A knock at the door of Randy and D’Marie Chambliss’ south Hermosa home might go unanswered.
It’s not that they’re shy. They just might be in a rather unforgiving corner of the world.
The Hermosa couple are members of Saddleback Church, and frequently volunteer on aid missions through the ministry, and through Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian international relief agency. Their efforts have taken them all over the world, on what few would call vacations.
“Every trip is different, but you can always find something that binds us together,” D’Marie said. “Wherever you go, a smile is universal.”
Refugee crisis
Randy recently returned from a two-week stint with Samaritan’s Purse at two different refugee camps in the Greek islands. About 85 percent of the people in the camps were Syrians and Iraqis displaced in the civil war and the campaign. Most of the remainder were fleeing from the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Randy’s first stop in Greece was the island of Lesvos, about 26 miles from Turkey. One of the tasks that volunteers perform is to provide immediate aid to those who had just completed the perilous crossing.
There is a significant need for such volunteers. According to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, nearly one million refugees arrived on European shores in 2015, and more than 3,000 died attempting the crossing.
At Lesvos, rafts meant for about eight people would be crammed with between 30 and 60. Because they were loaded so heavily, the boats lumbered slowly through the journey, rarely going faster than two miles per hour. The extended journey became an endurance test, as temperatures dropped into the 20s and 30s.
“It was tough for me, seeing kids with their lips purple, all pale and shivering,” Randy said. “Some would make it, some would not.”
After tending to immediate medical needs, U.N. staff on hand would fingerprint the arrivals and take their cell phones, looking for calls and e-mails suggestive of terrorism.
Randy said that journeying to the refugee camp at a time when some political candidates are calling for banning Syrian refugees from the United States provided a valuable sense of perspective.
““These people coming in are scared to death, and they were very nice. I didn’t have the fear that I was in the presence of a lot of terrorists,” he said. “For the most part, I thought I was in the presence of normal, sweet people.”
After Lesvos, Randy journeyed to a much larger camp on the island of Leros. This camp housed between 2,000 and 3,000 refugees at any given time.
Conditions were far from glamorous. The entire camp had to make due with four bathrooms and one working shower. Large families travelling together would be placed in “RHUs,” refugee housing units, one-room temporary shelters measuring 12 feet by 20 feet.
But families constituted a small percentage of the people Randy encountered. The bulk of the people encountered in such camps were single men in their 20s — ”If they had stayed behind, they’d have been recruited by the Taliban or ISIS” Randy said.
Even though such young men were mostly healthy and able, many still felt vulnerable due to recent trauma they had suffered. In a mix of English and Arabic, they shared stories of what they were escaping.
“They would come in, kick down the door, and take people,” Randy said of ISIS. “They would take women and children and sell them into sex slavery. Everyone’s heard those stories, but it’s really horrific to hear them first hand.”
For Randy, encounters like these serve as a reminder that his faith asks for a deep level of empathy and understanding.
“We should keep an open mind to people coming from other countries,” Randy said. “Jesus was a refugee too.”
Innocents at home
Randy and D’Marie’s trips don’t always take them to other countries. They are heading to either Texas or Mississippi shortly to assist with flood relief, and they spent time in Northern California earlier this year aiding victims of a series of wildfires.
Many of the people had lost their homes in a blaze. Because fire insurance is prohibitively expensive in the area, they were left with nothing.
“Being out there with people, the first time they see their house after the fire, is an emotional experience,” Randy said. “When they see a two-story house that is now three inches high, you can see the need for grief counseling.”
D’Marie said that, despite the shock of seeing their homes reduced to ashes, the people she and her husband encountered were grateful for the help. She made fast friends with many of the displaced, and recently exchanged Christmas cards with a number of people who had lost their homes.
Volunteering, whether in Northern California to Nepal, has made D’Marie grateful for the place she calls home.
“People ask, ‘Why did you come all this way and spend your free time here?’” she said. “It makes you realize we live in a pretty special place.”
