During our first visit to the camps, I walked with the 10/40 Team Leader and the camp administrator to pray for people and encourage them in their hardship. We had just unloaded the first ton and a half of vegetables. One particular family stood out and asked if we would join them for tea in their tent and pray for their 12 year old son. Recently he had been waking up at night with night terrors and had begun to wet the bed. The horror of what he had been through was exacting a heavy toll on him emotionally and physically. The entire family - 8 in total from grandparents to babies - was sleeping on a single rug with a few short mats that draped over a series of wooden pallets. Our hearts broke for this beautiful and kind family.
What was interesting about this family was that they were the only Arabs in the camp. The Kurds and Arabs, though for the most brothers in Islam, have a general animosity and sometimes hate for each other fueled by years of ethnic sparring, mostly for land. In this camp Arabs were not allowed for fear they would bring elements of ISIS into the camp and threaten the Kurds living there. However, this one family was deemed so desperate, and the father so weak, that the exception was made.
As we sat together, praying for the son led to a series of conversations and sharing words of encouragement to each of the family members individually. It wasn't long before the grandfather jumped in to tell us a story of his own. He was an incredible gentle and mild mannered man. His smile was so warm as he reached into a plastic shopping bag hanging from a pole in the back of the gray canvas tent. We knew immediately what he was reaching for when the gold foil trimmed pages began to emerge from the bag. They were wrapped in a soft brown leather cover and bound like a million other bibles I had thumbed through. Sure enough when he handed it to me it was a pocket-sized bible. But honestly I didn't understand.
The first question was why do you have this; followed quickly by do you read English? The latter answer was as we expected. Nobody there except us and the translator understood any English. The answer to the first question proved remarkable.
"My hand was terribly broken," the old man explained to us. "There was a woman here who helped me and told me that if I kept my hand on the book God would heal me." He continued, "she bound my hand to the book and look - God did heal it! The book has power!"
Never in my life have I been served up a more tailor made situation to share the gospel with someone. And I couldn't. We weren't allowed. The translator was afraid. The camp administrator was with us, in the tent, and the leaders from our host ministry were uncomfortable with the prospects of being kicked out of the camp and even the legal ramifications of proselytizing. But the stage was set and there was a burning in us that this had to be done. Jesus Christ was the hope and life this family desperately needed.
It would not be this time. As the time in the tent progressed it was clear that the door was closing. I began to pray internally to the Lord. In my heart I felt I heard Him say that "She was the key." She was the camp administrator sitting to my right. I began to interact with her on a personal level, and over the course of the final five or ten minutes we were there she was laughing with us and feeling freer than when we had arrived. Right before we left the camp, as we walked from the Arab family's tent to the gated entrance, I felt in my spirit to ask her if she was having pain in her stomach or torso near the lower left side.
"No." She said. "It's more toward my back on that side. I have some lumps, and they are painful and they keep me from sleeping well.
The reason the Lord pointed this out was obvious to us. He had already spoken to our hearts that she was the key. We had to pray for her. And we did. We prayed for the healing power of Jesus Christ to touch her body and for rest to fall on her in the midst of the chaos she was managing. And then it was time to leave.
As I said earlier, our hearts were absolutely burning to leave that family with the gospel. From the moment we left we set ourselves before the Lord asking Him to give us that chance again. But it didn't look like it was gonna come because we could not get back to that camp on that trip. It would be three weeks before we got the chance to get back there. Three weeks is a lifetime in the camps. Families move in and out, people get sick and even die, and there's really no way of knowing what these border camps will look like in just a few weeks.
None of that matters when God ordains a situation for His grace to be poured out. We prepared for three weeks trusting that we would get the chance. We got a Bible in Arabic and a comic book about the biblical stories leading to Jesus for the family's teenage sons. We prayed for the door to open. And then we flew back to the region and drove to where the camps were with a plan for another weekend of aid and ministry. This time we were going without an Arabic translator.
This next trip was a bit quicker than the previous one. We had basically a full day to minister bookended by the evening of our arrival and the morning of our departure. That particular camp was the first stop on our itinerary the next day. As we arrived we split into two teams; one handled the distribution of blankets and met with the administrators. The second group of us worked to greet people and pray with them. The only things we were missing was that administrator whom we had prayed for the last time and a translator who could speak Arabic so we could go back to the Arabic family with the Bible and book we had for them.
As we prepared to go to the family's tent in spite of these issues, I caught a glimpse of our administrator friend walking toward us from across the camp. She walked to us with a smile on her face and warmly greeted us. It was her first words I was especially excited about. "God answers your prayers," she said. "The night after you left I slept with no pain and the lumps are gone. Thank you."
There it was. I remembered what the Holy Spirit had put on my heart three weeks before in the camp. What I had felt was He said she was the key. And here it was, the Lord had touched her directly. And immediately I was able to give Jesus the credit for what had happened. And since Jesus was the reason for her testimony, He was going to be the reason we would get to share Him with the Arab family too.
"So I was wondering if you could help us," I asked. "We want to go sit with that Arab family. Are they still here?" I continued.
"Yes. And of course you can."
I pressed on, "That would be great. But we need your help." As I watched her reply with an accommodating smile, I asked for the favors I needed. "Would you help us, because we have no one who can speak Arabic with us today. Would you translate for us, and also - we have these books - they are bibles. Would you let us bring them to the family?" All the chips were on the table. Our motives, our heart, and the reality of our Christ.
"Of course I will," she smiled. And like that we headed for their tent.
When we arrived, the family was happy to receive us. Their graciousness continued towards us and they made tea as all Middle Eastern families would in that situations. Our time was limited, and the challenge a little extra today. We had one translator from English to Turkish and a second from Turkish to Arabic. But the Lord's setup to this point was perfect. In spite of the challenges we were able to share the gospel in clarity to this family. They wept as we explained that our aim in bringing aid was to open a door to the hope in Christ which we were really purposed to bring to those in the camps because hope in Christ was the only thing we could give them that would last.
Of course, we were blessed to hear that event he son had stopped wetting the bed. With the living testimony of the healing sitting in the tent before us, this was a clear and resounding message. They received the bibles and our prayer with open hearts. They were unable to deny the reality of the moment we were in and even said to us at one point that "our love for God and the purity of our faith was so evident." The love of Christ had moved upon them and the door in that camp was opened wider than before.
Jesus is amazing. In a restricted camp in a restricted nation we sat with a Kurdish Muslim who translated the gospel of Jesus Christ for us to an Arab Muslim family with whom she would normally be opposed to, all because of the testimonies God had given each of them. But the story is far from over. Not only are we looking for the opportunity to go back, but there is another entire side to the story which we will be sharing next. After all, how did the English bible get there in the first place?
To be continued...
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