I had a conversation yesterday that will stick with me for a long time.
If you've been reading/following me for a while, you know that Becky and I had our lives changed when we made a visit to Athens four years ago to see up close just one of the crises caused by the Syrian civil war: the influx of thousands of refugees into Europe. Athens was the epicenter.
We didn't go to save the day, we went to learn. And what I learned will never be fully expressed in words.
The conversation yesterday was with one of the people we met during that brief visit. I don't remember spending time with Omar, as we'll call him for now, more than twice, but he taught me some things I hope never to forget. Omar is from Damascus, which he had to flee for his life, make the dangerous trip north to Turkey, and cross the narrow body of water in an overcrowded boat to Greece. The story he tells of making that journey with his then girlfriend is harrowing. I won't go into the details except to say Omar felt their chances of survival were 50/50.
He met up with another refugee named Khalil, a Palestinian who had lived all his life in a Syrian refugee camp outside Damascus. (Yes, some live their entire lives in such a place.) The two became friends and thought how great it would be to be relocated to the same place.
The news came. Khalil and his wife and little girl were being sent to Portugal; Omar and Nila were being sent to a country they knew virtually nothing about: Lithuania. If you know your European geography, you know the two countries are literally at opposite corners of the continent. I asked Omar if he was disappointed at being separated from his friend. His reply:
"To be honest, I was just glad to be moving forward -- anywhere."
What struck me about our contact with Omar and Khalil (pictured here in an English lesson with yours truly) and the others we met in Athens was their astoundingly positive attitude, in spite of the ordeal they had already endured -- not to mention the uncertainty of their future. There was no sense of entitlement, there were no angry or impatient demands, but instead an enviable serenity about them. Not only that, they never stopped giving: Khalil often served as an interpreter with his knowledge of English, and Omar, a trained barber, offered free haircuts to fellow refugees.
Seems we could take a lesson here with the disruption Covid has brought to our lives. Indeed, the lessons we learned from these heroes of ours will find their application for who knows how many years to come.
I try to keep these Wayfarer installments brief, so I'm going to tell you in a near-future installment a little about Omar's new life four years later in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, where I caught up with him yesterday via Zoom. I hope you'll be watching for Part 2 -- I think you'll find it inspiring.