Today after I gave my Latin 201 final, I hopped in a friend's car and headed to the airport. Why? Not to pick up a friend returning from an international jaunt. Nope, this time I picked up a family of people I had never seen before but have been praying for for some time. I met a Burmese refugee family who had just stepped onto American soil for the first time! What a moment! World Relief, a great agency that helps settle refugees, asked our church to form some groups to help with a few incoming refugee families, and I got to be with the group that met the first family, and what a privilege! Peter and Benedicta and their a-DOR-able children took their first bold but exhausted and anxious steps into their new life and new suddenly freezing world -- and we were able to greet them with a smile and with friendship. As servants. There is something right about that. But that shouldn't be a surprise. Jesus told his followers as much in John 14.
Below is a group shot of our church group with the family in their new (and furnished!) apartment in Glen Ellyn. And to think they just came from a hut in an Indonesian jungle. And perhaps the biggest smile that came to Peter's face tonight came when I told him as we were navigating the snowy path to his apartment (his first snow!) that another Burmese family of his same minority ethnic group in fact lived in the same building a floor below him! He came to America to find instant community that understood and embraced him and his family. There was indeed a whole group of local Burmese there waiting for him, including one guy who had last year come from that very same Indonesian refugee camp! What a miracle!
Below is an excerpt of a letter I emailed to other people in my church afterwards:
"As one of the people there last night to walk with this family into their new life here in the *freezing* US, I have to agree that the whole thing was about the most effortless exercise in serving others I have ever experienced. What a joy! In talking with Peter a bit last night, he told me (in his better-than-expected haltering English) that he and his family left Burma/Myanmar in 2007, why he didn't get into, but almost certainly it has to do with regular, planned government programs to oppress and slowly annihilate Chin minority culture and impose mandatory Buddhism upon everybody. He went on to say that the family pretty much walked / hiked / rode buses / used any means possible (I thought he might have even said "bicycle" in this list) to get from NW Burma to Malaysia, where (as we learned from Thomas) they lived in a make-shift refugee camp in the jungle outside a town or a city or something. That journey is quite the trek -- look it up on Google Maps! But praise the Lord that his family's long trek has at last come to rest here in Glen Ellyn. They seemed so composed, and almost joyful! And that connection of Christian faith that transcends cultural and language barriers is so amazing."
I'll end this long post with this little tidbit: about 6 or 7 years ago, God out of the blue placed Burma powerfully on my heart and mind. Ever since, I have been researching the country and its (sorrowful) history, and have been waiting to meet someone in the US from the country. Well, tonight, I met my first Burmese person. Five of them. At long last. And we were all smiles. Indeed, the family of God transcends all boundaries. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment