Monthly Archives for September 2018

Refugees part 5: Where are YOU migrating to?

How can we (Christian believers) recover our lost sense of migration? Or do many of us not realize we are migrating at all? Indeed, the Bible has been called a handbook on migration, and you really sense that reality when reading books like Exodus, Acts, Hebrews, and many more. Do you know you’re emigrating? As the Exodus-people, the Scriptures point us to and call us to the city of God — the future reality with present ramifications.

Personally, I’m a stranger to the land where I live, but no stranger to migration. For over 22 years now, I’ve been a migrant into different cultures. Because of the daily detachment from being in a sense of “home”, I do think it has helped me to seek a greater home. It has also helped me with a sense of empathy for others who share similar migratory paths and experiences in life. A while back, I came to the realization I may never again have a sense of “rootedness” on this Earth. That lost sense of “home” begs the question and antagonizes the heart, “Am I ok with perpetual migration?” At first, I struggled like many with the thought, but now, I welcome it.

Almost every refugee we encounter is in search of a better home. The reactionary response to them is generally, “Well, don’t make my home your better home!” However, if we simply take their human ache on its merits, are they not teaching us something about our own temporary lives? It’s as if they are holding up a mirror of life to us, but we often don’t like what we see. Do we disdain their pursuit of a better home because it actually reminds us of our own, oft-forgotten pursuit of the better home?where is our treasure Could it be that our hearts are daily following our treasure (as Jesus said it would), but our treasure which is meant for Heaven is buried way too deeply here on Earth? All of a sudden, we meet many people who have very little earthly treasure and it makes us very uncomfortable.

And now we’ve arrived at the rub of the argument. Do you know that you are migrating, too? If the Gospel is our new life, then it is the Gospel which dispossesses Earth from our hearts. Yet, it is the very same Gospel which repossesses our hearts with the new, glorious home of the Father we know as Heaven. In other words, we reveal not only where we are migrating to but also WHO we are migrating to.

You may love your home, your city, your culture, your people, your food, and your country. There is no problem to love each of these deeply but not supremely. Do you love them too much? How can you know if you do? A simple answer might be — Can people tell you’re migrating? Here are some more reflective questions to help us discern how much of this world is our true home or not:

  • what lifestyle are you aiming for?
  • can you easily tell how the Kingdom has had an impact on your financial decisions?
  • do small changes in your plans or dreams upset and irritate you?
  • what have you “left behind” to enjoy Christ or to help others enjoy Christ?
  • do you look at countries and cities only as tourist destinations ?
  • do you often think or talk about Heaven?
  • do you have a God-centered view of retirement?

Jesus, the migrant city-builder

Jesus said in John 14, “I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may be also…” What a sweet promise to a migrating heart! Abraham (and other men and women of true faith) sought that place.

Abraham migrated heavenward

Life in God’s Son means we are anchored to that place; the very presence of God. Life in God’s Spirit means we are tethered to our anchor, and with each passing day we are pulled closer to that future reality. Jesus is our promised land whose border crossing is wide-open and welcoming. Home is where the Father, the Son, and the Spirit dwell in boundless love. I don’t know what you want to do, but I’m going home!

In the meantime, however, I need to learn how to live as a migrant. For the joy set before him, Jesus despised the shame of this world and is now seated securely on the throne in Heaven (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus was the King-walking, who bore the humiliation of any migrant who would follow him. Did you catch where Jesus was migrating to? He was migrating — to joy. Or, as the prodigal son’s father called it — a great celebration where both the father and the son were (Luke 15).

Therefore, if that joy is my motivation too, renewing my status as a heaven-bound migrant is not so frightening. I am becoming more and more like the Ultimate Migrant as faith works itself out in my life. Continually, I become as the Refugee of Heaven to reach refugees of this Earth while the Gospel transforms my baseline motivations in life.

Walking in the Gospel toward joy will not take long for people to tell you’re a migrant, too. Look how migrants behave. Migrants walk today in light of their future. Migrants agonize in hope. Trafficked humans in the slavery of sin champion their liberator. Refugees seek and celebrate true refuge. You never hear long-time travelers say, “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow, we die.” No, they care deeply about tomorrow, about the journey and the destination, or they never would have travelled in the first place. There is a marked difference between a refugee and a rancher. Likewise, a Christian cares deeply about their city today, but not by forsaking the celestial city of tomorrow.

With this hope of Christ which lies within us, may we provoke more people to ask, “Where are you migrating to?”

Please click here to read part 4 (Don’t Romanticize the Work) of this series.

Refugees part 4: Don’t Romanticize the Work

Dark eyes and hearts

A missions trip to work with the refugees sounds so humanitarian, so helpful, doesn’t it? However, the actual work is far from “glorious”. Don’t get me wrong, the result of working in the pain-filled process is glorious — the reconciliation of sinful men and women into loving, Father-adoring children through the work of Christ Jesus. I speak of heavenly glory; the glory of the upside-down story where God shines through from the darkest corners of life. . . . . but the earthly work to arrive at the heavenly glory is not for fun-seekers or resumé-builders. It is work which conforms to and identifies with the Cross.

In the experience of our team, the most frequent and challenging question we have asked in these early years is, who are we doing this for? The work in the camps challenges us at our most basic human level. There, we are dramatically confronted with what it means to be a human being. Month after month, our men encounter wave upon wave of trouble. As each wave of trial and trouble passes over us, we see another layer of human wreckage in its wake — and another layer of Gospel character which needs work in our own lives is exposed. If a Christian does Gospel work among our new immigrant friends, even for a short time, and they do not walk away from the camp saying, “Oh Lord, I’m just a sinner saved by grace,” then something is fundamentally wrong with their theology.

Why We Do Anything At All

One might ask after reading the above paragraphs, “Then why do anything at all? It seems like it is such a futile endeavor.” And yes, while the process is long, arduous, and pain-filled, each initiative we do is pointing to something greater than itself; a hope beyond. Here are 3 reasons why we consider investing in these initiatives as a worthy endeavor:

  1. We do initiatives to help them with life skills and development. As I mentioned before, many of the men have good energy and are eager to work, but they lack the necessary skills to be of much benefit to a European context. In most cases, that is no fault of their own. It may be their parents had no more money to send them to school, or there were no education programs where they lived. So, full of energy and nothing good to do with it, they left. We are striving to put together initiatives which help them understand the safety measures, industrial theory, and working environments of Italia which are quite different from their various homelands and often different from other European nations.
  2. We do initiatives to build relationships for the gospel. The initiatives are the platforms for Christian love, and this is how the gospel works in every sphere of life. Often, gospel proclamation flows quite naturally from Gospel service. The men ask us all kinds of spiritual questions after they’ve seen our intentionality to serve and help them. In fact, the staff of the Catholic association running one of the camps in a Roman convent have begun to ask us for spiritual counsel and answers. We do everything for free, from a fountain of grace, and that provokes questions.
  3. We do initiatives to welcome God into Italia. I know this sounds a bit strange, but hear me out. Jesus brought a small child into his band of disciples to teach them. The disciples had been having one of their favorite arguments and playing one more round of “Who is the Greatest?” It seems they really liked that game. Bringing the child up into his arms as an object lesson, Jesus said (paraphrasing Mark 9:33-37), “The greatest will be found with the smallest, the least of all. Receive someone like this (no status) in my name, and you will be receiving me. Now, if you receive me, you will also receive the one who sent me — and that’s the greatest!” God is found among the struggling and hurting more than the wealthy and self-satisfied. We do initiatives because those initiatives draw us into the place where the Father loves to show up and distribute grace. The struggle is worth it because our King is worth it.

What we Encounter

A brother in our ministry who has had a good amount of hands-on experience with the men in the camps put together a list for us to realize what we often encounter in the work. The following list will de-romanticize any kind of thinking that we (whoever we are) will save them. No, we need something — no, someone — who can go deeper than any of us can and transform such incredible wickedness and soul-destruction into healthy children of God.

  • Prosperity Gospel
  • spirit and ancestor worship
  • Animism – the control of localized spirits to obtain blessings
  • Physical trauma
  • Mental trauma
  • human slavery
  • forced criminality
  • Families left behind
  • War
  • Genocide (both inflicted and victims of)
  • Islam, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism — all works-saving religions and beliefs
  • deep distrust
  • Womanizing & pornography
  • Fatherless and orphaned
  • Mother with siblings from multiple men
  • Sex trafficking
  • Broken relationships
  • Greed
  • Smuggling
  • Laziness and no trained work-ethic
  • Cultural timeliness (extreme tardiness)
  • Desire to be like kings and/or tribal chiefs
  • Illiteracy and lack of education (reading, writing, speaking)
  • Majority are young and lacking life skills and experience
  • Internet/Facebook identity and image management
  • Escape based on lies
  • Medical Problems
  • Marital Problems
  • Fatherless Children
  • Desperation and depression
  • Language challenges (eg. learning Italian or other European languages)

Upon arrival, other struggles and problems begin to arise:

  • There is a deep belief that this country (or the next) is the promised land
  • They lose early enthusiasm to seek work and learn the language as depression increases.
  • Loss of motivation to establish the critical basics — for example, wanting to make money without learning the necessary work or language skills first.
  • Pressure increases to make money and send it back to family and tribe.
  • a false sense of entitlement increases
  • Islamic and Prosperity-gospel theologies polarize men and create strong resistance
  • Religious activity becomes a mask for personal ambition. There’s a strong sense of doing religious things to get God to make them money.
  • Camps are only meeting minimal needs for two years or more and not truly setting the refugees up to successfully achieve work and permanent residence

Enduring Negative Effects and Dangers

  • False documentation — there is a black market where men pay thousands to take on the identity of someone else.
  • Begging — due to the lack of small job opportunities and their lack of skill or will to work toward something more stable, a number resort to begging on the street or selling small items (often for those connected with organized crime).
  • Homelessness — if you don’t have some sort of official income, you cannot obtain a housing rental contract. So, you either pay someone else for a room or become homeless. As the amount of men exiting the camps increases in this next year, this could become a hardship in numerous cities.
  • Petty criminality — begins with stealing small things or running some kind of false marketing claim or false work. Theft and corruption only increase over time.
  • Remaining illegal within the country and hiding under the radar
  • Hatred grows and men become more susceptible to evil, radicalizing ideas.

If you take a few minutes and thoughtfully consider the scenarios we are facing, you will immediately have a missionary prayer list on your hands. If you’ve desired to pray more precisely about life-changing requests, then put your gloves on, lean into the Lord, and open some doors to the Light of the World for us! It will be a delight to share stories with you where your prayers have been heard and answered.

Click here if you would like to read part 3 of this series.