60 million. According to the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees, there were 60 million refugees worldwide in 2014. The United States resettles around 60,000 per year. Memphis, TN resettles around 200 per year. I had the incredible opportunity of interning with World Relief Memphis for one summer – or roughly one-fifth of the year.  So one-fifth of 200 refugees = 40 refugees. 

40 out of 60,000,000.  That’s nothing. That’s less than one percent of one percent of one percent of refugees for the year. That’s nothing. I did nothing. But when you’re serving the God of the universe, He turns nothing into everything. I could talk for hours how God moved in Memphis this summer and I wouldn’t begin to scratch the surface.

For the most part, the tasks I did this summer appear fairly simple. I moved furniture. Cleaned apartments. I took families to the grocery store. To the Social Security office. To the doctor. To the bank. To register for school. To the Health Department. Taught English classes. ….Nothing that appears all that difficult to an average American citizen. But now imagine doing all these things: without a car, without speaking any English, without being able to fill out a form in English, without knowing where these places are, without knowing how these processes work, without the documents you need. Suddenly ordinary things become near impossible.

But that’s where we came in. We - people who didn’t speak your language- would show up at your apartment, take you and your family and documents to some unknown location, would often wait there for hours, talk in English to people behind counters, and return you home.

But sometimes those “simple” tasks involved having a 4 year old boy scratch you because he hates going to the doctor, digging through trash looking for a receipt, running through the aisles of all the nearest grocery stores looking for a family, waiting at Social Security for hours only to be told the documents are missing one number, spending five hours fighting for four students to get enrolled in high school, or simply sitting in a corner and filling out stacks of forms.

But in all that, in all the craziness and the struggles and the frustrations, I realized what it means to advocate for someone, to stand up for them, to fight for them when they don’t know how to themselves. I realized what Jesus does for us each and every day. I realized how Jesus stands before our Father, pleads for us, takes our burdens, and suffers. How Jesus advocates for us when we can’t do it ourselves. How we don’t even know half of what He is doing for us, or remotely understand why, yet He patiently and selflessly loves and stands up for us. And He never stops. Even when we want to.

God taught me this summer how upside-down He works. He revealed stories of suffering and death and pain, beyond which my heart could bear. He led me to my knees asking why. And then reminded me that He created this universe, and my little childlike mind can’t begin to understand why. And taught me this -  that we are most the hands and feet of Jesus Christ when we humble ourselves, when we step out of our comfortable bubble, when we are broken at the foot of the cross, and when we learn to love in spite of the brokenness.

God gives us a new perspective if we let Him take us out of our routine. I experienced new meanings of ordinary words: family, sacrifice, loss, trust, injustice, faith, worship, forgiveness, ambition, suffering, joy, community, and love. I came to World Relief to serve others, and others served me.  I came to love others, and others loved me. In the words of my partner: We taught English, but they taught us life.

All thanks be to God, for this summer, for this Jesus-serving organization, for the selfless staff who work there, for the other interns that made it so memorable, and for the loving refugees who taught us all so much.

Michelle Miller

Intern Summer 2015