Why serve the Refugee?

It’s a complicated process gaining legal status as a “Refugee.” People just can’t catch a flight to New York, and walk up to Customs and say, “Hey, I’m a refugee. Let me in!”

The process involves extreme vetting by international agencies, US immigration agencies, and domestic non-profit organizations. It then requires acquiring sponsorship by a resettlement agency, such as World Relief. The entire process usually takes over 10 years to complete.

But recently, the US State Department has significantly lowered the number of refugees allowed into the country. Although this is not unprecedented, it has created a wave of financial cutbacks in non-profit refugee resettlement services, and has led to an increase in fear and anxiety among the refugee community. Moreover, many people are backing away from helping or volunteering with agencies servicing local refugees. They feel it’s too political, or too controversial.

So, why are we still serving the refugee community in our area?

Imagine

Imagine what it would be like if you had to run from your apartment or house in the middle of the night, leaving behind everything that couldn’t fit into a bag or backpack. Then, imagine you find safe passage out of your city, and are granted access to a UN supervised refugee camp … in Mexico. There you are given a new home, which might be little more than a shack with a blue tarp roof. You have no air conditioning, nor any indoor plumbing; you eat the basic staples provided by the UN refugee commission; you are given second hand clothing supplied by volunteer groups; you have no access to the internet (oh, the horror!); and then you have to learn a new set of survival skills when human traffickers roam through the camp, shopping for human flesh. Then, imagine that ten years later, you’re selected to resettle in a new land … but that new land is Singapore, which has a very different culture, a foreign language with a different alphabet, and a people with a different story to learn. Consider the trauma you’d experience, and then you can appreciate the journey of a refugee.

Can you see why God calls his people to care for the refugee among us here in the US?

This is not a political issue for God; it’s a deeply personal issue for him. Trauma and grief is deeply personal to him. His son was a “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53.3)

They are among the most vulnerable

Refugees left home against their will. Their country, culture, and clans were taken from them by powers they could not overcome – military threats, or political persecution, or natural disaster. They now live in a culture that is overwhelming: American society is fast and intense and manic compared to many cultures, especially in the global south. The language is hard to learn, and the customs often confusing.

This is what it means for a refugee to be “vulnerable” – to be overcome by another’s power or influence, and then to be forced to leave their familiar world and learn to live as foreigners in a foreign land. 

Certainly I’ve witnessed this vulnerability in the lives of women at a local battered women’s shelter, and among children at a local home for the orphan. Tragically, loss and trauma is a universal human theme.

But Refugees feel uniquely vulnerable. Even after finding safe haven in the US, several refugee families we personally know are afraid of being deported or arrested, even though they came to this country legally, and have proper legal status with our government. They read the news; they hear comments from Americans at the store or on the bus; they may have good reason to fear for their safety.

Here are some thoughts from Scripture that help me respond to the refugee community. I don’t presume to share these from an expert point of view; it’s just how I understand God’s heart for the refugee.

God has a heart for the vulnerable, which is why he will judge those who oppress or mistreat the vulnerable. He does not take their pain or loss lightly, but takes it to heart; he expects us to do the same:

“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 3:5)

God commands us to care for the vulnerable refugee. 

He expects us to offer help and protection to the vulnerable “sojourner” in our midst.
⁴ let the outcasts of Moab
    sojourn among you;
be a shelter to them
    from the destroyer.” (Isaiah 16.4)

God wants us to relate to the “foreigner” as one of our own.

He wants us to remember that we all descend from “foreigners” in this land; but, he also wants us to recall times when we felt loss and trauma in life, and to relate to others on that common human level. Refugees need us, just as each of us need others in times of distress or need.

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

Remember that Jesus crossed ethnic and racial lines.

He reached out to those rejected or judged by his own people on the basis of lifestyle or background. That explains Jesus’ answer to a young leader in his community, when that leader asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” The parable of the “Good Samaritan” is Jesus’ answer; his point is, the foreigner is our neighbor, and Jesus expects us to care for foreigners out of our own means. (Luke 10.29-37)  

And so, what does the Lord require of us, as we see the needy refugee around us?

 “He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6.8)

If you want to express a “true Christian religion,” look at James’ summary statement. The status of orphans and widows applies to many in our society, including if not especially to the refugee community:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1.27)

Here are the websites for three refugee resettlement agencies. Each has their own volunteer recruitment process, and each would gladly receive financial gifts, especially during this season of cutbacks and reductions. Please consider standing with the vulnerable among us.

World Relief

https://www.worldrelief.org/

Catholic Charities

https://catholiccharitiesusa.org/

Lutheran Social Services

http://lssjax.org/

(Jacksonville location website can connect you to the chapter nearest to you)