A 2020 Mustard Seed
Gaza Palestinian Refugee Camp, Jerash, Jordan. August, 2019. Photo Credit: Shelby Mathis
The analogy of the mustard seed is generally understood to convey the growth of the kingdom, or government, of God from something very small to the point of being very large, eventually encompassing the entire earth.
I’m just going to be blunt, 2020 has sucked. Sucked hard. It has for each one of us for different reasons. In 17 years of working in the Middle East, this is the longest stretch of time I’ve been unable to travel to the Middle East. I’ve been stuck in America and it’s probably been the worst time ever to be stuck here. Am I right?
It’ll be ten months in December since I’ve been in the Middle East. Ten months without getting my hands dirty, without seeing dear friends, without speaking horribly broken Arabic, without a taxi driver story, without me losing it on an Arab taxi driver, without sharing a lingering lunch with a friend’s family, without their moms trying to kill me by force-feeding me delicious Middle Eastern cuisine, without participating in work that is life giving, and without my heart feeling fully alive.
I am grateful to continue to work on behalf of Palestinian refugees in the U.S. during this uncertain time. But, on a personal level, it’s been painful not to be in the Middle East since it’s such a part of my heart. I am sure you could tell me a story of your pain this year, about a piece of your heart that grieves so much of what you have lost in 2020.
In the midst of such great frustration and disappointment there has been joy for me in 2020. It reminds me of what I always say about Beirut. It’s never all pure hell or all pure heaven, it’s a combo of the two. When it looks the bleakest, you might just be amazed with joy. It reminds me of a quote that nothing touches the human heart like suffering and beauty.
And you know what my joy has been about in 2020? A mustard seed.
I firmly believe that great social change or impact will happen by a bunch of ordinary people who are neither rich nor powerful. When they band together to organize, to fight against the odds, and to sacrifice for the greater good, this is when organic change happens. It happens on the streets. It starts as a mustard seed and grows into a movement.
Isn’t that what Jesus did? He started teaching outcasts and ordinary folks on the street. And built a movement of ordinary people risking their lives for something bigger than themselves. Isn’t that what happened in the civil rights movement?
I’ve thought of this often, the struggle and fight for Palestinian rights is not popular nor is prestigious. There is no place that I would rather be, then with a ragtag group of people coming together to fight for someone else’s basic rights. And to do it against popular opinion, against the odds, against a fight that is bigger than one person. This is what touches our hearts. It is suffering and beauty commingling.
No matter how small you feel or how inadequate you feel or how you think you are incapable of making change, you are the difference. You are the change the world needs. I mention that because 2020 maybe made us feel small or beat the living crap out of us or took our identities to some extent. But the beauty of this year has been ordinary folks fighting for others – healthcare workers, grocery store clerks, truck drivers – fighting and holding us together.
I’ve seen it in Palestinian refugees fighting for their communities. The Palestinian Civil Defense in Lebanon is a network of emergency services in Palestinian refugee camps. They have been the first line of defense in COVID, providing sanitation, PPE, and awareness campaigns. They are even performing burials for refugees who die from COVID so no one else gets infected. Did you ever think about how an infected refugee is buried in dignity? This August, after the Beirut blast, they left their refugee camps to help rescue Lebanese caught under the rubble. Refugees serving in a crisis in a country that denies them basic human rights.
Beauty in a mustard seed.
At the beginning of the pandemic, my worry was for people in refugee camps. They are densely populated, lack clean water, and adequate medical care. I have known that if the virus spreads in the camps, it will be catastrophic. If the virus doesn’t devastate them, then hunger will. Most refugees, lucky to have work, work daily jobs. Without daily income, there will be no way to feed their families. There are no safety nets or savings account, you earn money that day to eat that day.
Amazingly this year, anytime I made a request and presented a need, people in the US stepped up. And it’s not like Americans were having an easy time of it with lockdowns, unemployment, and total confusion on how to handle the pandemic.
In March, I asked donors if we could shift funds from our funded projects straight to COVID relief including food packages. They overwhelmingly agreed. I asked to fund a salary of a dear friend in Jordan who serves the women of a refugee camp. I consider her essential. People here stepped up and provided a salary for her.
When I asked people to help support Palestinian Civil Defense after the Beirut blast, people gave generously and blew past our goal.
It’s been humbling to see how freely people gave.
So far in 2020, we have been able to send $33,000 to the Middle East to cover essential employee salaries, COVID protection, including sanitation efforts, and food packages. It even was used to purchase ambulances for two Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut.
I put out small requests, completely unsure at the response and ordinary people gave sacrificially. We made an enormous difference in the lives of Palestinian refugees half-way across the world in a pandemic.
Beauty in a mustard seed.
That’s my joy in 2020, to impact others for good TOGETHER.
And we are not done with 2020 yet. #GivingTuesday is coming up the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and we have announced our projects for 2021. We are continuing to secure basic rights for Palestinian refugees including employment and COVID protection. Go here to find more information.
You still have an opportunity to close out this year by joining a small movement of ordinary people fighting to make the world a better place for Palestinian refugees.
Beauty in the mustard seed.