So I am terrible at blogging consistently, but I finally have something that would be really easy to blog about! I just got back a couple days ago from a trip that was entirely different from my normal routine here. I went with a group of other workers to a refugee camp in a country south of mine to help with a trauma healing workshop, and it was an unforgettable experience!
Everything in that country was so much more stereotypically "Africa" than I am used to! The dirt was red, there were termite mounds, there were kids in various states of (un)dress running up to say "Imfinethankyou" in their practiced English to the white person... More importantly, though, it was amazing to see people whose homes had been bombed and who had seen people die now going about their lives with more joy and peace than I am able to manage most days. In the workshop we put on, we were translating stories from our Book and of people who had undergone trauma in the people's many various tribal languages, so the people could take these stories and talk about them with their families and tribes and process the terrible things they'd been through. A lot of people did not have much exposure to our Book prior to the workshop, and many people were as excited about the Word as they were the opportunity to help their own people and preserve their tribal language.
There was a moment of awe when I realized I was in the middle of Africa in a grass hut in a refugee camp, understanding someone speaking Arabic. Sometimes in this line of work you just have to sit back and think how amazing it is that God has brought you this far. I never would've expected that God would take me to Africa, and there are days when comprehending Arabic seems like a tall order, but such is life and such is God's sense of humor. Although I don't know that I feel called to go back to that country, this trip did help me figure out that I would like to further pursue trauma healing-type work with refugees, so we'll see what kind of work with Arab refugees I can find in my city.