A Believer's Journal

Lats October, before the election, I preached a sermon entitled You. It seems particularly apropos now. I concluded the sermon by retelling Faez’ story. The details of his story come from an article by Alex Altman, “A Syrian Refugee Story” (http://time.com/a-syrian-refugee-story/)

Your name is Faez and you are a refugee.

You were not always a refugee.  There was a time when you were happy, at least as happy as you could be, considering.  Considering the turmoil and violence that engulfed your hometown and your homeland.

You lived with your wife in Daraa in southern Syria, walking to your healthcare job each day and returning each evening, even as Syrian army troops and rebel insurgents clashed in the streets around your home.

But one morning, as you walked to work, they stopped you.  They stopped you and accused you of being a terrorist.  They made you raise your hands and they aimed a gun at you and you “felt death upon [you].”

But an old woman suddenly came into the street, pleading for your life and for the lives of those detained with you.  And the soldiers let you go.

But everything had changed.  In your mind and in your heart, everything had changed.  You feared for your life and for the life of your wife.  You knew you had to leave, leave your home and your homeland.  You were a refugee.

You gathered your wife and a few belongings and the next morning you left your home — forever — walking an hour and a half through the streets of the city even as deadly missiles crashed into the buildings around you.

You met the car of a smuggler who drove you to the Jordanian border where you were taken to the refugee camp at Zaatari.  From there you were smuggled again out of the camp and into the city of Amman where you spent two years working “off the books” and waiting for the UN to find a place to resettle your family.

Life in Jordan was difficult.  You were a refugee.  You felt exploited at work and shunned at home.  You received little or no aid and glimmers of hopes for resettlement in Sweden and then Finland quickly faded.

But then they told you you were going to the United States.  You were scared.  It was so far away, so far away from everything you knew.  You would go with almost nothing to a place you knew almost nothing about.  You had never even flown on a plane before.

But you went and now you and your wife and two baby girls live in Richardson, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. You work third shift at the local Walmart and life is good … considering.  Considering you are still a refugee.

You are safe.  Your family is safe.  You have work.  You have a home.  But you are a refugee.  A Syrian refugee.

Most of your neighbors oppose admitting refugees into “their” country.  In the nearby town of Irving, protesters, armed with masks and tactical weapons, gathered outside a mosque, protesting the “Islamization of America.”

Your governor wants to deny entry to any and all future refugees, quite probably including the six of your own relatives from Syria who were supposed to be relocated to Dallas to be near you.  And a candidate for president of your new home country has vowed to deport any refugees already here and to keep watch lists of immigrants like you, to keep close tabs on refugees like you.  You are worried.  You are worried about your family.  You have a home, but you are not home.  You are a refugee, still a refugee, still an outcast.

Who will see you?  Who will see you?  See not a refugee, not a Syrian Muslim, but see you?

Who will heal the deeper wounds in you?  Who will make you well?