Seeking Peace in Their City of Exile

I sit across the screen from a group of Christian leaders in the Middle East gathered for an IAFR online training seminar. They call in from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and Iraq, but many of these participants are themselves forcibly displaced people from places like Syria, scattered across the region. What is remarkable is that they are investing their lives to care for others who are also displaced. With limited resources, they are doing their best to bring hope and healing to hopelessly dark situations.

Uprooted Christians are caring for other refugees in the Middle East

One man in Iraq ministers in a semi-permanent camp where the women and children of ISIS fighters are kept. Another woman is bringing incredible hope to other refugee women who have fled domestic violence. Together, these women have begun to heal and experience the transformative love of Jesus in tangible form.

 These sacrificial servants encourage and challenge me with the depth of wisdom they already hold. They work with few resources in some of the most pain-filled places on earth, and they are humbly and diligently seeking to learn even more about how to care well for the people around them. I am asked questions to which I do not have answers. And we hold space together for the complexity of God's kingdom coming in spite of the toxic uncertainty of the displacement journey.

I can remind them that they are not alone in this difficult work.

I cannot tell them how to watch people start a healing journey only to be sent back into potentially devastating situations beyond their control. I cannot stop the wars that are perpetuating the violence and devastation causing so much hurt. But I can remind these fellow brothers and sisters they are not alone in this difficult work. I can pray for them to continue to have courage and wisdom in impossible situations.

Their stories and lives make me think of the passage in Jeremiah 29, where God encourages His people to be those who seek the peace and prosperity of the city where they are in exile. This is precisely what each of these Christ followers is doing despite their formidable contexts. They are forming communities of hope, building places of welcome, and pouring out love amid the wounds of war and violence. They shine like a light in the darkness, a signpost that the kingdom is coming, even now.

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