make me think how I would never, ever survive war. On the continuum of devastating to happy ending, this books lands somewhere in the middle - not quite as sad as All the Light We Cannot See (also about France in WWII), but also not quite as happy as the next book listed (for a change of pace, looking at France during WWI). The author employs dual narration with first person narrator in the present time (and you're not quite sure which sister's perspective it is until the end) and then omnipotent third person in the past. I'm not a huge fan of first person narration, but it was in limited batches here. This book was the first I've read by Kristin Hannah, and I'd like to try some more of hers. Any recommendations? You'll see from my summer reading list, that I'm taking a break from tragedy for a bit, though.

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes - I was willing to take a second chance Jojo Moyes after the extremely anger-inducing Me Before You. (I'm not sure whether I'll be able to read the recently released sequel to that book, After You). The Girl You Left Behind was also about sisters during war in France. It also involved contemporary and historical story lines, although there was much more focus on the contemporary plot in this novel as compared to Nightingale. (Do you ever wondering if authors are given a writing prompt like "sisters in France during war with art involved? I swear they must be given how many books on similar topics come out at the same time). Anyway, even without Nazis, war in France is absolutely devastating. The choices characters are forced to make between something awful and something also equally but differently awful are heart wrenching. Of the three war-in-France books I've read this year, this one did end up at the closest end of the spectrum to happily ever after, though. It probably had the worst writing of the three, though. Not that it was bad writing, but it is being compared to the absolute gorgeous (yet tragic) prose of a Pulitzer Prize winner (All the Light...).

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson - another Pulitzer Prize winner, and while this book maybe isn't strictly about war, it is about North Korea, so basically the same thing. This book was a totally fascinating look behind the curtain at one of the least know countries in the world. Even though it's fictional, it's so meticulously researched that it seems like non-fiction. Even having lived in a communist country that borders NK, some of the viewpoints on the West were simply fascinating (i.e. instead of the government providing food for its people, in America, citizens must work for pieces of paper that they then stand in line to exchange for food). Mostly, I think this is a book about a government that's declared war on it's own people. Fascinating, and fantastical in some of its creativity, this book also devastatingly showcases pain, horror, and the reality of life when there's no good choice to make.

Ok, that's spring reading. Stay tuned for summer reading which is going to look like complete fluff after this list. 

Reading on a Budget

Some events with my car in January precipitated a long, hard look at my monthly budget. While I've always had a budget, it's come to my attention that having a nicely categorized excel sheet is not so much the same as actually monitoring how much you spend in each of those categories. So my long, hard look is kind of more of an "actually stick to the budget you made" type thing. 

One of the revelations of this exercise (other than the fact that aggressively paying off car debt is addictive) is that I definitely didn't realize how much money I'd been spending on books. I LOVE reading and if it's a book I enjoy, then I love to own so that I can share it with others. Also seeing a lot of books lying around just makes me really happy. 

Anyway, $25 per month seemed like a reasonable amount for books. I usually don't buy books if they're more than $6-7, so that was enough to buy a few new books each month. Oh my gosh. This has been so hard. Every book gets looked at and evaluated and re-looked at and then the food budget and the gas budget get looked at to see if there's any give there. I think books were definitely a blindside in my previous spending habits. This little kindle sale here and that $2 on paperbackswap.com there add up quickly. And the whole instantaneous thing. It's really hard to have to WAIT for a book when I just would really like to have it now and start reading it immediately.

So here are some of my strategies for getting the most out of my book budget.

1. Overlooked books on Kindle - I previously mentioned the kindle habit, so that my Kindle is well-stocked even when I'm on purchasing freeze shouldn't be a surprise. It's been interesting to go back and discover some gems that were overlooked. Over a year ago I downloaded a book called Cinder by Marissa Meyer. I'd started it a couple of times and maybe gotten a total of 10 pages into it. Almost out of new book funds for the month, I decided to try it again. I started reading, and kept reading, and kept reading, and crawled out of the chair and onto the bed and then back again because the suspense and anticipation - I just couldn't sit still. It was soooo good. 

So what genre is this book? Well, ummm, I kept referring to it as my robot book, but really more accurately it's probably YA-sci-fi-re-imagined-fairy-tale with maybe a dash of steampunk. Not my typical cup of tea, but I think it might be my new 2nd fave YA series (Harry Potter #1, of course, but this might displace Hunger Games to #3).  The series is called the Lunar Chronicles (did I mention there are also moon princesses?) and the first is Cinder and hopefully it's obvious which fairy tale it's based on.

2. Library - When I finished Cinder, I went straight to Amazon to download the second book in the series called Scarlet (Red Riding Hood), but it was $10. Nooo!!!! I didn't have that much left in the book budget, although I did totally go ahead and buy the third book in the series Cress (based on Rapunzel) since it was only $3. And in my fixation with instant kindle downloads, I'd allowed my library membership to lapse. The next day I trudged off to the library first thing to get that set up again. However, my branch didn't have the book in stock, so I had to request it via interlibrary loan which means I would have to wait entire DAYS to get it. Ugh. And then there was that whole "snow" debacle and the library was closed and I couldn't go get my book when it came in. Sadness. 

While I was waiting for the book to be transferred to my library, I did jump on my library's digital collection site to see if Scarlet was available there by any chance (checked out) and to see if there was anything else that might be interesting. I scrolled through my Goodreads "to read" list to see if there is anything I might be able to instantly download. I've found that YA is a really good option with my country's digital collection, they tend to have more of those books available digitally then a lot of the adult literature. I've read Princess of the Midnight Ball and a Georgette Heyer novel (my first) called The Grand Sophy via digital books from the library. The first was Ok, and the Heyer book was pretty entertaining.

Sidenote: During the whole snow incident when I realized if I was going to potentially be stuck inside for a few days (wishful thinking maybe, but it could have happened), I asked myself what I thought would be a really hard question: If I could only have access to either books or chocolate (but not both) for the rest of my life which would it be? The answer of books came surprisingly quickly and adamantly. I mean I knew I loved books, but I didn't even have to think about the answer which is a big deal when it's up against chocolate. 

3. The final source I've found of reading material is the stack(s) of books on my bedside table. Not including the four different Bibles present, there are 29 books that I've started reading or set aside to read on that table. That's a lot. Even for me. So I'm committing to finishing some of those. Not necessarily all of them, because while I used to be wholeheartedly committed to finishing a book eventually, now I don't care so much. If it's not good, then I don't care if I read the whole thing. However, if I stopped reading it even though it was actually good because something flashier came along, then those are great books to pick up again and rediscover. Just last night I finally finished Carry On, Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton which I feel like I need to go back and start again so that I'll remember how to keep trying to be kind and brave and strong. 

A final note on book recommendations: my two most adamant recommendations recently have been The Martian (sooooo super good) and the Lunar Chronicles both of which are fairly sci fi which is not a genre I've explored much previously. I'm much more of a historical time period with some adventure and romance and maybe a hint of mystery type girl. But these have been really engrossing books. I will warn you so that you will not be deceived like I was - there are more than 3 books in The Lunar Chronicles series. Despite thorough research on Amazon (and even the author's own webpage for crying out loud), I really thought this was a three book serious which was great, I'm always glad to come across a series when it's already finished. However, there is a sneaky fourth book (and I don't even know if that's the last) lurking out there waiting for publication later this year. I have to say that it's the book I checked out from the library that made me aware of this fact since it was mentioned on the book flap. Without the physical book from the library informing me of a 4th book, I would have been majorly frustrated at the lack of resolution at the end of book 3. The 4th book is called Winter and I think it's going to be based on Snow White. 

Learn Something New: Hike Georgia

Since moving back to States 6 years ago (I really, really can't believe it's been that long. And this week I really, really miss all that long underwear I used to have), I've tried to make a conscientious effort to learn one new thing each year. 

This kind of started as a way to learn to knit since I was like the only person I knew who didn't know how and it seemed like a good way to redeem time spent watching TV. Of course, now I just doubly waste time by playing games on an idevice while listening to TV and occasionally rewinding because that bit seemed kind of important. 

Some years have been more tangible than others - knitting, gardening. Some have been born of the fact that I didn't have any money for a new hobby -learn about food, get passionate about a cause. And last year was supposed to be learn where to hike in Georgia, but turned into learn a new job. 

So yay, this year's LSN was already picked out which is really good because usually it's about September before I decide on something for the year. I'm using the book 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Atlanta as a guide, and my goal is 12 hikes during the course of the year. 

This month a friend and I headed out to Indian Seats for an afternoon hike. The book has helpful charts that divide the hikes up by location, intensity, length, and other things. We were looking for a 3-5 mile hike that was moderate. We wanted something more than a walk in the park, but it had also been awhile since either of us had done much hiking. 

I never really considered myself an outdoor person before moving to Georgia, but also I've always lived in Florida (where the beach is super conveniently located), a college campus (with green space and tracks), or a big city (where there's lots of time outside walking from one place to another even if it turns your snot black). Heck, I even went to summer camp where I lived in a screened-in cabin for 4-8 weeks every summer. So Atlanta is the first place I've lived where I had to really consciously think about where to go to be outside. It was also my first desk job and my first time with a car commute, so neither of those things were helping with spending time outside. 

There's lots of places in and around Atlanta to take advantage of in terms of being outside, so I'm hoping this year (and hopefully longer) of exerting some effort in learning cool hiking places not too far away will pay off for years to come. 

One thing that's different since the last time I did much hiking is smart phones. You can totally just take pictures of the guidebook before leaving the car, and have a compass on your phone, and be able to google or call if things get dire. So different!

And here are some pics from the first hike of the year -

My Favorite Things: Winter Edition

Here are some things that help make winter oh-so-delightful! (After the depressing end of the holidays).

Fingerless gloves - My favorite pair was knit for me by a friend in China 12 years ago. I really can't believe I've held on to a pair for that long. They were perfect for teaching in classrooms without heat, and they're perfect for windshield scraping and chilly steering wheels.

Aquaphor - This stuff has CHANGED MY LIFE! I've had dry lips since moving to GA despite good hydration and copious amounts of Burt's Bees. I asked my dermatologist what she recommended and she gave me a sample of this stuff. Amazing! I haven't had the slightest chapping since then and I only have to apply it a few times a day. Her bottom line was avoid anything wax based and avoid lip gloss (which apparently is awful for your lips).

Rabbit hair socks - These are another item that made the cut when packing to come back from China. My pairs are still all from there, but you can find them on Amazon and I'm sure other places, too. Toasty and soft and will make your feet so happy.

Ugg wool-lined slippers - And if you want your feet to be deliriously happy? So warm and toasty that you don't even particularly care how the rest of your body feels? These slippers are worth the splurge. They were a Christmas gift to me and I wear them as much as I possibly can. I can't tell you the number of times I'll stop and look at my feet and the door and my feet again and then sigh because I just really can't wear my slippers to work or church or Kroger or wherever. This link is to the style that I have. I normally wear a 6.5 but mine are a 7 and with the wool and my rabbit hair socks it can be a snug fit.

Creamer in hot cocoa - Did you guys know this was a thing? I had no clue! And then I heard a coworker talking about it and read it in a book in the same week, and thought that was definitely a sign I should try this. So far I've just done a basic creamer, but it's been deliciously yummy. Since I don't drink coffee, I'm a novice in the world of creamers, so let me know if you have a recommendation on a flavor I should try.

What helps you make it through winter?