Tunisia

So I was in Tunisia for an intense two weeks.

For my friend Ryan and I the time flew by. We were working at a Lybian Refugee camp near the Lybian boarder. While we were there a small uprising of sorts happened. Fires in the camp caused protests...

...which tuned into roadblocks. Unfortunately these roadblocks were on northern Tunisia's main trade route into Lybia. This frustrated the nearby townspeople. To voice their frustrations, the townspeople attacked, burning down about two thirds of the tents in the camp, including schools, and aid organizations tents including the tent we were working out of.

In the wake of this attack the camp residents were afraid to even stay in their own tents.. and were sleeping under the stars a few hundred yards away from the actual camp.

You might say the refugees at this camp are double or even triple refugees. All of the people in the camp had already come to Lybia seeking jobs or refuge from their home countries. So in the camp we were able to interact with people from Sudan, Darfur, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia and others. These people of course had to flee from Lybia as well due to the conlict. during our time there we played games talked, taught simple english lessons, listened to people's stories, and built relationships.

We became friends with Martin, one of our Sudanese tent neighbors, he was in the camp when the attacks happened. When we arrived the next day he rushed out of his tent and told us, "Guys i don't have your number! This is problemmmmm, I wanted to call you when your tent was burning down but i didn't have your number!"
Although we were staring at the ashes of a place we'd invested the past few days into, we couldn't help but laugh at animated way in which our Sudanese rasta-neighbor expressed his concern. Martin also helped us remember quickly that it was not a organization's tent that we had invested into, but the lives of our neighbors in the camp. We've been in some contact with the team from our base still in Tunesia and we are glad to hear that this relationship between our group and Martin is still growing.
It was great to participate in what that organization is doing over there... we are glad we made it back in one piece. Please pray as our base continues to send groups of people to work with the refugees from Lybia to Tunisia.






The past couple months have been a bit of a whirlwind for me. Coming back from Kenya, working on media from there, promoting our ministry in England, and then only a few days later going on this last minute trip to Tunisia. The next couple months will be less spread across the world, but still challenging in their own way. This next month I'll be starting the task of staffing and helping lead a discipleship training school (DTS) with a focus on justice issues. Similar to when I first came to this small German town as a DTS student myself: this school will have three months of lecture phase, where students will delve into God's heart for Justice and their roles in bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. The following three months I'll be leading a student outreach to... somewhere where we will put to use the things we have learned. I'm excited for what these few months will hold and for what God will do both in the students as well as myself as I am stretched in the area of leadership.

Thanks so much for all your prayers and support!!!