Diving right in...

September 3rd dawned bright and beautiful, and it was the first day of DTS. All of the students who had arrived for the school were herded into the dining hall where we began our registration. For this event we were told we needed to bring a few things with us, our passports, our health insurance information, a sleeping bag, and warm clothing. Why the last two? Well we all assumed that we would be be told that we would be sleeping in cardboard boxes that night, to gain a sort of solidarity with all the homeless people of the world. Because that is exactly what happened last year.

We were wrong of course, because after an evening of worship and introduction of the different art tracks, we found out that we would be living like refugees that night, provided with sheets of plastic and some rudimentary wooden stakes. It was too dark to make tents so we ended up wrapping the plastic around ourselves to keep off the dew. Dew was the least of my worries, however, because I was not prepared for how cold German nights get, even in the late summer time. It was a long, chilly night of cold feet for me, with very little sleep.

Morning came soon enough though, and I wrapped up my sleeping bag and moved it out of the elements and back into the castle. As the morning got progressively warmer I shed my layers and put them in the castle as well, until I was down to a t-shirt and sweatpants after breakfast. Then the bad news came. We were told in the beginning that if we chose to participate in this simulation, that we would be in it until the “UN” came to liberate us. Well, Derek “The Commander” (also the drama track leader) told us in no uncertain terms that the camp was still on that whole day and that the castle was now off limits except at meal times. Anything in the castle was now lost to us and we might as well go set up our tents properly.

That day we didn’t do much at all because we were confined to the camp boundaries. The threat of rain loomed for that evening, so we found some cardboard to lay on the floor of our tent and some extra plastic foraged from the trash bins to lay on and form an extra wall for our tent. Eventually night again fell and we obeyed the strict lights out rules. I slept much better out of sheer exhaustion until it began to rain. The plastic bags blew at us and made a lot of noise. And then the thunder and the lightning began in the distance. I slept on and off for a bit more and the storm grew louder, larger, and nearer. Just as it began to peak an alarm went off outside and Derek’s Australian accent came through a loud speaker saying “Wake up, everyone, and good morning. Wake up and collect your things quickly, we will be moving inside until breakfast. Hurry, hurry, hurry.”

As the storm raged on 100 sleepy-eyed, surprised students ran through the rain and into the castle, the girls sent up to the larger student floor and the boys sent into the dining hall to sleep a few more hours. I was a little shocked that they had brought us in for this because I know that real refugees do not get to be evacuated when the weather gets bad, they sleep outside int eh good and the bad.

Once I slept outside with a thunderstorm literally right above me, when I was on a week long hiking trip. Because of this I know how utterly terrifying and belittling a storm can be. To be unsure of whether or not lightning will strike a nearby tree and send it crashing down onto your tiny tent roof. To feel the vibration of the ground you are lying on as the thunder cracks louder than the drums at any rock concert you’ve ever been to. To hear the howl of the wind tearing through the trees, hoping that it doesn’t take your only shelter with it as well. Until this point, the refugee experience we had been going through seemed to be ringing false. We had too much stuff to be really living like refugees. We were too warm, ate too much food, and were not constantly looking over our shoulders to make sure we would be beaten up or raped. However, as I lay in my tent listening to the thunder come closer and seeing the lightning grow brighter, I thought that maybe this would bring this thing closer to real life. Maybe this would help us begin to understand the fear a refugee experiences everyday.

And then, to both my disappointment and relief at the same time (disappointment because of what I said earlier, relief because...well, it was a thunderstorm) we were moved around 5:30 am. When we went out to look at our tents after breakfast, we saw how everything had gotten soaked, including the cardboard we’d placed as our floor. It would have been an unpleasant night indeed.

Most of that day, Monday, the first real day of the DTS, was spent in the castle learning about the basics of a DTS, rules, and more. A lot of sitting and listening. By dinner time we were actually getting anxious to get outside and live like refugees again, but then the news. The simulation was supposed to have lasted until Friday, but unfortunately, the weathermen were calling for rain everyday but one, and our leaders regretfully made the hard decision to bring this refugee life to an end. They had lots of other things planned for us such as midnight kidnappings, food shortages, and other things, but knew that if we weren’t getting enough sleep at night then it would affect how much learning would be going on with the other aspects of the DTS. There were still a few girls who wanted to keep it up, and so they still have not taken a shower and there are some still sleeping on the floors in the castle. But for most of us, the refugee experience ended that night. However, our thoughts persisted. We have been given a glimpse, although it is still a skewed one, into the lives of millions of people around the world. Sometimes God calls us into uncomfortable situations, and hopefully now we can be better equipped and more willing to experience these, to put ourselves in a place that is maybe a little painful, in order to love on the people who are hurting, forgotten, and alone. There was one thing a girl named Katie said during a processing time, that if we had given up our sleeping bags and stuff in our tents, we could have fit many more people, and that the more simply we allow ourselves to live, the more room we make for other people in our lives. I really liked that thought.

In the simplicity of a decision to just live like and with other people in order to gain their trust and their friendship we can begin to speak the truth of the Lord into their lives and to learn the truth of the Lord from their lives.

How beautiful is that?