God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
Psalm 46: 1-7
A refuge is defined as: a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger or trouble; something providing shelter.
A refugee is defined as: a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution or natural disaster.
How many times in my short life have I run to my God seeking safety and a shelter from the storms of this life? How many times have I been cast down, broken, lost and confused seeking protection from the constant war for my soul? How many times has He taken me in, knowing that I would ultimately forget, deny or despise the gift of refuge offered to me in His love? How often when refreshed have I ignored His care and turned to once again head back into the fray without his protection? How many times have I wounded Him when He has offered me healing? And yet every time I run to my God having recognized the danger I am in and seeking once more to be given refuge, His arms are open to receive me. Because His love is not offered even though we might hurt or fail Him...it is a love that is offered when He knows it is in our nature to do so. It is a love that is perfect and not extended on the condition of my perfection. It is a love that we can never be worthy of and a love that we can always be sure of. I am a refugee seeking the protection and care of my God, and He is perfect love always offering an anchor and refuge for my soul.
The Lee Family
I was between 1-6months old ( I have no solid memories to tell me my exact age) when I met the first refugees who played a part in shaping my history. It was 1981 and a call went out to families in the Twin Cities area to sponsor refugee families from Southeast Asia. The Viet Cong had been engaged in an active genocide against the indigenous Hmong tribes in Laos for over a decade and many had fled to Thailand and Cambodia throughout the previous decade. The US had finally allowed for a large influx of these refugee Hmong families to enter into the States, but they needed families willing to house and feed them and help them become established. With much consideration and prayer and in the face of many valid concerns for safety, my parents answered the call and became a host family. The Lee's came to live with us while I was still an infant.
I cannot imagine the fears and concerns that must have been present when our two families first met. How my parents must have wondered if these people were good hearted individuals or would try to take advantage of them in some way or pose harm to their children. How my father must have contemplated the additional financial burden of caring for two families and somehow helping them become self sufficient when they barely even spoke the language. How difficult it must have been for mom and dad Lee to leave everything they knew and loved to be deposited on the other side of the world unable to make their own way or even speak the language. Dependent on the kindness and generosity of strangers, their only option to trust that these strangers who they can barely communicate with would not attempt to misuse them or harm their children in any way.
At the time my family owned a rather large farm. While the first Hmong immigrants were not yet versed in western civilization nor were they able to speak English with ease, they knew how to grow the most beautiful produce and they were brilliant at managing a farming business. Within a few years my parents were established in the small Hmong community and offered to the families small plots of land for rent each spring/summer to grow produce that they could then sell at the local farmers markets. Every 1-3 acres was cultivated by a different family who would come to the farm early in the morning and work until mid afternoon. Every family would build small shade shacks at the edge of their fields and in the heat of the afternoon they would rest together and eat their lunch. My brothers and I had an open welcome into any place at any time. I grew up wandering from field to field, playing with the children my age, learning the traditional Hmong agricultural techniques, falling asleep in the shade with the sound of Hmong music wafting from a battery powered radio and the smell of sticky rice and pork.
The Lee family became an important part of our family and the foundation of who I am. I am who I am because I was blessed by experiencing the world through their history and culture. My love of sticky rice, spring rolls, peanut sauce and traditional Hmong ballads exists because of the love and trust built between two different cultures. Because my parents felt the calling to open their home in spite of the potential concerns and the obvious fears. The Lee family were able to find a home half a world away from home, because love conquered fear.
Honduras
When I was three years old my parents embarked on what several in my family deemed a foolish and dangerous endeavor. The country of Nicaragua had been embroiled in a violent civil war and thousands of refugees had poured across the border into neighboring Honduras. These refugees had been stuck in camps within Honduras for several years at this point, with no right to enter the country they were in and no possible way to return to their own country. After much prayer my parents decided it was time to go and see what could be done. They loaded myself and my brothers into our Volkswagen van and we headed from Minnesota to Honduras.
My father spoke no Spanish and my mother only a very small amount. They didn't know specifically where they were going in Honduras, nor if they would even have access to the refugee camps or even what help they could possibly be. Several family members offered to keep us while my parents went by themselves, but my parents decided if this was happening we were going as a family. They didn't know the roads through Mexico or Guatemala and they had never crossed a border before. They knew there were guerrilla forces in southern Mexico and Guatemala and they had taken missionary families for ransom before, but they were also convinced this was something they were called to do. So, they packed everything into the van and off we went.
I do not have enough space to detail all of the amazing blessings that came from this single choice. But I will sum it up this way. After a decade of traveling to and from my 'patria chica' Honduras to bring relief to refugees and poverty struck Hondurans, I spoke fluent Spanish as did my brothers and all of my family (saving myself) chose to move there permanently. In my time spent in Latin America I learned that my comfort and desires means little next to the greater purpose of service to others under the guidance of God. I learned that the greatest gift you can ever receive in life is to serve another person. I learned to love marimba music, the Spanish language, Mayan culture and history and that love does not live within the borders of family, race or country.
One experience during these journeys that I would like to share is when the tables were turned and my family became the refugees dependent on the goodness of others in a country where we had no money and barely spoke the language. We were traveling through Guatemala to Honduras and my parents decided to make a rare excursion off the main course to a nearby tourist town and spend the afternoon just visiting the country as tourists. We parked the van on a side street and locked up before heading out to walk the nearby square. When we returned a couple hours later we found that the van had been broken into and my mother's purse had been taken. My mother's purse contained all of our money, traveler's checks and passports. We were now stuck in a foreign country with no money and no identification to allow us to get home even if we had money.
We piled into the van and drove to the nearest city that had a US Embassy, Guatemala City. Guatemala is the largest populated city in the country and it's not known to be low on crime rates. My parents were able to get ahold of my grandpa who was able to wire us money, but because the process of getting new passports could take weeks we had to use the money sparingly. We parked the van across the street from the embassy and down the road from a Chuck-e-Cheese. Maybe it was because they wanted us to have a distraction or maybe it was the best price for food nearby, but for whatever reason we frequented the Chuck-e-Cheese almost every day for over a week. Our van was burglarized twice during that time, but we didn't have extra money to use on a hotel so we said our prayers every night for protection and slept right in the van on the side of the road. I cannot remember if it was into the second or third week we were stuck there ( I was still young and those details escape me) but a young woman who worked at Chuck-e-Cheese struck up a friendship with my parents. When she found out what had happened and where we were staying she did not hesitate to offer us to stay with her and her young son in their apartment.
I don't have many memories of their apartment, except that it was far from large. I remember feeling bad that I knew we had displaced this woman from her own room and bed but being so thankful to be able to sleep in a bed without being woken up by every sound outside of the van wondering if it was a thief trying to get in. I remember playing with her son (who was a few years younger than me) and wondering if she was afraid to leave him with us since she did not know us or if we would try to hurt him or steal her things. Looking back I cannot imagine the goodness that moved her to make this offer to what must have appeared to be a homeless and penniless family from a different country. I cannot imagine being in my parent's position having to rely on the kindness of a stranger because they could not in that moment care for their family without the help. The grace it must have taken to have made the offer and the humility that was necessary in order to accept the offer that was made. The leap of faith in God and human kindness that it took to trust that one would not take advantage of the other. They were only good and kind to us and never once made me feel humiliated or ashamed for the position we were in. I don't remember the woman's name, I can't remember if my parents were ever able to find her again and pay her back for her generosity, I wonder sometimes who that little boy grew up to be and I pray that somehow God will bless them for their offer of love.
Joe
I don't remember how old I was when Joe came to live with us. I know I was under the age of ten. It seemed like all at once he was just there, a part of our family. But my mother remembers an entirely different entry into our household. When she tells the story she explains that one day my father drove into the farm with a passenger in tow. The passenger was Joe. He was over six feet tall and over three hundred pounds wearing dirty clothes with hair and beard down nearly to his waist and no shoes. He smelled....well, not like a rose. Dad explained that Joe needed food and a place to stay for awhile. My mother will tell you she was terrified on their first meeting and wondered if my father had brought home an ax murderer and when he might kill us all in our sleep. She will tell you it took her several weeks before she felt like he wouldn't randomly flip out and become homicidal on us. Joe was a vet who was down on his luck and had become homeless. Looking back I am sure he struggled with some PTSD and probably self medicated to some extent.
Joe ended up living with us for years on the farm. He never told about his time in war or how he ended up where my father found him on the side of the road. But he told us about his travels around the US. He also told us about his time as a chef and made the most delicious duck a'lorange. He was always happy when baking or cooking something and always talked to me about how cooking was an artistic expression that required more than just mixing spices together. To have a truly good dish you had to put your heart into it and 'feel' the right blend of spices. Joe was strange and truly odd and I am confident he secretly slipped away to smoke pot out in the woods (although he never once brought anything of the sort around me or even discussed it in my presence.) but he was also someone who was perfectly gentle with me and who I felt 100% safe with at all times. I remember many times my father telling me that Christ loved the most unloveable of men and if we are to be like Him than we must find what is worthy of love in the most unloveable of mankind. When he met my parents, Joe perfectly fit the description of unloveable in every way. To take him into their home was to take on a tremendous risk. But to deem the risk too great because he was unloveable would have meant missing out on knowing all of the loveable qualities that he possessed.
These are some of my experiences growing up with and loving the refugees, poor and lost from our country and other countries. These are some of my experiences being in the position of a refugee myself and knowing what a gift it was to have a willing soul offer us their protection and care. The extension of safety, protection and humanitarian care must always be prayerfully considered. But if we allow fear to stop us before we have even considered it...I believe we have missed out on the blessings that can come from a gift of that magnitude.
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