The Pharmacist Who Planted Anyway

When Mithat Isik arrived in Altenburg, Germany, as a Syrian refugee in 2015, he had every reason to hold back. He was a trained pharmacist who had fled Aleppo with his family, landing in a small East German town where some residents openly resented the newcomers. The language was foreign. The winters were brutal. Nothing about Altenburg felt like home.

But Isik did something unexpected. Instead of waiting for permission to return to his old life, he started building a new one right where he was. He learned German in eighteen months. He volunteered at a local clinic, translating for other refugees. He passed the German pharmacy licensing exam and eventually opened his own shop on the town square. He joined the volunteer fire department. He coached a youth soccer team. Slowly, the man who had lost everything became someone his neighbors could not imagine the town without.

A reporter once asked him why he invested so deeply in a place he never planned to be. Isik smiled and said, "If I wait to live until I get the life I wanted, I will never live at all."

That is the heartbeat of Jeremiah's letter to the exiles. God did not say, "Endure Babylon." He said, "Build houses. Plant gardens. Seek the welfare of the city." The command was not to survive exile but to sanctify it — to trust that the God who allowed the displacement also had purpose woven into every unwanted mile.