African (American) Adventure!

A few days ago, we had the opportunity to help in the transport of African refugees from the airport to their new home. Refugees are individuals fleeing their home country for religious, racial or political reasons. Our first experience serving these people was amazing - awesome, awkward, emotional, exciting, a true blessing.

A little background - a sweet friend of mine began serving a refugee family from Burma through a national organization that has a local chapter in our city. This organization helps support refugees from other countries when they first move to the United States. In our city, this organization supports about 500 or so refugees a year, and the national organization as a whole, about 800,000 each year.

Anyway, my friend spends one or two days per week with her family. She has taught them basic things we take for granted in America as common sense, like how to shop for groceries, how/when to visit the doctor, how to clean our home, how to store our perishable goods, etc. She also helps get them acclimated to America, transports them to appointments, and is helping to prepare them to (hopefully) soon enter the workforce.  The organization that supports them is doing these things as well and also trying to teach them English (very important!).

My friend's love and service to these people just struck me, and I just asked God how we could perhaps be a part of it. She is serving these people and building a relationship with them, and through it, witnessing to them. How much stronger may her witness and testimony be because she is serving them, building a true relationship with them? I pray that they can see Christ through her service and love for them.

Our schedules right now are pretty tight, so I have been just thinking through how we can get involved in our limited time.  A lady that attends church with us also happens to work part-time for this organization and suggested that we help in the transport with these refugees from the Congo, so we gladly offered our night to them.

Our friend who works with the Burmese family also recently visited Kenya, and suggested to us that we bring some books and candy with us to greet our guests because the Africans she met on her trip really enjoyed small tokens of welcome. So, hubby found a few bible picture books and I picked out the sweets (of course I would! I'm like an expert at that).

After waiting a while at the airport with a few other people (two Americans plus us, and two Africans who have been in the states for a little while and were helping with translation), we saw our group of 13 refugees walking toward us. (They were kind of hard to miss!) Of those 13, seven were adults and the rest children, young children...I think the eldest may have been about six.

The women with the babies had them strapped to their backs with a wrap. I know this is very normal for them, but it was a little bizarre for me because the baby's chest was on the mom's back, so his head had no support unless he rested it on mom's shoulders. The child's head was going in the opposite direction, which did not look comfortable at all, but he was sleeping soundly, so I don't know...maybe he would wake up the next morning with a sore neck. Ouch!

The translation between everyone was rough. They could not speak English and our translators could not speak English very well, but it was okay.  They were so very tired, and I can't imagine what must have been going through their minds after a long flight to a foreign country, so they may have been thankful not to speak.

The luggage took forever. The whole group had about 10 bags or so. That's it - that's all they own. Humbling, to say the very least, for me.

One of the most amazing sights of the night was when we were bringing the luggage to our cars.  The Americans tried to carry most of it to give them a break, but we had more bags than Americans, so at one point, two of the African women put a bag (which weighed about 40lbs) on their heads and walked to the curb. Perfectly balanced, no hands, just amazing!!!  When I saw this, I used my hands and facial expressions to show the women that I was amazed! They smiled at me and I know they understood.

Between all of us, we had four cars, so we had to split the luggage and people up.  I could see looks of concern on their faces as we loaded luggage in different cars, but we had the translators reassure them that they were all going to the same place.

One of the men, a husband and father, is bound to a wheelchair. I am not sure what happened, but he cannot walk. One of the sweetest moments of the night for me was when my husband picked him up out of the wheelchair and placed him in the car so gently. So very sweet...

By the time we got them to their apartment complex, it was about 12:30 a.m. The complex stayed open for them because they had to get the adults to sign the lease agreements.  We stayed about a half hour more but then had to leave because it was just getting so late and I had to be up at 5:30.

The organization (which I am not naming now just because I am not sure about what should and should not be said publicly) will pay their rent for about four months. During that time, the adults are supposed to learn some basic English and job skills to get employment. I can't imagine how difficult that must be.  I hear of Americans who have been searching for jobs for months. Can you imagine the cards stacked against these people because they can't speak our language, don't understand our culture, are minorities, may not have job skills. A few months doesn't seem like long enough, yet I have to look at the flip side and say that I am thankful that our country allows these people to come here in the name of freedom, and I am so thankful for the organizations/people that help support them.

We would like to continue to help this organization. We don't know what that looks like yet, but we are looking and praying.

I don't know what the future holds for us, but I know that lately we have been made more aware of how very blessed we are. We have known we are blessed, that's not new necessarily, but what does that translate to? How can we truly serve and give to others to spread the knowledge of Christ? To be honest, I have kind of been disgusted lately in our Americanism and culture, yes the very one I participate in all too frequently. We have so much, I have so much, we are spoiled, I am spoiled.

God does bless financially, but it's so we can bless and serve others, and we are trying to figure out what that looks like for us.

This was a great experience and I am so thankful that God opened this door for us.