Wednesday, March 27
Kenny shared a significant insight last night: before ISIS, the Yazidis were happily settled in their multiple villages, most likely never having heard the Good News, an unreachable people group. Now significant numbers of them are living together in these IDP camps, two such camps here at Berseve (1 and 2) with an additional camp adjacent to Berseve sharing one high school for these three camps where all the future leaders are being educated and where we can reach them quite easily. What the enemy meant for evil, God has provided an opportunity for much greater good. At this time, the Yazidis feel the insecurity and hopelessness. The door is open, but for how long? Habibi wants to step into this opening. Willy has a dream of one or two churches partnering to adopt one of these camps, to provide teams to come continuously and go beyond humanitarian work to (eternal) life changing ministries, and of course, long term individuals to model incarnational living. Are we willing to walk along-side?
Unlike yesterday, it rained throughout the night and it is much cooler and wet today. We started by singing The Lord Bless You and Keep You and The Name Above All Names. Then Kenny told the adults and children listening something about his background and that we had come to understand their pain and love them. One of the men in the audience responded with how much they appreciated our coming. Then we started our regular daily activities. During the morning session, Mei, Amy, Lily, and Sharon (see photo) had an arts and crafts session with the younger kids. The kids were given a blank piece of paper with a hole cut out in the center in order for them to place the sheet over their faces like a frame. They were asked to write their names on a piece of paper and on the bottom of the sheet to write a word to express how they were feeling such as "love," "joy," "happy," or "kind" and to also decorate the frame with some artwork. You could really see the creativity of the kids as they drew flowers, hearts, and stars. After the children's program, we went to the home of one of the high school students who had initially invited us over to his house on our first day at the camp. His name is Tahsheen. We felt so blessed to be able to visit his home today as Tasheen is someone who could be a future leader for the Yazidi people. His whole extended family including his mom, two uncles, two brothers, in-laws, grandchildren, etc. came and we were able to talk about many topics, including God's tremendous love for the Yazidis. Thank We commiserated with them that 13 members of their family were killed by ISIS. One impressive thing that stood out to us is the emphasis Tasheen's mother had in wanting her children to have a good education. After being served drinks and snacks, we then prayed for the family.
This afternoon, Kenny took over Christine's triage duties so she was able to join the children's ministry, leading the children in a series of physical exercises (see photo). Later that afternoon, Mei, Christine, Brandon, and Sharon were invited to the home of Naïf and his wife, Shireen, and their son. We also met Shireen's mother. Naïf shared with us that 3 families shared 2 tents. Naïf used to work as a journalist and cameraman back in Sinjar, and also informed us of his hemophilia. When we asked if we could pray for his family, Naïf said yes and made the comment that he believes in God and that God is above all things. Christine then said a prayer to bless Naif's family, and they in turn expressed their deep gratitude for visiting them and blessed us by saying that their home is our home, which was very touching. Late in the afternoon, one of the patient was a lady who had been purchased (rescued by paying a fee) from ISIS only 6 months ago. Her husband is still missing and her parents (or maybe her parents-in-law) paid a ransom to secure her release from the slave market, so now she is living at Berseve1 with her 4 children. Her parents are in a different camp but her in-laws are also living in this camp but not in an adjacent tent. She did not share the details of her trials during her captivity but seeing her gave life and reality to the news stories and touched those among us who heard her and prayed for her. We left the site at 4:30 after seeing 80+ patients today, ate dinner, debriefed the day quickly at the restaurant (not a good practice due to the noise even though we were in a more secluded section), and returned home before 9 PM.
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