An accurate depiction of the current reality.
A refugee is someone compelled to leave their homeland due to ethnic, religious, racial, or political issues, seeking protection in a foreign country. The journey they undergo can be highly arduous and emotionally taxing. After successfully navigating through numerous challenging and perilous phases, they eventually arrive in a country where they seek asylum. Within this refugee population, there are families, unaccompanied children, and vulnerable women who often find themselves in a country that does not readily recognize them as its own, labelling them as stateless. This lack of recognition imposes significant hardships on them, leading to a profoundly challenging and bleak existence.
A country that, at times, neglects to respect the privacy of its inhabitants. A country where people occasionally exploit and take advantage of refugees and their circumstances. Women, in particular, are susceptible to abuse due to their immigrant status in this country.
Indeed, it is a profound agony, a tremendous one, for individuals of integrity who seek to enhance their lives. However, at times, they find themselves losing their dignity, unable to speak out as their voices go unheard. This silence is enforced upon them because they are deemed stateless, viewed as burdens, and left in a state of helplessness. These are people who take perilous risks, leaving their homeland only to face
death in their supposed refuge due to issues like job challenges, poverty, hunger, homelessness, and a lack of proper healthcare.
This is the life they sought to escape in their homeland, yet on a chilling winter day, we witness a 25-year-old young person hanging in the city center park—a youth ensnared by the grip of death brought on by hunger and a lack of shelter.
Or consider a 34-year-old man, a husband and father to a 5-month-old child, who, in the pursuit of making a living by safeguarding the lives of others, loses his own life, struck by 24 bullets. Now, his child is marked as an orphan at just months old. Another heart-wrenching scenario unfolds with the lifeless body of a father discovered in the deserts surrounding his workplace during the dark hours of the night. After being transported to the hospital, he remains under the watchful care of surgeons and doctors for several months. Sadly, those who endured the attack aren't even permitted to voice their grievances.
Meanwhile, not a single word is heard from any pertinent organization responsible for human rights and refugees, leaving the refugees relegated to the shadows of neglect. Unfortunately, their pain persists without remedy. They are condemned to suffer in silence, grappling with loneliness and isolation, experiencing a slow and inexorable demise.
Homeless women with young children find themselves unable to afford even basic necessities such as milk powder for their infants. Honorable individuals succumb to both minor and major illnesses without the luxury of insurance coverage. Struggling to manage the exorbitant costs of medical treatment, they endure the hardships with resilience, caught in a predicament where returning home or finding a stable existence is not an option.
Many would have opted for a return if there were feasible conditions, but they persist in their current situation, enduring a life marked by suffering and adversity.
Today, they urgently require your helping hands—hands that serve as the embodiment of God's compassion on earth. You, the men and women called by God today, can be the secure hands of God for them.
As children of God, you may have witnessed, experienced, or heard of these sufferings in some way.
Your generous heart can now bear fruit by pouring God's blessings onto their tables, providing nourishment for young children, enabling medical care for the sick, restoring sight to many eyes, and saving countless lives. In the words of Jesus, "He who believes in me will do my works and even greater works than me.
We extend an invitation for you to join us as partners in the spirit of Matthew 25:35, becoming the hands of God on earth to serve the refugees with unity. Rest assured, God will bless your table and overflow your cup, fulfilling his promise in Psalm 5:23.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.