Warp and Weft of Life

An insistent heavy-handed hammering startles you awake as your heart jumps to the beat of the battering of the door. “They’ve finally come, we must flee now!” you realize. You wake your wife and the two of you go to wake the children. “Wake up,” you whisper. “Put your shoes on. Leave everything else. We must go.” you tell them. As you tie the last lace, you hear the door being broken to shards and you run out the back holding your children’s hands while scrabbling through bushes into the darkness with your heart pulsing fear into every sinew of your body.

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This story is just one reality of millions of refugees each year. They flee because of fear. Determined to live, they run to their country’s border seeking release from fear not knowing what lies on the other side, but hoping for something better…a future of peace and hope for their children and themselves.

We hear and see news reports about refugees. We agree they need to get out of their countries where tyrants rule, rebels kill, and genocide abounds because of greed, corruption, and prejudice, where persecution is a daily reality. In theory, we stand up and cry out they must be allowed to live in other countries to have personal freedom and rights. Yet, when refugees enter our country, many hundreds or thousands of people speak hatefully about them and/or physically confront them. Why? Because of fear-fear of having their jobs taken, of their cultures changing, of violence from the refugees’ countries entering their own country, and of letting other worldviews change their home country. Still, there are some people who see and hear about refugees and want and do help, but those numbers are small. Let’s consider who refugees are, what they come from, what their needs are, how we can help them, and how we truly can accept them. Let’s see their humanity, hear their stories, grieve their losses with them, listen to their hopes, help them become interdependent with the citizens of their adopted country, and see how we, too, can be interdependent with them, realizing that is not a bad thing.

Who are Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Before we go any further, we must understand a couple terms. According to the United Nations High Council on Refugees (UNHCR), 

A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Most likely, they cannot return home or are afraid to do so.
-[https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/what-is-a-refugee/] 

An asylum seeker is a refugee who asks a government officially for refugee status in their country. This refugee fled then filed papers requesting sanctuary because of fear of living in his or her own nation. This asylum seeker is a person who waits for the government of the country of refuge to process his or her official request for refuge, sanctuary. For purposes of this article, we will call this population of people refugees, too.

At the end of 2016, the UNHCR recorded 65.6 million people of concern and 20, 013, 996 refugees and asylum seekers. These 20+ million refugees (and asylum seekers) are not just from the Middle East [https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/statistics].  “One in every 113 people globally is a refugee,” the UNHCR says. A list of the nations of origin for these millions of refugees from the UNHCR includes, but is not limited to, the below countries listed. As you can see from the chart below, refugees come from across the globe, not just the Middle East. This data and more can be read on this website- http://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2016/

                                                               

Afghanistan	Iran	Pakistan	China	Iraq
Armenia	Azerbaijan	Bangladesh	Belarus	Benin
Bolivia	Burkina Faso	Tunisia	Uganda	Gambia
Burundi	Central African Republic	Chad	Congo	Cote d’Ivoire
Chile	Columbia	Costa Rica	Cuba	Liberia
Czech Republic	Djibouti	Egypt	El Salvador	Libya
Democratic Republic of the Congo	Serbia & Kosovo	Tajikistan	Yemen	Western Sahara
Eritrea	Ethiopia	Guinea	Bosnia & Herzegovina	Cameroon
Georgia	Lebanon	Syria	Turkey	Ukraine
Ghana	Guatemala	Hungary	India	Israel
Jordan	Kazakhstan	Kenya	Kuwait	Kyrgyzstan
Malaysia	Maldives	Mauritius	Mexico	Mongolia
Mali	Mauritania	Mongolia	Montenegro	Niger
Mali	Morocco	Nigeria	Palestine	Paraguay
Mozambique	Myanmar	Nepal	New Zealand	Thailand
Peru	Philippines	Romania	Russian Federation	Rwanda
Senegal	Sierra Leone	Slovakia	Somalia	South Africa
South Sudan	Sri Lanka	Sudan	Turkmenistan	Lithuania
Syria	Honduras	Haiti	Guinea	Guinea-Bissau
Tibet	Timor-Leste	Togo	Tonga	Tunisia
Uganda	Ukraine	UAE	United Kingdom	United States
Uzbekistan	Venezuela	Vietnam	Zambia	Zimbabwe

               

What Are Their Stories

Each person and family has their own story. Though it may sound like each person has the same story and we want to shut them off not really hearing them, we must realize telling their story is part of their healing. It also serves to educate and humanize the listener. By telling his or her story, not only is the refugee releasing some of his or her pain and realizing someone cares, but the listener grows in knowledge of world issues and in compassion, care, and love for people besides his or her own community, state, and nation. A broader worldview occurs. A connection happens between people when they share and listen to each other’s stories. Compassion increases and mutual, healthy interdependence eventually occurs.

Some refugee stories reveal torture and death of family and friends for voting against the country’s current president. Other stories expose racial and tribal genocide, called ethnic cleansing. Often these stories declare the usurpation of the rights of females by marrying children to older men. Countless recollections retell the subjugation of women by men in a myriad of ways-beatings, starvation, slavery, physical detention, rape, and mutilation. Men, women, and children are captured and sold into slavery of hard labor or prostitution. Of the 20+ million refugees and asylum seekers, there are 20+ million heinous stories. This article is not to tell each story, but to make you aware of them. Another article will detail a handful of these stories.

The Refugees’ Needs

As mentioned earlier, often the first need for any refugee is to tell his or her story. It begins the healing process for the person and, if heard, begins to open the door of aid by the listener as compassion grows. However, we the listener must not jump to the conclusion we know what the refugee needs. The most humane thing we can do at the start of our relationship with a refugee, along with listening to his or her story, is ask him or her what the family’s biggest need is. When we assume to know and jump to our own conclusions, we steal the little power the refugee family has. Instead, empower the refugee by listening to his or her story and understanding his or her greatest need.

Refugees will express needs for many areas of their lives-physical, mental and emotional, academic, legal, and spiritual. Physical needs could be food, drink, clothing, housing, and medical help. Mental and emotional needs might be counseling for trauma. Academic needs may be for academic testing for learning delays, determination of educational level, getting children into school, and skills training for adults. Legal aid will be an area of need refugees will have to rightfully live in their host country or to get documents from their embassy they fled without taking. Walking with them through the legal steps to receive sanctuary in their host country is paramount for a refugee otherwise that country could deport him or her to his or her country of origin/persecution. Spiritual need perhaps includes counseling. It may also include answering questions about your faith because you made an impression on them with your care, compassion, and love. It’s also possible the refugee experienced persecution before because he or she did not convert to a particular faith and has questions about different faith systems including your own. Needs are varied and many. A person who seeks to help refugees should allow the refugee to express his or her felt needs. The person who helps refugees should seek to help with the perceived needs spoken of as well as discuss other needs the refugee may have not yet considered. 

What Should Be Our Response

The juxtaposition of what should be our response to refugees in our country and what is often the response of people to an influx of “aliens” is often glaringly apparent. Too often refugees encounter derision, hate, and persecution in their adopted nation of refuge. They feel unwanted and hated though they did nothing to warrant these feelings, and resultant actions and words. Instead of this response to refugees, we as human beings should empathize realizing how we would feel living through persecution-fearing enough for one’s own life to flee hoping to save one’s family members’ lives. The human response of care and compassion for people whose lives are at stake should arise within everyone who hears and knows about refugees. This reaction is part of each person’s inner character. A maxim taught to most children is to do to other people what you would want them to do to you. This sums up the innate human reaction of one person for another person.

Besides this innate response to people in crisis, most faith systems teach and command their adherents to give aid to the “alien/foreigner”, the sick, and the downtrodden. For the Christian, this is paramount. Both Old and New Testaments tell what God told His people to do about refugees (aliens/sojourners), the sick, orphans, widows, the broken-hearted, and the downtrodden. Exodus 22:21 and 23:9 reminds the Jews and, later, Christians we all have been sojourners/aliens among foreign people. The Jews were sojourners in Egypt; they were aliens.

Additionally, throughout time, every person alienates him- or herself from God because of his or her willful, sinful actions until he or she accepts Jesus Christ as his or her Lord. Before that acceptance of Jesus, every person can then be considered an alien. God took care of the Jews and takes care of Christians and non-Christians alike, not because of what they could/can pay or do for Him, but because of His love, kindness, and compassion for them. Paul said in Romans 2:4, God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. God offers kindness to every person. Kindness is goodness, gentleness, and uprightness.

Multiple Bible passages reveal this great love and kindness God has for us, aliens in foreign lands. Moses recorded in Leviticus 19:33-34, we are not to do a sojourner/alien wrong, but treat him/her as a native and love him as we do our own selves. Jeremiah recorded in Jeremiah 22:3, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place [Judah, the place of God, as is our hearts the place of God].’” David said it another way in Psalm 146:9. He said, “The Lord watches over the sojourner; He upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked He brings to ruin.” Throughout Deuteronomy, God commanded the Israelites to care for the widow, orphan, and alien. Consider Deuteronomy 1:16, 5:14, 10:18-19, 14:29, 16:14, 24:14, 24:17, 24:19-21, 26:12-13, 27:19, 29:10-12, and 31:12.

The New Testament gives emphasis, too, to loving all people. Jesus called them “neighbors.” In Mark 12:28-34, a Jewish scribe asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment. He told them what Moses taught the Israelites. He said, “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” Jesus added the second greatest commandment, which sums up the last six of the Ten Commandments. He said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said almost the same in Matthew 7:12 when he said, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (also found in Leviticus 19:18) [These last two remind us of the maxim of doing to others what you want them to do to you.] The writer of Hebrews, in Hebrews 13:2, taught, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Jesus taught about taking care of injured and sick people we encounter with His teaching of the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. In Matthew 5:42, He taught to give to the beggar and not to refuse the one who needs to borrow from you. Additionally, Jesus taught His disciples before the chief priests arrested Him. He told them in Matthew 25:35-40,

Jesus said ‘For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me in; naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. ‘then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you, or thirst, and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger, and invite you in, or naked, and clothe you? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even to the least of them, you did it to me.’

Jesus told His followers if you love Me you will keep My commandments (John 14:15). In our own power, we fail Jesus’ command. Yet, as believers in Jesus Christ, He gives us His Holy Spirit to encourage, teach, and empower us to obey Him. That comes through the gifts of the Spirit, of which the fruit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Whether Christian or not, God’s natural and written Laws, and the laws of right and wrong instilled by God in our consciences (Romans 1-2) should lead us to care for aliens. We have the God-given capacity for compassion, love, and care. Each of us knows within our being we should help the aliens/refugees. Our own idea of help often leads us to require the refugee to acculturate to their adopted country, our country. Though God wants all people to come to a saving knowledge of Him, He did not force the sojourners/aliens of the Old Testament to become Jews before being helped by the Jews. His example of care should lead us to care for the refugee whether or not he or she is from our faith or celebrates our holidays. God commanded the Jews to take care of the alien, orphan, and widow. He wants none of His creation to suffer and commands us to care for them. That does not mean demanding they acculturate.

Instead, we as the hosts should make them welcome, develop a relationship with them, open our hearts to them, and assist them. We should learn from them–culture, religion, family, language, customs, interests, and special days of celebration. When we learn about them, we build relationships. As these relationships grow, refugees are no longer “them”, but a part of “us.” We have a heart for them. They care for us. We build bridges. It’s like when a man and woman marry. They each come from different backgrounds–special days, ways to celebrate common holidays, etc., but this newly formed family begins to accept each background and each spouse decides what is most important for each other and, out of love for the other person, he and she adds the special days and ways of the spouse into his/her life so they become one. They celebrate together because they care for each other. They celebrate together because they understand why this occasion is special and important for the spouse. The husband and wife become interdependent-interwoven.

This marriage of cultures is the ultimate example of how living with refugees should be. It is no longer a “them” versus “us” scenario, but a “we” communal life that is woven together. It is a “we” sharing in the joys and pains, triumphs and defeats, and common life together because we become knitted together. This starts with our head choosing to understand and help, and moves to the heart accepting and living-communing with new members in the community-with and in the extended “family”. How we do this is through intentional ministering/helping. Let the refugee tell you his/her need and begin there. But don’t stop there. Consider your own heart and mind, and determine your own need so you can accept the refugee. You become a woven fabric of warp and weft that makes you stronger and interdependent; it makes you and your community more colorful. One without the other is weak, but together, they build and hold the community up; they make it stronger.

Ways to Help Refugees

Though not inclusive, the below list includes ways to help refugees and asylum-seekers. These ideas come from multiple people who have spoken with, listened to, lived with, and assisted their new friends.

·         English as a Second Language courses

·         Skills training courses–metal work, sewing, computers, housekeeping, bookkeeping, etc.

·         Testing and helping refugees to translate and transfer their current certifications from their home countries to their adopted home country

·         Legal Aid–asylum documents, passports, birth certificates, food stamps, government aid, UNHCR assistance

·         Transportation

·         Teaching how to write resumes/CVs and how to seek and interview for a job

·         Medical clinics–HIV/AIDS and family planning, regular medical issues, vaccinations, counseling for traumas

·         Help to get children into school, including testing to determine which grade level each child should enter, finding scholarships for college-age children

·         Finding homes–apartments, communal housing, buying old motels and converting them to refugee communities, tents, shacks, etc.

·         Feeding programs and food assistance

·         Garden plots sown from vacant plots of land to assist with feeding refugees and providing an income for their families

·         Spiritual counseling and teaching

Only one of these activities is obviously spiritual; any person can help with the rest. Still, if one has a relationship with the Lord, each of these activities/ministries come from the spiritual act of obedience to God to care for the alien, orphan and widow, and to love your neighbor. Whether you are a Christian or not, within each person is a heart that seeks relationship and has love. Taking care of refugees from all nations is doing just that, being in relationship, loving, and taking care of their fellow human being, their neighbor. 

Concluding Thoughts

The golden rule says, do unto others as you want them to do for you. Put yourself in their place. If you had to run for your life to another country, what would you want? Would you want to be helped or be yelled at, threatened, and left to fend for yourself? I encourage you to listen to your heart and to God. Join people who come to your country and be in relationship with them. Be warp to their weft. Become strong together, caring for each other, interdependent. Incorporate into your life some of their ways. Understand their culture. Love them for who they are, as God loves each of you. Just as you are no longer aliens, but a part of God’s household (Ephesians 2:13-19), consider them your neighbors and family, not aliens. Maybe in the process of living with and loving them, they will no longer be aliens, but become a part of the family of God, too.
 

But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So, then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. –Ephesians 2:13-22