I’ve been getting a kick about using the word ‘moving’ to describe our experiences these past few weeks. First of all, we were asking for ‘moving’ prayer for our soon to be move, then, we were having a ‘moving’ experience, and now, we’re here, still alive to tell the full ‘moving’ story.
As the crow flies we were just moving our things 45 miles West of our prior location. You might say, “The other side of the Dallas metroplex.” But, moving across these particular miles you have to pass some of the most severely contested areas of Northern Iraq, not just between Saddam’s armies and the Kurds, but between the Kurds themselves.
As one travels the road between Erbil and Koya you can still see the signs of a deeply divided struggle played out not 10 years prior between the two main, Kurdish, ruling parties of Northern Iraq: the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) and the PUK (People’s Union of Kurdistan).
Both have a lasting partnership with the U.S. military, but have viewed each other with tribal suspicion in recent years erupting into a full scale civil war in the late 90s.
The reason their story has some significance to ours has to do with a recent law put in place to control the ‘moving’ of peoples or families from the PUK controlled region to the KDP controlled region.
This law became for us a personal experience as we sat and waited at the internal ‘border’ crossing between these two zones.
Usually in Iraq, at least I can speak for the North, an American passport or even just looking like an American can be as effective as Diplomat’s Passport granting you passage to do or to go perhaps anywhere you like, but not this day.
We pulled up with our load of things to the checkpoint. We were swiftly ushered through, then, I pulled off to the side of the road to make sure that our moving truck would receive the same welcoming treatment. To my surprise our truck was swiftly waved on as well and off we went with thanksgiving on our lips and praise in our hearts.
Then, not a kilometer down the road, I looked up to see a car chasing down our moving truck prompting them to pull off the road and stop. Not to let our things sit on the side of the road in the middle of the desert, we turned around and followed our truck back to the checkpoint.
Not understanding ‘why’ we were chosen to wait in the sun at the checkpoint for an hour and a half with nearly all our belongings on the side of the road as hundreds of car passed on gave rise to some aberrant thoughts that made me a bit more personally sympathetic with our Gaza neighbors South West of us, and I must add had me looking long and hard at a few choice rocks with which to share my frustration.
In the end, I refrained. Thank the Lord. The boys had to get out and run around some in a ploughed up field nearby, though Peter nearly came to end of himself saying adamantly with a gush of tears, “I can’t wait any longer. We want to go to our new home!”
After a while you sort of got the feeling that they thought that we were somehow dangerous with our kitchen cabinets, refrigerator, carpets, couches, chairs, and 3 little boys. The logic of our delay was maddening. Thank God it wasn’t raining that day as it normally does in February.
Yes, we were the recipients of the ‘new law’ that even the border guards had a hard explaining to us – many of them had seen me countless times before and probably new our car by sight, but because we had a kitchen cabinet in tow this time it meant we couldn’t continue.
You won’t find many people saying that the Middle East has the corner market on logic, and it’s not that hard to find out why.
My country director in Erbil, Abdullah, rushed to the Governor’s office to seek a special letter that required his personal signature to allow this displaced American family to cross into his district. Though waiting for hours in his office, the Governor had better things to do that day [as I hope he did], so the letter was promised to be given later that night.
That meant that our belongings would have to stay behind as our family continued on to Erbil as we always had done probably a hundred times since we arrived last summer. The moving truck headed back to Koya and waited till the next day to try again.
Approaching the checkpoint the following day our truck driver was met by a taxi driver with the personal letter signed by the Governor allowing our things to pass into the Erbilian district of Iraq. The delay, though at time felt like the hand of Satan, actually was helpful in hindsight as it enabled us to clean house a bit more before all our stuff arrived.
But, because large trucks aren’t allowed into the city limits for security reasons, it was back to Koya the same day for the remainder of our things.
Finally, our move was complete as we began to unpack and set up house that night.
The Lord was certainly gracious to us by allowing our move to be broken up a bit more by the new law, and by giving us some of the best weather of the year thus far. Could you imagine the tone of this story if we’d had the normal cold, wet, and windy February weather? My Goodness! Our things could have been ruined not to mention our testimony. : )
And just as we settled into our new home, the mercury dropped once again and the heavens continued their onslaught on the dry ground.
And that is our ‘moving’ story.
