How Two Weeks in Greece Changed My Life
In March of 2018, I got the opportunity to apply for a trip to Greece in January of 2019. At that time the idea of traveling across the world for a few weeks seemed unrealistic and basically my mindset was "why not?." I had no real motivation to go other than the fact that I had never left the country and I wasn't sure what else I was going to do for a month and a half over Christmas break.
For several months, going to Greece didn't set in as reality for me. Even though I attended meetings twice a week all of fall semester, somehow it never actually registered with me that I was leaving America for the first time, with people I didn't know, to work in a country that I knew virtually nothing about. It was almost like I didn't let myself believe that it was actually true because I didn't know what to expect and I was not ready to process the thoughts that were going through my mind.
Well as the trip grew closer, I got more and more worried that I was not ready to go. People kept asking me questions about what I was going to do there and if I was excited and who I was going to work with and what I thought I would experience. Ya... I had none of those answers and it started to freak me out. But I pretty much played it cool and packed everything I needed the night before and got on a plane with a million questions, an anxious heart, and the sudden realization that I forgot to pack deodorant.
After a 6am flight out of Denver, a 4 hour layover turned 9 hour layover in Chicago due to a broken wing and a sick passenger we finally made it out of the country and landed in Germany - where we missed our original flight and had to catch a later one to Athens. Anyways, needless to say 30 min after arriving in Greece I was already exhausted and the first thing I did was eat Souvlaki (the equivalent of cheeseburgers for Greeks) and then go to sleep.
Also y'all, public service announcement: jet lag is a real thing (I honestly thought people used it as an excuse to sleep for a few days after long trips). Nope. Suuuuuuper Real.
Okay, so on the first official day of our trip, we went to a Greek Orthodox church and an evangelical church in the morning. Following that we got to see the Acropolis and Mars Hill and wove our way through the flea market and open air shops before stopping again for... you guessed it, Souvlaki!!!! (The Greeks love their Souvlaki). And then we got world famous Gelato from DaVinci's. Truly amazing. Honestly, I'm still dreaming about it.
It was around this time where I began to try and force some emotions. It was day one and it seemed like the rest of my team was already experiencing God on a whole new level and their world view was already shifting and here I was barely registering the fact that I wasn't in Colorado anymore. All of the sights were flooding into my mind and I was seeing all these new places and faces and creating friendships at mock speed with the team in Greece and the girls from school that I went with. I began to feel guilty for fundraising all the money to pay for a trip I didn't feel like I belonged on.
The next morning, we went to work at an organization called the Good Samaritan. This place was a resource for refugee women and children - somewhere that they could go that provided clothing, medical services, child care, laundry facilities, english classes, greek classes, and access to legal help, among other things. As soon as we walked in we were greeted with open arms and smiling faces. We spent the next few hours talking and playing games with the refugee children. They were from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria - all of them brilliant and full of life.
I thought that I knew what I was going to see and hear when we started working with these refugees, but let's just say I seriously underestimated what I had prepared myself to experience. I expected to see heartbroken families that had given up on life due to the gravity of their situations. Instead I was confronted by people filled with an overwhelming amount of hope, joy, generosity, and imagination.
We were hosted and guided by an organization called Streetlights which was a community center in the neighborhood of Kypseli (on the outskirts of Athens). This area was home to more than 50 nationalities and the center was open most days of the week as a safe place for children to come and be loved on. Their mission was long-term and powered by prayer and dedication to investing in the lives of the children and families that walked through their doors.
The two weeks that we spent in Greece working both with young children and teenagers was exhausting and invigorating. It honestly felt like babysitting at first and I did not feel needed or wanted, but quickly these kids learned my name and stole my heart. I got to hear their stories and learn about their families. I learned about their likes and dislikes and struggles and their hopes and dreams. I began to form relationships with these kids and that's when everything got real interesting.
Every morning I would walk into "The Hive" (the Streetlights community center) and immediately be greeted with smiling faces. These sweet children had been through hell and back and yet they were open and vulnerable and generous with their time, love, and attention. They wanted to be loved and accepted by me as much as they were ready to love and accept me.
On my last day, we went to Exarchia - an anarchist district within Athens - a place beyond the law where for the past ten years, anarchists have successfully kept out all police and government forces. On the edge of Exarchia is a refugee squat that houses over 100 refugees from many different countries. People fleeing pain, suffering, war, poverty, and abuse.
It was only a small group of us that went on this day to the squat. On the long walk over we were briefed on what we were about to experience, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw and heard on that morning.
On the outside, the squat looks like an abandoned building - a place where you would not expect 100+ people to be living. Walking in I was immediately taken aback by the emptiness. The halls, the walls, the rooms - all practically empty. There was dirt covering the floor and grime on the walls. This building was not a home yet it housed so many lost people who had nowhere else to call home.
We walked into the common area where children played with each other spinning around on a wheeled chair - one of the very few pieces of furniture I had seen in the building at all. I had no words. I did not know where these people were from, if they spoke english, or what they had been through. I did not know what I was about to say or how I was going to even begin to relate to their situations.
I had been working with refugee children for the entirety of the previous two weeks and yet walking into this squat I suddenly felt like I did on the first day: I froze. We began to make small amounts of conversation with one of the women there at first just to gauge how much english she understood. It turned out that this brilliant women taught herself english on her phone in just a few months out of necessity from living in the squat.
Over the next hour during our conversation, I began to piece together her story. I am having trouble even now trying to comprehend just a small amount of the pain and suffering that she has experienced. And she was 20... 20 years old!!! I was on the brink of tears for most of our conversation trying to mask my heartbreak with a smile.
She talked about her past as if she was talking about the weather. She had a confident and casual tone as she described events and moments in her life that I can't even fathom anyone going through much less at such a young age. But what stunned me the most about the whole situation was not what she had been through but how she carried herself after surviving it. She was calm and confident and funny and feisty and hopeful and exceedingly intelligent. Her laugh was contagious and her smile was illuminating... and after everything she had been through.
For the first time in my life I did not know what to say or how to feel. I had been holding back tears that I was too scared to let fall. I was overcome with guilt and sadness and at the same time overflowing with hope and joy. I left that building with a million questions: How can I go home now knowing what I know? How can I live my life the same way? What can I do? What should I do?
I was ready to sell everything I owned, drop out of college, and dedicate the rest of my life to helping refugees like the ones that I met. I felt like I didn't deserve the type of life I have been blessed with when there are hundreds of thousands of people around the world with stories like the ones I heard. What gave me the right to live the way I did?
Before this trip, I could live in blissful ignorance. I could go about my day to day life studying, working, and playing, without a second thought of the plights of those across the world: because I didn't know. I had heard about the refugee crisis and seen a picture or two here and there but it wasn't real and tangible for me until I went to Greece.
Suddenly these weren't just stories, they were testimonies. And I wasn't just looking at pictures, I was shown memories. I met people who were suffering daily and yet had more hope and joy than I have ever seen anywhere else - it was contagious and inspiring.
Coming back home to America I have begun to look at things differently. I know that the Lord has a plan for my life and that plan (as far as I can tell) does not include me dropping out of college with a boatload of debt to try and "help" as best as I can. What it does mean is that I am now way more aware of what I have been blessed with and I can be more diligent and intentional in my everyday life.
It's hard for me to come back and go about my life as the faces of the people that I met are still burned in my mind and continue to appear whenever I close my eyes. My mind is here at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma, but my heart is in Greece with the refugees and missionaries on the ground there and I will listen to my head until it leads me back to my heart.
I was sent to Greece on a mission trip to help water the seeds that had already been planted by those He sent before me. I left with a new purpose and an invigorated passion that guides my every thought and action. The experiences I had over those two weeks have changed the way I look at myself, God, and the world around me and I am anxiously waiting to read the next chapter of my story.
Also, here are a few more pictures of people from my trip if you're interested.
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