Befriending Refugees
I had never really thought much about refugees until Mary and Martha’s initial Sunday school presentation made me aware of the challenges they face before and after they arrive in this country. Since then, I have participated in many of the activities designed to help our parish learn more about who refugees are, why and how they come here, and how I can walk with them.
The Good Lie, starring Reese Witherspoon, is a realistic portrayal of the challenges and triumphs encountered by refugees who resettle to America and the communities that receive them.
The movie The Good Lie showed me some of the trauma refugees from Sudan (now called South Sudan) had to endure and how vulnerable they can be to exploitation and negative influences, but also how creative, resourceful, and resilient they are, and how relationships with caring people can have a meaningful impact on their lives.
When Mary’s friend Jany, a former Lost Boy from Sudan, came to speak to us in Sunday school, I was really impressed by his cheerful attitude and lack of self pity despite what he had been through. He radiated joy. I found myself thinking about what he had to go through compared with my own relatively safe childhood here in America. I didn’t have to flee from war on foot across the country with no food, cross rivers full of hungry hippos and crocodiles, see loved ones die in horrible ways, or languish for years in a refugee camp.
At the January 2016 refugee-ministry training, Allison (center) participated in a demonstration of the long process people undergo to come to the US as legal refugees.
I attended the refugee-ministry training Mary and Martha put on at GCU in January, and that was also helpful. I learned many things – current political factors affecting the arrival of refugees, how to help without hurting, and how they need our time more than our leftover stuff, which I would not have thought of. The training also began to change the way I think about Muslims. Now, I look at women in headscarves with a little less suspicion and find myself wondering where they’re from.
Nine Christ Church parishioners spent their Saturday morning delivering household necessities and warm welcomes to newly arrived refugees through The Welcome to America Project.
The next refugee experience, partnering with The Welcome to America Project to deliver household necessities to refugees new to our community, brought me out of my comfort zone and up close and personal with refugees. Their physical surroundings were a little depressing to me, but the things we brought them helped somewhat. I learned that refugees are people just like you and me with hopes and dreams; they’re searching for a better life for themselves and their children.
Abounding Service is a faith-based, volunteer-driven program that helps refugee adults learn English and other life skills.
Next, we went to Abounding Service language school at an apartment complex where I saw more people who didn’t look like me, dress like me, or talk like me, but are people who are loved by God just the same.
During our time there, I reconnected with two friends living next door to the language school, got a recipe for some really good Croatian cookies from Anna in the office, and met Hiyam from Iraq. She cried when she talked to our group about how much she missed her family. Her tears touched my heart.
Visiting with her later, I found her gracious, welcoming and hospitable, despite lack of sleep from being up multiple times with her sick baby.
Since I live in close proximity to the apartment complex, I decided that would be a logical place to get more involved. At the Abounding Service language school, I’ve met refugees from all over the world, including Basha and Ibrahim from Syria, Lay Pau from Thailand, and Martin, a husband and father whose car was shot multiple times not too long ago while he and his family slept – not a very nice welcome to America.
Together, all of these experiences have made me more aware of the extent of my self absorption and how uninformed and unaware I’ve been of the world at large. I have since discovered books in Arabic at the Phoenix Public Library, visited a Middle Eastern grocery store, made my first Muslim friend, cooked lentil soup with turmeric, learned what halal means, and can say “grandmother” in Arabic.