Camp duty!

Darrell & I have offered our help at several refugee "camps", which is what they call them here. There is one girl in particular that took a liking to us and calls us often to see if we're free to help. We've been to the camp where she works three times and done things like paint a women's lounge, dismantle a huge clothes closet (actually 2 rooms) and today, went to pack away a large room full of toiletries, sheets, towels and blankets. We also dismantled the shelves and will go back on Saturday to move everything to a different floor and put it all back together again. The camp is really a huge building with 500 people living in it. There are children running up and down the halls, screaming like children do. The men are out in the garden, smoking and sitting for hours on end. They told us that there are lots of fights that break out because it's Ramadan and half the people are fasting and half are not. Also there are different factions, like Sunni and Shiite and they fight too. As we were packing up the toiletries and linens today, I was able to help a lot with translation as people were getting frustrated that they couldn't be understood. There were mobs of people lined up down the hall, waiting to get toiletries, diapers, clean linens, etc. They only get to change their linens once a month! I wouldn't be good at that job because I'm too soft; I was sneaking things to women on the side:) There seemed to be a lot more Arabic-speaking people in this camp than others we've been in. One of the large populations of refugees is Afghans.  We were told that is is becoming very difficult to move people out of these camps. There just aren't enough empty apartments in this city and many do not want to rent to refugees.  In fact, they're building new camps that will house thousands more who are expected to arrive in the coming months. It seems like a hopeless situation to us. The best we can offer them is a place to escape to and find people who will listen to them and love them and show them that there is hope in Jesus even if their situation seems so hopeless. We've walked the streets of this city for days and weeks, exploring which neighborhoods would be conducive to setting up a community center in. We've pretty much narrowed it down to a certain area but now to find a large hall to rent. Berlin is known for its' bureaucracy so please pray that we can cut through all of that and be able to rent something fairly soon and without a lot of hassle. Thanks for sticking with us on this journey. We can't do it alone!