In Their Words: Miriam's and Etienne's Stories

 As with the other refugee stories related to you earlier, refugees and asylum-seekers told these stories directly to me. I used three questions to guide the conversation, but other than that, the people told of their experiences as a refugee and/or asylum-seeker. As much as possible, the words are exactly their own. I have corrected the grammar.

Miriam’s Story

What was life like in your home country?

My life in my country was not good. Because of the war we had to move place to place.

What made you decide to leave your country?

The reason I left my country is that from 1992 to 1999 we had a big war and the soldiers came to the houses forcing the young men to go into the army. If the soldiers came to your house, they stole things and killed people. If they found a young lady, they raped her. I was one of the women who the soldiers raped. They raped in front of my parents, sisters, and brother. That is why I left my country in 1999.

What has life been like in your host/adopted country?

 My life in my host country of South Africa is not good. I have been here since 1999. The situation is very bad. I was robbed many times, but the last time it happened in my home. We went to open a case with the police. Soon those robbers found out and got very upset. They came to warn us if we continue with the case one member of the family would die, so we had to drop the case. Still, those bad men never stopped asking about money or anything because they know my home. I am always stressed. Just imagine. My child was born here. The principals and boards of governors of the schools did not accept and let her go to high school. Thank God who always helps us. I have no place to go back home in my own country because my parents died because of what happened to me. I would like to go home, but I can’t.

Etienne’s Story

What was life like in your home country?

When I was a little boy, I thought I wanted to become a lawyer or teacher, but man can purpose in his heart and God provides and leads. I completed primary school and secondary school. In 1993, God called me to serve Him. From 1994 through now, I am a pastor.

What made you decide to leave your country?

A decision came from God about my job. In April 2016, my church appointed me to go to Cape Town as an evangelist. Remember, there is a problem with the political system in the DRC with our president. He sent a crowd of people to impose on me their system of election and their choice of candidate, not mine. I couldn’t mix the people of God with their political system. I refused their compelling. They wanted to persecute me, so my church sent me to Cape Town to be an evangelist.

What has life been like in your host/adopted country?

I like to live in South Africa to preach the Good News of God. Yet, if God wants my next step to be somewhere else, like America, Europe, Asia, etc., I will go.

In Their Words: Claudine and Mado's Stories

As in the other stories from refugees, Claudine and Mado recall traumatic days. Though their lives and those of their families have been difficult since fleeing their home country of the Democratic Republic if the Congo, they still find hope and joy. Is it possible for each of us to learn something from the lives of refugees about expecting and experiencing God’s hand of protection and provision? Read below and hear the voices of these two women.

Claudine

Question 1: What was life like in your home country?

Life in my country was good until I lost my parents. I had no one to support my studies for a computer degree. I didn’t finish the degree because there was a huge misunderstanding between my parents and their families before they died. Afterward, I was chased from my parent’s house with my young brothers and sisters by our uncles. Fortunately for us, the church that I attended decided to take care of us by arranging for a shelter and our other needs.

Question 2: What made you decide to leave your country?

The reason I left my home country was I was wanted by the government because of the strikes and protests organized by the youth commissions against the war, crime, rape, and killing of the people of the country’s provinces. Some of the organizers were shot and killed by my country’s soldiers. Others escaped to different countries. I was among those who escaped to South Africa. That happened in 2009. My husband followed me to South Africa.

Question 3: What has life been like in your host/adopted country?

Life in South Africa is difficult since I gave birth to my 3 children. My husband works as a car guard in a parking lot and he does not earn much money. I work in the community at the grocery store as a counter hand at the bakery. The pay is very little for surviving, especially since pay day is only at month end. I must think about rent, electricity, water, food, children’s transportation and school fees, and other needs. My husband and I are just working for rent, water, and electricity. Sometimes we struggle for food, but we always survive by the grace of God.

Mado

Question 1: What was life like in your home country?

When we lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the army and prejudiced people would come to my husband and threaten to kill him because his mother was from the Tutsi tribe of Rwanda. They fled Rwanda during the war when he was a child. He grew up in DRC, but still they wanted to kill him. Sometimes when they came to our home to threaten to kill him, they would rape me. I still can’t talk about those times.

Question 2: What made you decide to leave your country?

We came to South Africa because of fear for my husband’s life, fear that I would be raped again, and fear for our six children’s futures. I was a teacher in the DRC. One day we ran for our lives and I did not think to bring my teaching certificates.

Question 3: What has life been like in your host/adopted country?

Now in South Africa, I have 8 children. My children go to a Catholic school and I pay some of the tuition fees by being a volunteer teacher. I also have a tent covering a table from which I sell food in small bags that my countrymen like to eat. I sell this food outside one of the city’s busy train stations. It does not give enough money for us to eat more than one meal a day and to rent one room in an apartment for my whole family of ten people.

Four years ago, a missionary surprised us when she brought food for my whole family to last for a month. On that morning, my children fought over the last tablespoon of porridge. My husband asked, “What are we going to do?” I said, “God will provide.” God provided that very day when the missionary came to our room. She brought a month’s supply of food for all ten of us to eat three times a day.

Conclusion

Mado and Claudine faced atrocities most of us will only ever hear about, but not experience. Their lives are not easier regarding employment and paying for rent, food, and utilities. Claudine and Mado and their families face prejudice and discrimination from the nationals in their adopted countries. Yet, they expect God to intervene for them. These ladies know who the Provider is. Mado and Claudine, too, help their fellow countrymen and woman who are in desperate need by sharing their supplies, too. All the while, they give God glory when He provides in ways each of us take for granted.

In Their Words: Petra's and Fabrice's Stories

Refugee is a word almost everyone has heard in today’s world. The phenomenon of displaced people is rife now. Modern history has never seen this amount of people running to save their lives from political unrest within countries.

Media centers portray refugees trudging through rivers and mud, hiding in forests, carrying their meager goods, and looking at the world with desperation and hopelessness. Are these the true story? Is there more to the story? What is the background of each of these people? Do they want to return home or make our home nation their new home? Each of these questions are important, but their answers are often surprising, especially the answer to the last question. From interviews with refugees and asylum seekers, most want to return to their home countries. Let’s consider more refugee stories and understand them better.

In an earlier segment of this series, we heard from refugees and asylum seekers from three countries-Burundi, DRC, and Sudan. With this article, a refugee from Serbia and one from the Democratic Republic of the Congo will tell of their lives in their home countries and their refuge countries. Petra and Fabrice will answer three questions and provide color to refugee stories so we can learn more about them and the refugee crisis.

Interviews

Petra from Serbia

Question 1: What was life like in your home country?

My home country was very beautiful in many ways. My town of Banja Luka is beautiful. It sits on a pretty river called Vrbas and hills surround it. It is a picturesque town and if it was not for the war, I would have never left.

I have a great life until April 1992. Things had become politically complex. I was a child and did not understand much. All I knew was that the governments were changing and things were going to be different. My parents had great jobs. We had everything I now have in the United States. When war broke out suddenly, our very existence came into question. We were a Muslim family in a city that was majority becoming Serb territory.

Question 2: What made you decide to leave your country?

Bosnia and Herzegovina was a country that suffered horrible atrocities. The Yugoslavian Army overnight became the Serbian army and started attacking civilians and all those that did not identify as Serbs.

We left due to the genocide that our people experienced in the period between 1992-1995. It was the worst war crime committed against civilians since World War 2 in the heart of Europe. Little was done to help innocent people.

Question 3: What has life been like in your host/adopted country?

Life in the new country was a struggle in the beginning. We were eager to get acclimated as soon as possible. My parents are highly educated in their native land and were factory workers in the USA when we arrived and as we grew up. They sometimes held three jobs to keep the bills paid. My parents never complained. They just pushed my sisters and me to get our education.

We did not speak much English, and friends were few. We tended to socialize with those that also came from Bosnia since it was easier. Americans were extremely friendly, but due to coming at the awkward age of a teenager, we did not make many friends with the nationals. It became easier in college. Our accents always made us different and to this day I am asked from where my accent comes.

My sisters and I did well. One works as an accountant at a major oil firm in Dallas. The youngest is a pharmacist. I am a psychotherapist, but also work as a consultant for the patient experience division in a major health system in Texas.

I am telling you my story because refugees have been painted so negatively and almost as a threat to America. In all honesty, we just fled violence. I cannot express my gratitude to this country for welcoming us, and allowing us to work hard and live in peace. My heart bleeds for those that are somewhere in a camp on the other side of the world that will never get that chance.

Fabrice from the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Question 1: What was life like in your home country?

First of all, my country, Congo DRC, is nice and big. We have many riches, but people are suffering too much because they are not getting profit from those riches. Even if they study and get degrees, getting a job is very difficult. Some of us with degrees stayed home for a long time without getting a job. Those who are supposed to fight for the people so they can get profit from our natural riches are using all the riches for their own gain.

Life is good only for those who are working for the government. The rest of the people are suffering. Those people were supposed to speak on behalf of all DRC people. Politicians are getting rich, they and their families, while people are suffering. There is no food, no school, and no jobs.

My country’s politics are very bad because everyone is seeking his own interests, not the peoples’ interests. The few politicians who are fighting for the peoples’ interests are killed or put in prison for reasons that are not viable. The president is not respecting the constitution and is taking more mandate of his function by changing the constitution. Corruption is his top purpose in my country.

Question 2: What made you decide to leave your country?

The main reason I decided to leave my country was the political conflict. In fact, in 2016 there was a big conflict between two political parties, the UDPS, which was led by Mr. Tshisekedi Wa Mulumba Ethiene, and the PPRD, which is led by the current President of the country, Kabila Kabange Joseph.

I was studying at Petroleum and Gas Institute, which was in the same area as the UDPS general quarter. My father was an activist of the UDPS, as well as all my family. In the same year, our general quarter was burned by the PPRD activists. Some of the UDPS activists were burned inside the general quarter. Some researchers were killed by those PPRD activist. My family and I are part of the list of UDPS that the PPRD knows about. We were unsafe in the Congo from then.

We ran from them, the PPRD, me and my father, mother, three brothers and sister. Until now I don’t know where they are. I mean my family. I was running from the PPRD with my wife. We ran from the capital of Kinshasa to a city of Katanga province called Lubumbashi, but there we were still not safe because Lubumbashi is still Congo. I spoke with a truck driver about what happened to us and he drove us from Lubumbashi to Zambia. When we got to Zambia, he spoke to his friend, another driver, asking him to drive us to South Africa. He said we would be safe in that country. That driver drove us to Cape town.

Question 3: What has life been like in your host/adopted country?

Living in South Africa wasn’t easy for us when we arrived. Indeed, we arrived here on 23 December 2016. I didn’t know English. I didn’t have asylum seeker documents, and in January my wife got pregnant. It was very difficult for us to live here because I didn’t know what to do. Without a job and documents what could I do? Really, we suffered. 

At that time, a Congolese person advised me to go to the Scalabrini center to seek a document that would allow my wife to be assisted, and to give birth. That time I wasn’t working and by the grace of God my wife was doing a small job as a hairdresser. The little money she got helped us to get food to eat and to buy baby stuff.

When the baby was born, my wife couldn’t work again. Then one person in my church fellowship connected me to a lift job. After 3 months, that job was finished because I don’t have asylum documents. The little I’m getting now is helping to pay rent, to eat, and buy some baby stuff.

We were happy when Home Affairs said that it was going to give newcomers documents here in Cape Town, but until now they do nothing. It’s like they canceled it. We are willing to go in Pretoria, Durban, or Messina to seek documents, but we don’t have money for transportation.

Life in South Africa is difficult if you are foreigner because we are facing many problems: difficulty in getting documents, xenophobia, difficulty in getting jobs.

Conclusion

Often people consider refugees as people who will enter our home counties and take our jobs, introduce foreign religions and cultures, and take over our nations. Displaced people only seek asylum from the ravages of despair, hopelessness, and fear in their countries. They seek safety, rest, and reprieve. Refugees have no long-term goal of overthrowing and taking over another nation. Still, people fear them, their differences, their languages, and their influence on the people of the host countries. What will it take for us to realize these are people made in God’s image, too? They, too, are for whom He sent Jesus to die and give eternal life because of His sacrificial and dear love? These stories become the voice of refugees and asylum seekers. By them, we can learn the truth and accept these people, these voiceless and persecuted humanity, and love them as God asks us to love them, as our neighbor. What will it take for you to love them as your brothers and sisters?