Çîvan* sat carefully cradling a teacup. Beyond the grey wall of the windowless tent, she could hear boys shouting as they kicked a stone down the rough dirt road that bisected the refugee camp. She tried to block them out and focus on the words of the woman speaking: an Interserve worker. As she listened, she turned the teacup in her hand, looking at the gilded edge.
Once a week for six weeks, she had been meeting with a small group of women as Sally*, the Interserve worker, helped them process their grief. They had all suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of violent men, including enslavement and sexual assault. Some had escaped and, weeks later, finally found their families, only to have their husbands spurn them as defiled. Utterly bereft themselves, the women wept together over daughters still held captive – some of them as young as eleven years old.
On the last day of their meetings, Sally gave each of the women an elegant teacup. She told them that just as the potter passes clay through hot fire to transform it into a porcelain cup, God can use the terror they have endured to make something beautiful.
Çîvan looked longingly at the cup and wondered, “Is it true?”
Across North Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, scores of men and women have suffered great loss, trauma, and pain. Many of them, like Çîvan, wonder whether any beauty can come from their brokenness. However, very few of them have heard of the Man of Sorrows whose wounds can bring healing and whose scars proclaim “Yes, it’s true.”
That’s why, each day, our Interserve workers skillfully meet local needs and care for individuals looking for healing and redemption. Some, like Sally, provide counseling in refugee camps. Some provide health care in low-resource communities. Others leverage education and business to drive economic growth. And many more, using a variety of skills and professions, make known the love of a Savior who weeps, creates beauty from ashes, and promises to make all things new.
*Names changed.