As a volunteer for refugee resettling for the past 2+ years … you get into a flow with a crew of ‘happy helpers’ … With the shared intention of making a house a home, each person brings their best self. It makes the time fly by, and no matter the blips that present themselves along the way… you always shake your head in awe and look skyward with gratitude.
Challenges are simply opportunities to celebrate miracles.
No trucks or movers on Monday isn’t a problem. By Saturday, there are so many people signing on, the workers come early, and a hefty list of furniture moves is checked off the to do list.
Despite donated pieces coming from a multitude of places, the color scheme always works, the pieces enhance the rooms, and each house becomes a home.
Recently, as the process becomes more and more familiar, I find myself wondering more and more about the families we are helping to resettle.
More than “Where do they come from?” and “What caused them to leave their home?”
I can’t help but wonder, “How do they hold on to hope?”
There are so many obstacles.
Then I remember, just like we keep experiencing: these challenges offer us an opportunity to depend on each other. To reach out to friends and to those who will become friends. We are united in a way we’ve been aching for and didn’t even know it.
There is undeniably a lot of trash. A lot of ugly. A lot of unknowns. And many opportunities to be filled with fear and turn away from the hard.
Yet… there are just as many opportunities to focus on presence.
On gift. On service.
The opportunities to share a road where companions are united in hope are limitless. I believe it is what we are all looking for.