McKenna is a junior in college at UGA studying English and working as an editor, as well as content creator for Odyssey. Back in March, she traveled to Heidelberg, Germany, for a week with her church, Watkinsville First Baptist, to work with refugees in the city there. I drove up to meet her last week and interview her about the time she spent there. Her heart for the people she met there is so evident in her voice, and I hope I can show you just a bit of it through this. This is her story through quotes, and her love and beauty through pictures.
"He told me, 'I have a whole stack of them.' As in, present tense: they still belonged to him, even though they'd been left in a home that maybe didn't belong to him anymore or maybe wasn't even there anymore."
For McKenna, a college student studying English and following her passions, one of the most startling things was that Hosea was studying something he didn't remotely enjoy, just so he could increase his potential to find a job, to get the money to remain, to exist.
"I have the freedom to go to school and to live, but Hosea goes to school to find a way to survive. He has to sacrifice his passions while I indulge mine, and how unfair is that? Why do I get that privilege?"
We are all worried about a better future, but for them, their better is what we're fighting to escape. We worry about getting trapped in a job we don't like; they're scrambling to find even that so they can stake a claim at the right to be alive.
The refugees she worked with live in an abandoned American Army Base, evacuated in 2015 by the US and reclaimed by the starving and the lonely. Within what has now become a slum, run down after a year of no care, live children who are not allowed to go to school. These children sit in the space allotted to them, playing and waiting as the days go by. Her missions group found themselves more than willing to assist them in their playing and spent multiple evenings with a group of the kids there.
After the second night, as she was playing with a little girl, a parent approached her, holding a cell phone with a picture of the wife he'd left behind.
"She was back in Syria with their one year old son. He swiped to the next picture, and it was just a picture of her eyes and I thought, 'wow, he must look at those every night and miss her so deeply.'"
Amongst the Muslims they were working with, they found that the women were not allowed to talk to the men. She said that sometimes they wouldn't talk to them even if there was a man in the group they were with. And even if they had been allowed to talk, most of the women couldn't speak English mainly because they were women and hadn't been allowed in school. Because of that their work was most productive amidst the men.
"One of the most asked questions when people find that out is, 'Did you ever feel unsafe? Did you ever feel like you were in danger?' And the answer is no. They were so, so kind."
"What would I say to the Christians in regards to the refugee situation? The Bible is very clear on how we should treat refugees... It isn't about us. Jesus did not just die on the cross just for me, he died on the cross for them too, even if they aren't Christians. This is about His comfort and love that they need to be shown. How selfish are we that we strip people down to objects to be put in a box and kept somewhere else?"
"To the Christians I say: I understand that you fear for your family but if refugees were to come over here and some of them were to attack and your family were to die, they would die being obedient to God and that's all that matters."
Before McKenna went on this grand adventure, she prayed that God would show her how to love His people. She fought for this trip before it was even an option; she looked upwards towards her Creator and asked Him for permission to serve those before her and He looked down saying, "Beloved, yes." This seed was planted in her heart months before her church announced it would be going to Germany, and the flower continues to grow as she finds the love he placed in her for the lost strengthening daily.
"This is how I know this love is from God: because two years ago I hated refugees and I wanted ISIS nuked. But today, I get so angry when I hear Georgia will not take in any Syrians. I have never been more angry than when I heard that—and I asked God, 'Why do I feel this way?' It was such a holy and righteous anger, and I couldn't figure out what to do with it, until I got the email about Germany. And I knew then that this was why I felt so passionately about the refugees: because He was sending me to work with them and to love His people. I hated them two years ago, and now look where I am."
From Matthew 6:25-34:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Dearest McKenna, you have a fire for Jesus that radiates through the questions you ask and the way that you love. Never lose that passion and never stop listening for His voice; it will always be there for as long as you are listening.
