God Bless Canada

This holiday break has come with some interruptions.  On Christmas morning I received a request from a second cousin asking if he and his family of five could stay with us for a few days.  They were due for refugee resettlement in Canada under the Private Refugee Sponsorship Program, which allows groups and individuals to privately spearhead the resettlement of displaced families.   The program is truly unique and has allowed tens of thousands of Syrian families to start new lives in a new country.  My cousin’s family was in the final stages of the process.  All that was required was a medical check on Tuesday morning (to show that everyone is fit for travel) and then the final departure on Wednesday evening.  There was, however, a predicament.   They had been staying in the Bekaa Valley and forecasts indicated that winter weather could shut down the mountain pass between the valley and Beirut, potentially blocking them from their important appointments.  Fortunately Dar El Awlad once again was ready to welcome a needy family for a short-term stay and changes to our holiday plans allowed us to be free.  As it turns out, we would be this family’s final stopping point between what has been a long ordeal of Syrian displacement and Canadian resettlement in Winnipeg.

I have (unfortunately) become personally familiar with the ongoing displacement crisis via the trials of my extended Syrian family, but this part of refugee resettlement was a new observation for me.  During their final three days in the Middle East we talked about the past (the country we have lost access to and the community it once held), the present (the process of resettlement and the excitement of international travel), and the future (the pros and cons of making a new life in the West).  It’s a very interesting point of a refugee experience, a point where a past wrought with so much pain and loss yields a future beaming with such hope and opportunity. 

Personally, I find resettlement bittersweet.  It pains me to see families with legacies and identity in a land driven to seek a new placement in distant lands.  I see great human potential sent abroad with the low prospects of these individuals permanently returning to their home country.  At the same time I realize that resettlement is one of the most substantial ways to directly impact the individual lives (especially children lives) that have been uprooted and undermined by the ongoing global displacement crisis.  I think of refugee resettlement as something akin to an organ transplant.  No one wants to have their liver, a kidney or heart removed from their body nor does anyone desire deteriorated health.  However, transplants are sought in order to preserve and extend life.  Such is refugee resettlement, a vital operation needed to maintain life when circumstances have reached unbearably bad states.  It is never what we want for a person, but it can breathe new life into bodies that have endured immense damage.  I want individuals rooted in their place of heritage and memory, but when these places have been taken away then I want them resettled somewhere where roots are possible.

This is why I am thankful for Canada.  In the past few years Canada has done more than any other nation-state to proactively address the Syrian displacement crisis by facilitating resettlement in a safe, secure country.  Nearly 40,000 Syrians have been granted a new start thus far, and this week I saw the buzz in an airport departure hall as dozens of more prepared to embark on a new future on Canadian soil.  This has been a commendable undertaking by a national government, and one of the important parts of this initiative has been the response of churches to facilitate sponsorship and resettlement for thousands of refugees.  My relatives are among these.  A church in Winnipeg sponsored them, oversaw their arrangements, prepared accommodation, and has committed to providing support during their initial settling periods.  This (Muslim) family had only glowing things to say of the church.  Not only has a community of Christians granted relief from their dire situation but they have provided the comfort of knowing that they are walking into a caring community that will be there in the months ahead.  My cousin let it be known to us that Jesus is very much recognized within this act of compassion.

No state, system or policy is perfect.  I realize that Canada likely has some self-interest driving their goodwill welcome of thousands of refugees.  I also personally know that faulty Canadian policy has blocked resettlement for extremely vulnerable individuals and extended their suffering.  Even so, this is the best the world currently has.  If more countries thought and acted like Canada then more lives would have rescue from the pits of displacement.  The role of Christians is extremely significant.  Churches across Canada are seizing the moment to capitalize on the opportunity to live out basic teachings of Biblical faith.  The scriptures are ever-clear from start to finish that God cares for the poor, vulnerable and marginalized.  He demands from His followers to extend this care to others including friends, enemies and everyone in between.  There is no debate here; Jesus declares that when we welcome the stranger, we welcome the Divine (Matthew 25: 43-45).  This is one point of the few displacement and response where I see there are no complexities.  Christians across Canada are showing obedience to scripture in dynamic ways, and countless lives are directly enjoying the blessing. 

I do not like refugee resettlement because I do not like that people have been reduced to refugees.  I do not like that war, discrimination and destruction have driven people from their homes and compelled them to lands across the globe.  But if this world continues to produce displacement then I want the displaced to experience hope and future.  I want people of faith to look beyond themselves to extend love, care and protection to the vulnerable and poor.  I want my global Christian community to show today what the Bible taught thousands of years ago, and I want to see many more families like the one I spent the last three days with move ahead in the prospects of life.  This doesn’t always require resettlement, but many times it does, and I thank Canada for increasing the capacity for resettlement to work.  

A gathering of the "Lucky Ones."  Only 1% of refugees are ever resettled.  This group is bound for Canada.

Bon Voyage

The young man we didn't help, he has Hope!

The other day some coworkers joined me on my weekly visit to our New Horizon Center ministry in South Lebanon.  We stopped to get some coffee just south of Beirut, and I waited in the van while the others entered the shop.  A security guard staffed at the complex quickly came over and was a little concerned that I was blocking access to the back of the building.  It turned out my parking place was fine and he started inquiring about where we come from.  I explained that we’re from a residential school and we serve needy children and orphans.  He then started asking me a string of questions: What are the ages of our children?  What is the extent of our care and where do we get our support from?  Do we accept children of different religious and nationality backgrounds?  He seemed to have purpose in his questions so I asked, “do you know someone who could use our services?”  He replied, “Me, I’m an orphan.”

Mohammad, a 21 year-old Lebanese, went on to share pieces of his tragic personal story.  He and his siblings were abandoned by their mother and his father passed away ten years ago leaving them all orphaned.  They have extended family but there’s very little engagement between them.  Mohammad never went to school; he’s completely illiterate.  He does his best to help raise his 15 and 13 year old siblings (only one has been able to attend school), but it’s a daily struggle and his opportunities for employment are very limited.  The security job demands 14 hour work days for less than $500 dollars a month salary. Mohammad was painfully raw in sharing about the challenges life has left him.  He lamented his lot but made clear he has no interest in living off the charity of others or being a dependent.  I asked him at one point of the conversation if he needs anything and he simply responded, “just God’s mercy.”

It’s not uncommon in Lebanon to find people, especially young men, depressed about their life situation.  Lebanon can be a cutthroat place where one can work day and night and never get ahead. There is extensive poverty among the Lebanese and, with the limited social support from the government; one can be hard-pressed to find provision outside for his or her family network.  Those that are orphaned or abandoned like Mohammad are considerably vulnerable. 

The anguish of this young man was apparent when he discussed his illiteracy.  “In this world you need to know something, you need to have a certificate from somewhere.  If you don’t have an education then you’re nobody.  There was a girl I was talking to once but I had to phone chat through my little brother because I can’t read or write.  When she found out I was illiterate she left me.  I feel like such a loser.”

I tried my best to encourage Mohammad (which isn’t easy when the painful reality is he has been robbed of rights and opportunities that can never be returned).  He knew early in our conversation that we are from a faith organization- he had glowing things to say about Christians and the practical kindness they showed him when he was displaced by the 2006 War- and I reminded him that God promises an upside-down Kingdom where the first are last and the last are first, the humbled will be built up and the proud brought down.  Despite his lack of education Mohammad has wisdom on the real matters of life; he shared in certain terms that faith is not the words of our lips or the practice of our religious exercise but the belief in God and the treatment of others.  This is very meaningful, but how much does it actually smooth the stigma of being an orphaned illiterate with little prospects of a respectable life?

One reason my little interaction with Mohammad struck me so strikingly that morning was because of where I was coming from and where I was going.  I came from Dar El Awlad, a residential program that came into existence nearly 70 years ago specifically to serve children who found themselves abandoned or orphaned and without access to their most basic needs.  We exist specifically so lives like Mohammad can receive what wrongs and misfortune has stolen from them (as he shared his story with me I actually told him (maybe inconsiderately) that he should have come to Dar El Awlad years ago).  That morning I was going to the New Horizons Center where we operate a literacy program specifically geared to children who cannot or do not go to school and risk facing futures of illiteracy.  Here between the two places I came across a young man who needed both.  Each day at Kids Alive Lebanon we see hundreds of children throughout our programs receive services and care, much of it dealing with education, yet on that day I saw one of the countless of individuals in Lebanon that never came to us.  I saw the alternate reality for our children; I realized in a new way what their futures very likely could look like if they had never come our way.  On the one hand it made me thankful for the opportunity we have to offer life-transforming impact for at-risk children, but on the other hand it was a painful reminder that there is still so much need that we are not even beginning to meet.   Mohammad unsettled me.

What ultimately settles me, however, is knowing that God has a special heart for Mohammad and all those who have been dealt a hand of marginalization and vulnerability.  The scripture is ever-certain that God cares for the poor and directly shares in their poverty, powerlessness and despair.  Christ was born in a stable among animals, lived without acquiring any wealth or possessions of worth and died a brutal death at the hands of injustice.  God knows the frustration, the disappointment and the despair of those who are illiterate, orphaned and disregarded by people and society.  That’s how I could leave my little encounter with Mohammad with a troubled heart that still insists on clinging to hopefulness.  He may journey through life in this world never knowing the opportunities, privileges and rights that I so easily take for granted (like the ability to even transmit these thoughts in my head to a typed text that you can now read), but God’s Kingdom is an upside-down reality where the weak will be strong, the poor will be rich and the last will be first.   This is the Kingdom we belong to, the one we are to make known to this world and the one that gives all of us an ultimate hope in life, a life everlasting.