So........ this blog will be more like a vlog than a blog... starting with a great slide show! I hope you like it!
It was so powerful meeting and worshiping and seeing the healing that happened with these amazing refugees in the refugee city of Dzaleka. 55,000 refugees with about 333 coming in every month. This place could look on the outside like a place that God has abandoned, but what I discovered was that God is the God of this refugee camp and His Kingdom is forcefully advancing here!
This song was reinvented by these awesome singers! The Holy Spirit came into the room and we took our normal song and made it one worthy of heaven! I got it on video and I hope you enjoy it! God says "the poor can count on me and so can orphans. I see the trouble and distress and I will do something!" Amen!
Here is some singing from our closing ceremony! Simret (on the far right) from Ethopia and one of the facilitators taught them a song from her culture and language and they added it into their medley. The singing in the closing ceremony was so beautiful!
Here is a time lapse video of the outside of the church that you have just seen the inside of. A little taste of Africa. We were at this venue the second week, the church is in the middle of the refugee camp.
Here is the forgiveness ceremony and a little of the amazing singing. We were gathered around the baptismal in the front of the church.
A testimony of forgiveness from Sheila (with her permission of course). The week prior, we did the ceremony with the refugees we were training to be healing group facilitators with the participants the following week. Sheila didn't want to do the ceremony. She had vowed never to forgive her mom for abandoning her when she was a baby! A voice told her not to come and that she would be uncomfortable, but another voice told her to go anyway. She came to the ceremony and finally forgave her mom for abandoning her to go to Canada with a man who said "I don't want any children, but you can come." She was still young enough to be nursing. She grew up going from house to house in the camp, constantly watching family after family get to leave and going through a lot of sexual abuse from the "fathers" in the families that took her in. She had every reason to be bitter and angry and make that vow, only God had a better plan to set her free and give her the impossible gift of forgiveness. She took it and with a huge smile shared her story and ended it by saying "I'm finally free." She even came to understand why her mom left - her family was starving and her mom and sister told her that leaving was the best option. Sheila came to know God was real when one night after being kicked out of another home and being forced to sleep on the street of a refugee camp all night as a girl, she woke up and hadn't been raped or abused in any way. Her story amazed me and encouraged me and helped me see some of what God wanted to do through me on this trip.
Here is a tour of where I spent my first week! After that is a tour of where I was staying ( a 40-60 minute drive from the camp). I got to drive the first week and that was a lot of fun.
Simon told me his story and it broke my heart. But he is someone who has so much ambition to make a difference. After sharing his ideas with me, I prayed and decided that one way that I can help him is be a voice for him. So this video is his plea for some help to get a festival funded for the camp as a way to bring some hope. I hope to get it cleaned up a bit and repost it, but for now here it is. If you are interested in helping him fund his festival, please reach out to me and let me know and I'll tell you where you can donate.
This kind of thing can get really long, so for now I'll just end with one last story that really touched me and thank you for your prayers and for partnering with me in this ministry! God is doing mighty things and I'm so grateful that I get to be used because you have been used to send me! Together we are seeing God's Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven!
Koko came from the Democratic Republic of Congo, meaning that he and I were born in the same place! When he was 8 his father abandoned the family and Koko began his long and hard journey of suffering. At 11 soldiers came and sexually abused his sister so badly that she was hospitalized and since has never been able to have another menstrual cycle (causing her much shame and pain and to wonder if she is really a woman). To avoid this happening again his family fled into the forest. During their escape mom was lost and they couldn't go back and find her. He doesn't know if she is alive, but he chooses to believe that they will see each other again. Now Koko lives in a camp with his sister and Aunt and Uncle. He sleeps every night in their shop as security. They have already lost everything in the shop multiple times. He sleeps about 4 hours a day, using whatever time he has after school and chores to study so that hopefully he can get a scholarship someday. He rents a wheelbarrow to haul the gallons of water to his house every day. That money is precious to him, but the chore is very challenging and he was developing some bad symptoms from the toll it was taking on his body. He doesn't want his sister to have to haul the water so he keeps his pain to himself. Koko was the most natural facilitator I have ever met. At 19 he was so full of empathy and hope and humor and ingenuity. He asked me about my life because he knew listening was healing and wanted to give me that gift. He did the "Pain to the cross" ceremony with his sister and cried with her as she took her pain to Jesus. He is planning to raise chickens one day in the hopes that he can get some extra money for his family! I was so encouraged and amazed when he bought balloons for an activity we were doing. He came early and put in the work every day! Koko became one of my heroes and his testimony amazes me and challenged me!
Please pray for Koko and Simon and Sheila and let the testimonies encourage you that we serve a God who does the impossible! His love is reaching and freeing those all around, here and abroad! Thank you for being a part of it!
Blessings,
Caleb
If you want to support what I do a little or a lot, on a one time basis or with recurring gifts, click on the tab "Supporting the Work" at the top of the page and sign up for Chase Quickpay. You can then send your donation to HCLC - Caleb Robbins Ministry using my e-mail address caleb_robbins@sil.org. If you would like further instructions on setting that up, please click on the link at the top right of the page called How to give. Or feel free to contact me directly! 214 558 8431.
Another way to donate to the ministry is via check. If you write a check to "Holy Cross Lutheran Church" and put "Caleb Robbins Ministry" in the memo line, it will get deposited into my ministry account.
The address is:
Holy Cross Lutheran Church
4400 W Arkansas Ln
Arlington, TX 76016
Diane is my beautiful wife and the mother of my precious children Creed 14, Asher 11, Liam 10, Echo already in heaven, Bella 6, and Serenity 5 years old.
