Imagine a world that would force half of a country out of their homes. To put things in perspective, that would be like every man, woman and child leaving home in the 29 states west of Ohio and Kentucky, and north of Texas. In fact, that would mean that more people would have left that country than have left any other country in recent years. Imagine a world in which one out of every five displaced persons is from that country.
Oh wait. You don’t have to imagine any more. Welcome to Syria.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/11/world/syria-refugee-crisis-when-war-displaces-half-a-country/
Most started by fleeing to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. But now, more and more are headed to Europe, as you know. You’ve been hearing about it on the news.
One is now often hearing the stat that there are more refugees than at any time in history since World War II. But those stats were as of mid-2014.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-27921938
The truth is, by June 2015, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was already saying that refugee numbers had now reached the highest ever recorded.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/18/world/unhcr-refugees-most-in-history/
To put things in perspective the UNHCR maintains the page at:
http://data.unhcr.org/dataviz/
Can you imagine when 2015 is graphed? The number of refugees could end up being DOUBLE any other hear on their current timeline!!!! 60 million people forcibly displaced? Nearly 1% of the whole world? More than 40,000 per DAY having to leave their homes and homelands? We can’t even imagine.
Of course, this also spawns articles like…
Sure some are country-shopping. But many are just trying to survive. I asked a great friend who works with migrants to comment on this Matthew Fisher article. He wrote, “There is no concerted effort by Muslims to move to the West, nor do hardline Islamists want people to leave their countries. … Nor do Syrians coming to America pose any national security threat. Rather, he’s using the worst human crisis in decades to fear monger and abuse people’s xenophobia towards Arabs and fear of Muslims to rally them against accepting refugees that need refuge quite badly.
People talk of a plan created by Muslims to conquer the West- how would such a plan be disseminated? Mosques? Media? Conversations? No such evidence exists. … A much more appropriate reality is that Europe and North America offer a much higher standard of living and opportunity- so of course we should expect refugees to desire these countries.”
He added, “Syrians are very educated and overall experienced a good deal of social mobility over the last few decades. … His interaction with a few refugees in a city or two and the Zaatari refugee camp doesn’t constitute anything though- not a survey or a reliable basis from which to learn.
And he shared, “I spent time with Syrian refugees in Lebanon and migrants in the USA. In Lebanon, I met former Syrian business owners who were extremely wealthy, but their city was invaded and they lost it all. Heck, I met one from a suburb of Damascus that lost a big factory and a huge house. He was living in a literally tent and had been for two years.
On a personal note, he observed, “There are millions of refugees now. The common thread? They all humans going through a horrible disaster of their reality that I pray we never have to experience. I say we let them all in.” (Thanks for speaking up, C.)
Either way, it’s a problem. Back in the 80’s, I (Doug) used to teach at a college in Cincinnati. In one of my classes, I remember helping students grapple with the fact that there were
What are YOUR thoughts on the refugee/migrant crisis? How do we handle it? What do we do about it? Please click “Comment” under the web version of this article. Thanks in advance for taking time to share.
Thank you so much for these concise thoughts and much needed (corrective) perspectives on the protracted flight-plight of Syrian people and the ongoing, long term “refugee realities.” Extremists can and do exploit any grave situation for their own purposes. But the major flows of peoples now are not “radicalised extremists.” Rather, as pointed out, they are fellow humans (not simply “refugees” or “internally displaced people”) who desperately need our empathic, practical help. We can do so as followers of JC via our good works and respectfully and sensitively with the good news.
I’d suggest this is an opportunity for mosques and churches in the West to work together to resettle refugees. This is a humanitarian issue, not a religious issue, so there is no reason we can’t work together to help refugees find housing, food, job opportunities, language tutoring, clothing and household supplies in our cities. Working together for people in need could open many opportunities for relationship with Muslims in our community and would be a practical demonstration of Christian love that would be counter-cultural to the xenophobic tendencies that often get so much attention in the news.
What’s a body to do? 1. Give generously. There are many Christian non-profit organizations who have leaped into the crisis to help, and are accepting donations that go straight to those efforts. Our organization, Kids Alive International, is one of them (www.kidsalive.org).
2. Make contact with local and national government officials to accept refugees. If possible, volunteer to host a family yourself.
3. Don’t let the world, or your personal network, forget this tragedy as it becomes “old news” in social media.
4. Fight against racism and fear-mongering by starting genuine conversations with friends, neighbors, fellow church goers, and strangers!
5. Pray. God can use instances of extreme tragedy to bring about enormous change for good. Let’s pray for him to do that here.
“Let ’em in” is not really the issue, though I agree with what “C” has to say. The issue is: They ARE here! How do we relate with them? Reference a book, “Internationals Who Live Among Us”, which gives a host of “can do” suggestions. Available at eri.org or Kindle.
A few comments in addition:
– Many of these refugees that have come will stay here. The way we treat them now will decide on our social climate tomorrow.
– We have very many private initiatives, which make up a lot for the inadequate organisation by a surprised government. From what I see I would estimate that the big majority of these initiatives has a somewhat Christian background. That is a testimony (I’m from Germany).
– Christian help will/should always include ALL dimensions of life (think of the feeding of the 5.000 together with preaching and healing).
– What we invest into the poor will come back from the Lord. This should help us overcome all kinds of fears.
– We have seen hundreds of Muslim people come to Christ in recent months, who would never have a similar chance in their homeland.
– Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are fleeing Islamic cultures and coming to countries with Christian roots. This documents the biggest crisis that the Islamic world has ever seen, and it will reinforce it.
The sovereignty of God is amazing seeing that he is bringing what was once classed as the 10th largest unengaged/unreached people group (see column on 2nd page of this article in Mission Frontiers- http://www.missionfrontiers.org/pdfs/32-3-tokyo-2010s-new-technology-vision.pdf) to the church in Europe. He wants these people to know and follow Him and we have amazing new opportunities to share the good news with them. For more on ways we can do that using media and technology check out this article at Mobile Advance- http://www.mobileadvance.org/index.php/blog/243-now-is-the-time-to-act-getting-the-gospel-into-the-hands-and-onto-the-phones-of-the-refugees
Thank you for all those insights!
Just a couple of more thoughts:
-We need to make it an absolute priority to share the Gospel with those mostly Muslim refugees, besides helping them with their physical needs. If we don’t, the time will come where they will be in the majority and vote for Shariah law in democratic ways. Under Sharia it is forbidden for Christians to share the Gospel to non-Christians!
As we deal with them we must realize that for people from Eastern cultures it is the most natural thing to talk about God. There is no need to beat around the bush as with Western people. Muslims think you are weird if you don’t talk about your faith.
We offer a practical tool to share the Gospel in culturally acceptable ways with Muslims. It also works for Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs. Please get in touch and I will send it to you.
Blessings,
Adrian
http://www.aboutabc.org
I’d like to invite you to join our conference in Germany in May/June which will also deal with the whole aspect from the church/development/mission perspective. Please find more information here: http://ccdnetwork.de/