News from the Border

It is now 11:42 pm and I just finished my first day working with refugees at the Tunisia-Libyan border and I am too tired to post any pictures. I will post some tomorrow though so you can get an idea of the magnitude of what it happening here.

After seeing this first hand the situation has become much clearer to me, although I must say it is very complicated. As of Wednesday morning 53,000 people had come across the border asking for refugee status. They are taken to one of two refugee camps until their embassy can arrange for them to be repatriated. It is Tunisia’s intention that all of the refugees return to their home country with help from their government. Of the 53,000 who entered as refugees by Wednesday morning, about 40,000 of them were still in the camps.

Today seven thousand Egyptians left the refugee camp to be flown back to Egypt. About half of these came from the camp that I was working at. In the morning everywhere you looked there were Egyptians. By mid afternoon they seemed to be all gone. Shortly after night fall another group of Egyptians (more numerous than those that left) descended upon our camp. There is some turnover and many people are being sent back home, but they are coming in at a rate much faster than they can possibly be repatriated.

The camps have people from many different countries but overwhelmingly they are from Egypt, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Additionally almost all of the refugees are men. Of the 17,000 people in the camp that I am working in, less than thirty of them are women. Largely the people are behaving well and grateful for how they are being treated. It is, however, a very tense environment.

I am a part of a group that is cooking hot meals and serving them to the refugees. We serve one meal in the late afternoon/evening, and we are currently cooking for and serving about 10,000 meals. When our food ran out tonight there remained a line of people waiting to be served that was longer than when we started serving. The numbers of people are unfathomable.

Tomorrow, Thursday March 3^rd, I am turning 41. I can’t think of any better way to celebrate my birthday. I am honored to be here doing this and I am blessed that God is giving me the opportunity to serve him. Today I had the unique honor of being able to see the face of Jesus seventeen thousand times.