The One Where I Stay in Columbus

It took me a while to touch down in America. The plane landed on February 12th, but my mind and my body have only just caught up. A lot has changed in those few months, and I wanted to give a brief overview for those of you who have been praying for me and supporting this strange journey of mine.

I came home convinced I would be in the Middle East again by August. I have loved that area of the world for seven years now, and felt more alive there than I have anywhere else. But when I began to pursue actually living in the Middle East, I felt an internal unrest, like the gears of my life were grinding in the wrong direction. I opened my Bible in April to Jeremiah 42, the day after I had a meeting about the possibility of moving to Egypt. The passage declares, “pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.” I gave a hearty amen and kept reading. In verse 10, I read something that has resounded in my head and heart since that day: “If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I have relented concerning the disaster I have inflicted on you.” Then, in verse 19: “Do not go to Egypt.”

I believe in reading Scripture contextually. What I was doing at that moment was the opposite. But it validated something that I had been feeling since I came home – the wind had shifted, and my dreams were not what I thought they were. Over the next month, I began to feel more and more as though I needed to stay in Columbus, and I began to dream again about something that had caught my attention in the year or so before I left: housing. What would it look like to learn everything I possibly could about the affordable housing crisis? What would it look like to dream of ways to meet housing needs? What does it take to find someone a place to call home, especially those who have been forced to flee their own, original homes? I began to wonder what it might look like to create a deeper and wider space in the world for everyone to have a place to settle in and call their own.

Photo by Tom Rumble on Unsplash

Home has always been a core value of mine. I love creating space. I love planting myself and settling down and staying in. I have been a homebody since I was three years old. When my sister wanted to go out, I wanted to stay by the fire. I love adventure, too – but I love adventure more when I can stay put for a bit, unpack my suitcase and settle into a rhythm. I was able to do that in Paris, and then in Lebanon. I saw people make beautiful homes out of UNHCR tents. I witnessed the families people created around themselves, since they would never be able to go back to their own, either because of death or war or persecution. More than anything right now, I want to help make more space for that newness: the hard, awful, beautiful work of building a new life. 

So, after a few months of teaching English, I took a job at Community Refugee and Immigration Services as the Housing Coordinator. I find homes for people who are newly resettled in Columbus, many of them coming out of camps. It has already been hard – finding housing for families without jobs (yet) and without rental history is complex. Mix in that we’re in a national housing crisis and the work seems nearly impossible. Still – I think this is what I’m supposed to do right now. This is the work I want to put my hands to. When I was in Paris, I asked God where he wanted me to land. I was at a retreat in Normandy, praying that I would hear clearly from the Lord, and this was the only picture I got during my time: Columbus as a pot of soup, beginning to boil, new ingredients constantly being added – and God saying, “I am stirring up something in Columbus.” After being here a few months, and nearly my whole life before that, I know this is true. I love the Middle East and my prayer is still that someday I will be able to have an impact on the lives of those in camps, although I’m not sure what that looks like. For now, though, I want to create space for people here. I want to learn everything I can about housing, and I want to learn to pray for and believe in bigger things than I’ve known to pray for and believe in.

Because this job is big and impossible, I am building an email list to send out prayer requests and updates. It is projected that by the end of the summer we will be housing a family a day, which is daunting considering the lack of available options right now. If you want to be added to my prayer list, please email my personal email at weiantlaura@gmail.com. Stay tuned - this should be fun!