Lenya Heitzig - Reload Love: Transforming Bullets to Beauty and Battlegrounds to Playgrounds

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

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Cover by Jason Gabbert Design

Cover photos Petr Bonek, siraphat, Ekaterina Zimodro, Photo Boutique, donatas1205/Shutterstock

Backcover Author Photo by Matt and Tish Photography

Published in association with William K. Jensen Literary Agency, 119 Bampton Court, Eugene, Oregon 97404.

Reload Love

Copyright 2018 Lenya Heitzig

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97408

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-7035-8 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-7036-5 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Heitzig, Lenya, author.

Title: Reload Love / Lenya Heitzig.

Description: Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018000690 (print) | LCCN 2018018070 (ebook) | ISBN 9780736970365 (ebook) | ISBN 9780736970358 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Church work with children. | Missions. | Reload Love (Organization) | Heitzig, Lenya.

Classification: LCC BV2616 (ebook) | LCC BV2616 .H45 2018 (print) | DDC 267/.13dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018000690

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To Aram, the eight-year-old boy, who escaped the brutal attacks of ISIS on Mount Sinjar. Despite losing several family members, he found hope and healing on a playground built by Reload Love. It is for him and millions like him that we bring beauty from bullets.

O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;

you will strengthen their heart;

you will incline your ear

to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,

so that man who is of the earth

may strike terror no more.

PSALM 10:17-18 ESV

Contents

To my husband, Skip Heitzig, thank you for marrying me and embarking on the journey of a lifetime where God turned a little home Bible study into a megachurch with eternal impact. You embraced the vision God gave me to impact children caught in the crossfire of terrorism. Because you opened your heart and great doors of opportunity, Reload Love has armed children with hope across the globe. Team Heitzig for life!

To Franklin Graham, president of Samaritans Purse International, I will always be grateful for your gutsy approach to reaching the least of these with the gospel of Jesus Christ and encouraging me to do the same. Skip and I have been privileged to join you where devastation hitswhether the killing fields of Rwanda, the frontlines of the conflict in Iraq, or the battered shores of Japan post-tsunami. Cant stop, wont stop!

To Dave Eubank, director of Free Burma Rangers, thank you for taking Malibu Barbie and teaching her how to be GI Jane. Your maxim to never make a decision based on fear, comfort, or pride challenges me to the core. Your example gave me courage to run through the jungle, crawl through ISIS tunnels, and summit Mount Sinjar to place playgrounds on top of battlegrounds. Never surrender!

I n 2015, streams of Yazidi refugees, escaping the atrocities of ISIS in the Sinjar region, found their way to a place called Khanke Camp, a sea of white tents provided by UNRCH, a United Nations organization. All around them in the Kurdish wilderness, unseen and uncharted, were live land mines and discarded IEDs (improvised explosive devices) left behind by ISIS from when they had fled from advancing coalition forces. These fields, stretching for miles all the way to the mountains, were not places where anyone could simply wander around. Children could not run through the tall grass. Certain areas had been cleared, but the camp was an island in the middle of an abandoned battlefield.

It was early in the long and winding journey of Reload Love, and my husband, Skip, scouted out potential partners for us in the middle of those windswept plains of Kurdistan. We were a young organization still trying to figure out how to help children impacted by terror, and we wanted to team up with others already doing that kind of work in the region. Providing playgrounds had just begun pinging our radar as a possible way of alleviating the pain and trauma inflicted on children by terrorism.

Skip was shown around Khanke Camp. He saw one-room tents housing families, some of which held more than ten people. Four tents shared one toilet, and there were eight tents for every one shower. Do the maththats more than 40 people sharing one toilet, more than 80 people sharing one shower. Eventually the camp would house 45,000 people inside those barbed-wire fences, while another 20,000 squatters surrounded the perimeter, looking for safety, food, and shelter. Thats 65,000 people, practically the population of a city, and every single one of them was displaced. No employment. Barely enough food and water. And for the time being, nowhere to go.

As Skip was led through the community, he passed a group of kids and noticed they were in the midst of an elaborate game of make-believe. Their play reminded him of his childhood in Apple Valley, California, the home of western movie stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Skip and his brother had often reenacted the Wild West, with one of them impersonating the sheriff and the other wearing a black cowboy hat, taking on the role of the bad guy. They had spent many afternoons like that, chasing each other around the backyard, wielding their pretend six-shooters, facing each other in duels.

Ohhh, Skip and his brother had groaned, collapsing to the dirt in mock agony, clutching their gut. You got me.

What are those boys doing? Skip asked the interpreter, intrigued by the childrens game.

Theyre playing, the interpreter said.

I can see that. But what are they playing? Can you ask them?

The young Kurdish volunteer called the kids over. They approached, laughing and chatting, each one pushing to the front of the group, simultaneously excited and bashful to speak to the tall, white American. After a rapid-fire, back-and-forth conversation, the boys ran off and continued their game in the narrow alleys between the long rows of white tents. In moments, they disappeared, but Skip could still hear their shouts. The interpreter turned to give Skip the explanation.