This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Beiler, 33, an emergency medical technician who has volunteered in multiple war zones with his wife and children in tow.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I grew up with this deep, deep desire to travel, to see the world, and to do big things.
I grew up in a Pennsylvania Amish community, and one reason I left was because of my desire to travel.
My wife and I were newly married when we stepped away, and we were trying to figure out what life looks like without the restrictions of the Amish system.
We ended up in Iraq within 10 weeks of our wedding.
It was in the fall of 2014, when the Islamic State crisis was at its peak.
They were roaring through northern Iraq and killing, slaughtering, raping, just brutalizing people.
There was an organization there that was responding to the refugee crisis. We thought: “Sure, why not?”
I sent them an email about the possibility of work, and we left within a week and a half.
I had never flown in an airplane until that trip.
We worked in an unfinished housing development near the Sinjar Mountains in northern Iraq, maybe 20 or 30 minutes away from the fighting.
We were distributing things like food and heaters, and winterizing the houses.
Most of these people still had family members that were just captured by ISIS, and who were very traumatized.
I developed a deep love and a compassion for people who are hurting, and to this day that is a large part of what drives me.
Moving from crisis to crisis
Over the years, we’ve moved to another country eight times, with stints in places like Bolivia, Syria, and Ukraine.
We’ve moved not knowing if it will be two months or five years — we’ve probably spent several years living out of a suitcase.
There are times when it’s a bit lean and times when it’s not. There’s definitely a sacrifice involved.
In 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started, I moved my family there.
At one stage, I spent 10 weeks doing medevac for the Ukrainian armed forces. That was high intensity — my colleagues and I got targeted and shelled so many times.
Learning to handle fear
One time, in the winter of 2022, we were distributing supplies in a frontline village.
We had four vehicles in there, about seven people. I had scattered and hidden our vehicles so that if we do get bombed, we’re not in one big pile. But then one of the guys got on the radio and said a rocket had landed about 30 yards from him.
Suddenly there were rockets landing everywhere.
I’m still very religious, and I’d always thought that God would take care of us. But now I wasn’t sure if God would come through.
It took me about 20 seconds to recalibrate myself and deal with it. It didn’t last very long, but I barely dealt with fear after that.
I got shelled so many times in Ukraine, I got comfortable knowing they’re trying to kill me.
Family life in a war zone
I had a wife and four little children when we were abroad — now I have five. I’ve taken my family into Iraq, to Baghdad, into Mosul, into Ukraine.
What drives me to take this risk? It’s a good question.
Firstly, we don’t want to be separated for months on end, and I’m called to this kind of work.
It comes down to my love for people, the belief that each person deserves to experience dignity, and the freedom of walking with God.
My family stays somewhere relatively safe, away from the fighting, while I go out and do frontline work.
The children are 8, 6, 4, 1 and 2 months old. Thanks to the things we’ve done, their worldview is huge. It’s quite different compared to most people out there.
When we lived in Iraq, there were a lot of checkpoints, and the Iraqi soldiers would really make a fuss over our children.
To them, men with guns and tanks and humvees became a happy memory.
The kids have grown into it — they have adapted. They realize that if a bomb landed close by, stuff can go into high gear — and they’d come running, all excited, because a bomb exploded.
Home life in war
My wife is very connected to the work and its mission. In each of these places, she homeschools the kids and makes a home. She creates a good place for us to come back to.
My colleagues and I would be out on the front line for two, three, four days at a time, and we’re cold, muddy, miserable, being bombed. And we’d come back to a big house where we take showers, there’s a functioning family and hot food.
That’s worth a lot there.
Yes, it takes some risk, but the rewards of doing this as a family — and seeing people light up when they see a family come to hand out food, or preach, or to simply hug them — is a game changer for them.
When we were working in Iraq, we went to the city of Mosul, which at night was part-controlled by ISIS.
I rolled in there shortly after daybreak with my family to do some paperwork in the government office. I knew that some of the men there were possibly ISIS.
The police chief there looked at me and my family, and he was like: “Now I know that you truly care about us. Because you are willing to bring your most treasured possessions into this place.”
And that’s part of what we’re about.
We want people to know that the outside world does care and has not forgotten.
Putting down roots
My wife and I have talked about putting down roots.
She recognizes the call on our life to do this type of stuff. But what both of us ain’t quite sure what to do with is she’s the type of person that could live on the same piece of real estate for the next 60 years.
For me, that’s just boring. It’s a big world out there.
So usually we talk about it, process it, and pray. And we don’t move until she’s on board.
If she’s not on board, we don’t move. That’s our commitment. We both need to be in agreement before we take a step.
The kids do miss out on having a steady community, but their community is always there when they get back.
Our lives have taken a bit of a different turn in the last month or so.
We are now in Idaho — we got rid of our house and possessions and downsized to a motor home.
I’m going to be providing emergency medical services to the firefighters working the huge wildfires there.
Before every move, we always ask the kids what they want to do — and they always just want to go to the next crazy place. They absolutely love doing this kind of stuff.
They’ve been doing this since they were born. To sit in the same piece of real estate for the next 20 years is not a thing.
