Refugee Project Completed With a Song

Refugee project completed with a song.

In September 2017, we visited a refugee camp in a remote part of Czech Republic. The facility was heavily guarded and surrounded with tall fences and concertina wire.

We learned 50-60 men were detained inside for months awaiting deportation to their countries.

A request was received to provide men's clothing, hygiene kits, and some games for a refugee camp. A guitar was mentioned only as a luxury item. 

We arrived in Plzen, Czech and located some volunteers to help us assemble hygiene kits with soap, toothbrushes, shampoo, razor, and towel all packed into a mesh bag.

The same day we found discount stores to purchase shoes, shirts, jackets, pants, underwear, and socks. 

At the refugee camp, the guards checked our passports and pinned a visitor badge on us. Two missionaries had volunteered to assist us with translating with the staff. We were escorted inside to a large room where the refugees were gathered.

The refugees began getting excited as we began handing out hygiene kits and candy. As a line formed we greeted and shook hands with men from Russia, Ukraine, Angola, Tunisia, Vietnam, China, and many other countries of the world. Men were responding to us in their foreign language, with a smile on their faces. Some spoke English to us and thanked us. 

We pulled out the guitar we brought, and immediately some were drawn to pick it up and play. This man guided the hand of another to play a few chords. One man told us he had written a song about his suffering and sorrows being locked up and we asked him to play it.

As he played this heartfelt song the other men silently listened.

One man from Africa approached us stating he was so depressed as his family is far away, and he has no idea when he will be allowed to leave. He asked which church we represented and stated, “Thank you for coming-we really appreciate these things”, his time locked up has been hard to endure.

This project has opened our eyes to the plight of so many refugees throughout the world isolated, lonely, and feeling lost.

So grateful to be the Lord’s hands in helping those locked up in prisons.