Outside of my full-time job, I've had the opportunity to freelance write for Mockingbird magazine. In their "Mercy" print issue, I had the honor of interviewing some of my colleagues on how they grapple with the horrific tragedies we witness and continue on in this work to help people survive, recover, and rebuild their lives.

Here's an excerpt from Look for the Helpers:

You’re not alone if you avoid the news before your morning cup of coffee — recent years have brought particularly heartbreaking headlines. In Ukraine, we’ve seen a war that’s caused the largest and fastest displacement crisis in Europe since World War II; in Afghanistan, a government takeover that’s set back women’s rights at least 20 years; in Syria, a devastating earthquake where twelve years of conflict has already decimated its healthcare system and sent 15 million people spiraling into humanitarian need; and a cost-of-living crisis echoed worldwide. I know all this not so much because I keep up with the news on the regular, but because I read and write stories of refugees and displaced people whom my colleagues from the International Rescue Committee work with every day.

When I first joined the IRC, I was having nightmares about crowds of people attempting to escape Afghanistan. Several months later, when the conflict in Ukraine escalated, the nightmares began again. I struggled as our team collected and produced so many stories of people who, even still, haven’t been helped. New mothers fleeing the country with newborns were forced to leave their husbands behind. Families were separated. People were at a loss for what to do or where to go. I remember one particular night I woke up to an intense thunderstorm thinking that DC, where I live, was being bombed.

I realized that war, earthquakes, droughts, and famine show no mercy to whoever is in their wake. They spare no one. And this is what regurgitates some of my toughest life questions: Where is God in the midst of the war in Ukraine? Or the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan? Or the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and neighboring countries while families were still asleep in their beds?

This is what led me to the stories you’re about to read. In an attempt to expand my own understanding of God’s mercy in the midst of these horrific tragedies, I interviewed several of my colleagues at the IRC — a humanitarian organization that helps people affected by some of the world’s worst crises to survive, recover, and rebuild their lives.

All of them have either been face-to-face with these tragedies or have had to deal with the fast and hard facts on the other end of them. What I learned is that my colleagues have been chewing on these questions enough to come up with some pretty thought-provoking answers.

And, somehow, they all turned out to be unanimous...