Meeting refugees in Hamburg, Germany
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Surely God’s goodness and love will follow us all the days of our life and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. He is our shepherd and forever good father, amen. The war between Russia and Ukraine is almost a month. We are so busy loving on these precious Ukrainian friends. Our team had an emergency meeting in early March to strategise how we can love on these Ukrainian friends. Love is beyond languages, cultures and has no distance. We talked to the officials at the train station and offered a welcome lounge to let them have rest, wifi access to contact their love ones who are fighting in Ukraine, hot food, a napping place and even a place for kids to play. We also shared God’s love and prayers Several of them were so touched and accepted the prayers.
I have never experienced being so close to a war; one of the Ukrainian friends asked me if I am afraid of an attack from China on Taiwan. I then shared that I know God protects us and He gives us peace. We pray and He fights for us. He promises that in this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world and I will never forsake you. After sharing, one of the girls said to me that she should start to believe in something and then of course I pointed her to Jesus. I also had several chances to share Jesus with the kids, and their pure hearts chose simply just to believe – it really blessed my heart so much. May the Lord water the seeds to grow, amen.
Our team also takes this wonderful opportunity to take our disciples along to serve: hands-on experience together. Fari’s eyes are almost completely healed after a month. Through this difficulty, she has finally learned to have a day off each week. She disagreed with me earlier as she often said to me that I don’t understand her situation, she has no time to rest. Now she says to me that “yes, I have learned the lesson. I need to rest in the Lord.” I am thankful that we are on this journey together. Finally, we are able to meet as a small group with a sister who got baptised last year; I joined the baptism via zoom when I was still in Taiwan.
Through this opportunity serving the Ukrainian friends, I got to meet Niushua and her parents. I invited them to my place for barbeque and fellowship. I wish to disciple 11 year old Niushua and walk on this journey together. They all happily accepted and we had a good time together. From the picture below, you see a lion by the mug, it is because I asked in Persian, “Do you take sugar in your tea?” They said to me, sugar and lion are the same words in Persian. How interesting it is! So I gave them a lion doll to enjoy with the tea.
