Displaced Peoples
“Do you ever feel like God has forgotten you?”
Outside the rain falls with force. Water floods the streets and spills into the gutters. The tap-a-tap of rain against the windows is one continuous roar. As though God has forgotten the covenant he made with Noah, painted as it was and has forever been since, with the rainbow. It’s another day of rain in Penang.
Peter looks at the door. Men and women enter the room in pairs. They smile when they see him, extend their right hands in greeting, their left hands touch their wrists as a sign of respect. All are Chin men, women, and children from Burma meeting together in a small flat on Sunday. Some come from miles away, by bus the night before. Their day of rest, of community. Their day to be together. Two by two they walk into the room, a way to avoid attention from passersby on the street, aware their ark of safety can be compromised at any moment, sink.
Peter answers the question after a long silence. The small room is now filled with refugees. “I ask myself everyday if I should have fled my country,” he says softly. “My mother is ill. My wife, my two sons, I have not seen them for three years. I fled for my life. Without them here it still feels like I lost it.”
The rain continues to fall in sheets. Large round drops of water from the sky the tears Peter won’t shed as he speaks. “Do I think God has forgotten us? No. The one thing I know because of my suffering is that Burma, Malaysia, neither one is my home. God is with us, and we hope for a better country.”
Facts: As of January 2010, there are some 79,284 refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia. Of these 73,287 are from Burma, comprising some 17,712 Rohingyas from the Northern Rakhine State, 35,260 Chins, 5,021Burmese Muslims, with the remaining comprising other ethnic minorities. There are some 5,997 refugees and asylum-seekers from other countries, including some 2,900 Sri Lankans, 800 Somalis, 550 Iraqis and 550 Afghans. These refugees have left Burma or their home nation because of some form of persecution. Separation from loved ones is an added trauma.
Prayer: Father please help the families that the refugees have left behind. Help those who still live in fear in Burma, or their home nation, who are separated from them in other host nations, or who are lost in the human smuggling and trafficking system.
Action: Reach out to refugees and migrants in your city. Smile at them at hawker stalls, talk with them on the street. Risk inviting one or two into your home. Adopt a migrant or refugee. Show them the love of God through meals and hospitality. Imagine that you were in their country, separated from your family and unable to go home. How would you want them to treat you?
Verse: The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. Psalm 146:9
* the above story is from Disappointed by Hope: Migrants and Refugees in Search of a Better Country
