Dearest and fondest friends and family and maybe those who do not know me personally,

I wanted to write a little letter to update you on what is going on in my life, what’s been happening and where I’m going.

My name is Sarah Grace Oliman, for the past two years, I’ve been growing roots in my hometown San Clemente, CA, specifically serving at my church, first as an intern and then as a staff member. It has been two years of seeing the goodness of God and seeing the fulfillment of what has come to be one of my favorite psalms: “God sets the lonely in families.” At the end of my internship in December 2020, I had a couple options of where I could take my next steps in life, move to Boise, move to Minneapolis, pursue finishing my aviation licensing and degree at university, but I felt very strongly from the Lord to stay home and not uproot the foundation that was starting to set.

Coming back from my YWAM DTS in April of 2018, I had come home with a specific direction from God: come back to the States, move back into my family’s home, and go back to school. My heart was set in the opposite direction; I was sold out to stay in the global missions field serving refugees. I did not miss home and I was in the place where I actually got to know God personally and was scared to leave it. All three directives I thought I had previously been released from, and all three I was not the most keen to obey, but I obeyed nonetheless. Four years removed, I can see the reasoning and blessing behind those three asks from the Lord: my relationship with my father has been restored, relationships with my brothers and sisters have grown with a foundation of friendship and forgiveness and I got to experience a season of rest by going back to school (which sounds contradictory to the point but I actually really like school and learning about planes and aviation was so joyful), and so much more. 2018 Sarah Grace was confused as to what could possibly come from me moving back to the place I had left six months prior and 2022 Sarah Grace can only acknowledge how good God is for bringing me back to the place I needed to heal relationships and to be healed.

Yet throughout these years, the seed that was planted in my heart to serve refugees and love the vulnerable the way Jesus did and does, took root and only grew as each of the four years have come and gone. Friends from Lesvos (the Greek island where I lived in 2017) have moved away, Moria, the camp in which I served, has burned down, friends who I planned to return to the island with now have their sails pushing them forward in a different direction and yet the burning for the island, the camp and the people remains and what was once a coal keeping warm in the idea of “someday” is now a flame that requires a response. And I have chosen to do just that: respond.

In January 2023, I will be moving to Lesvos, Greece full-time to serve as a volunteer with EuroRelief in the refugee camp called Mavrovouni. Since spitting in my palm and shaking hands with the Lord, shaking on the promise obedience holds, I have felt everything with the covering of peace throughout. I have felt sad to be leaving the first true church family I have ever had and yet I am still at peace. Worried about finding someone to take over my lease and still peaceful. Scared that my father’s eye diseases will take his eyesight while I’m gone and yet still peaceful. It’s a peace that surpasses all understanding and though I trusted God before the decision was made and before the peace, He only continues to keep giving me reason to trust Him.

I will be on volunteer staff with EuroRelief, providing hands-on hope to those in the most vulnerable situation: people displaced from their homes, often times separated from their families.

It would be my great honor of you would partner with me in prayer and finances. Firstly, in prayer over the people in camp as they are usually not only in physical distress but also mental and emotional turmoil.

Second, in prayer for me as I commit to serving these people, that God would work through me, that his love would always be at the forefront of my every action and every word.

Lastly, in finances. Will you partner with me to be the hands and feet of Jesus?

Sarah Grace