Seeking Shalom

View of Frankfurt skyline across the River Main

We’ve found a church that we like a lot, and last Sunday they had a guest speaker. A tall, gangly German man took the stage and preached in a quiet voice, thick with accent. He spoke of the prophets Isaiah and Daniel and the mission of the Church in Frankfurt. Then, he said a line that caught us completely by surprise.

“If God sent you to Frankfurt, welcome to exile!”

We looked at each other. Exile? That’s a pretty strong word. I mean, sure, Frankfurt isn't exactly Germany's postcard city, and the neighborhood around the church has a rough reputation. But exile?

And yet, despite its apparent exaggeration, it immediately felt valid to our experience.

Ever since we arrived, we’ve been struggling with the reality that this is our new home. We weren’t supposed to come here; we were supposed to go to Antwerp. Germany was last on our list of countries to be in, and even when we decided to move here, Frankfurt was much lower on the list of cities we wanted to live in.

We never said the word “exile” to each other, and I’m not sure how it struck the other attendees, but wow did it resonate that Sunday morning surrounded by strangers in a strange city that was never part of the original plan. And then the speaker followed up with:

“Can you make peace with your exile?”

Again, we looked at each other. If it’s true that this feels like exile at the moment, then it’s also true we need to find a way to make peace with that. If we can’t, if this never truly feels like home, then we will never be able to flourish here as a family, as employees of Refugee Oasis, and as image-bearers of Christ.

Those words, from a stranger who knew nothing about us, gave us a way to frame what we're living*.

It’s true that, at the end of the day, we chose to come to Frankfurt (unlike many of the refugees around us who had no choice). But that decision was made on faith in the Lord’s leading, not because this was our top choice to live in Europe. There are days we feel like we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be, and other days where we feel like Jonah and this is our Nineveh. It’s push and pull, it’s paradoxical, it’s our new reality — and so, we make our peace with it.

Later in his message, the guest speaker reminded us that Jeremiah sent a letter from Jerusalem to the Jewish exiles living in Babylon, urging them to settle in and work for the prosperity of the city where they lived. In this letter, he instructs them to “...seek the welfare of the city where I [God] have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7 ESV).

When it’s all said and done, we want to be able to fully embrace our new lives here. We believe we have been sent here to come alongside local believers and, through work and prayer, help bring Shalom to the city of Frankfurt and its inhabitants. Our true home is in Heaven; this is just where we get to serve until then. When we focus on that, suddenly it feels a lot less like exile.

*We hope none of this sounds like we are not grateful for the opportunity we’ve been given to serve others, and that we are not beyond blessed by our friends, family, and network of support. We love that we get to do this and do it as a family! This was just an attempt to process a complex rollercoaster of emotions through a lens that makes sense to us and hopefully others.