Here live the refugees. Here is where they wait - some of them for years. Persecuted for the ethnic background in their home country, they are here. Off the beaten path, hidden. They don't want to be separated because the most important thing they have is each other. Well, actually that is all they have. I am greeted by a warm smile and a countenance that shines with peace; the type of peace that I am constantly searching for in my modern flat. Yet I find it here in a one bedroom living space with 6 people, a small fridge, a balcony, and ...
"How long have you been waiting to be relocated," Jonathan questions. "About 4 1/2 years," says the 18-year-old daughter smiling. She smiles because everyday she hopes. "And what about your schooling?" Mom chimes in. She alludes to her desire to begin it in her Home country. "God will help us," she says. As she speaks her mother and sister crawl into the back part of the apartment and reappear with biscuits and an refreshing cold orange drink. If you needed a shirt, she would give you the one off her back.
Four and a half years without a home. Four and a half years knowing that any day someone could be sent to IDC (detention camp for immigrants). Yet, living in fear that police could come in the middle of the night and take women, children, or just a husband away is better than where they came from. War rages, countries are dividing, and blood boils all over the globe. These people who live in fear and in shambles have the inner peace that the rest of the developed world seeks so desperately.
As I step over the threshold of the door, I smile. Life is good. I can help. I can love. I can give. I want to love and give like these refugees. I want my countenance to shine. As I left Soi 13 that day I realized again that I was not alone. As King Benjamin says in the book of Mosiah, "aren't we all beggars?" Aren't we all refugees in one way or another?
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