Thursday, March 28
Since our schedule is more or less settled in, only deviations or special activities will be reported even though it is our last day at Berseve1 camp. We sang Psalm 121 and In This Very Room to the children and adults and Kenny shared a bit with them, but the audience was less engaged than they were yesterday. During the children's program, we passed out some balloon which caused a ruckus as the children fought to get them, so we stopped it and thought we could teach them about learning to get in line and wait in the afternoon. Meanwhile, Kenny and Marshall decided to help the local economy by going to the camp barbershop and get trimmed (see photo). While waiting, they were able to talk to several men, and empathized with their loss at being brutalized out of their home villages by ISIS. Statements like "we are peaceful and we love everyone, why were they so evil?" Marshall was able to say although there is much evil, but Jesus loves you. It wasn't clear how much communication took place because of the language barrier. They did meet the English teacher at the Arabic secondary school at the camp who translated our haircut preferences to the barber and then invited us to his classes in the afternoon. He also offered to pay for the haircuts (costing 2000 dinars, or the equivalent of $1.67) but of course his offer was refused. All the singers except Dr. Glenn went to visit Tasheen's family and sang The Lord Bless You and Keep You to them. We also tried to follow up with the lady who was released y months ago but could not locate her. Since Tasheen's mother was not able to get a number to see our doctors, we offered (and had previously obtained Willy's permission) to escort her and bypass the ticketing system, which Christine and Brandon did at 2 PM. Willy was able to get a local pastor and his German-Kurd speaking friend to meet with Dawoo (the young man who asked for prayer Monday). Both these pastors recognized that Dawoo was wearing a demonic amulet. After much discussion during which they asked Dawoo to discard the amulet, Dawoo said he would ask his father's permission to come to their church tomorrow when we would be going and (we hope) not be wearing this amulet. Pray for this power encounter. Then Willy, Kenny, Aram, Mei and Marshall went in the afternoon to visit the English classes taught at the Arabic school, but the school supervisor said we did not have the required permission from the school board so we were turned away. In the meantime, the balloon standing-in-line lesson (see photo) almost turned into a riot, as many, many more children and even parents fought to bypass the line. After handing out more than 150 (?) balloons (apparently, word of mouth spread so instead of the 60 or so "regular students", more than double that number showed up, becoming more boisterous. Many were still waiting when we terminated the balloon giving program. The whole process took almost two hours and left us exhausted, vowing not to do balloons again. Christine was able to share the good news with Tasheen when she saw him in the late afternoon. At debriefing time this evening, we saw that today was a harder day with some success (Tasheen and his family) and some tough resistance (not finding the lady, getting denied at the Arabic school, Dawoo spiritual warfare). Glenn pointed out that encountering spiritual resistance may also be a sign we are doing something right, so keep on praying for us. Many of us are quite tired due to jet lag, long day's work, especially Dr. Johnny Gaw, who is 70, seeing 40+ patients a day, almost non-stop.
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