I’ll be honest, I didn’t know a ton about the Syrian crisis until this week. I still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of what is happening. What I did know is that there are thousands of people in limbo because countries are closing their doors. Going into this trip, we tried not to have too many expectations, and I’m glad we came into it with that perspective. I tried to go into this week with eyes wide open to see and learn about this population and their needs. I’m a doer. If you hang around me long enough, you realize that I like to get S@$# done. So, it can be very much against my nature to simply soak in an experience and not look for a solution. I can’t say I did that completely because by the end of the second night I was already searching online for ways to get even more involved. BUT, I will say that as a whole, I did well to soak in the experience and learn. While I didn’t have any major exp...
Have you ever thrown a stone in a still pond? You can easily get mesmerized by the ripples that radiate from the initial disruption. Ripples came to mind many times when I worked for a week with a humanitarian trip at a refugee camp in Greece. I saw ripples that are hard and difficult to observe and even worse for the people themselves who experienced them. PTSD, self-harming, and depression run rampant throughout the refugee camps. You can see it in their eyes. You can see it in their posture. By the time someone has made it to a refugee camp, the initial disruption in their calm pond has already happened and it was big enough to cause waves. As waves radiate out, they become slightly smaller, but there nonetheless. There will still be ripples cresting up and waning down as refugees transition to settlement and asylum in other countries, establish new careers, and build up new lives. The ripples will be seen for...
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