The question why is often used when we lack understanding and want the big picture. It often is used to channel our frustrations into condemnation of one particular person or event. If we can’t find someone to blame, we end up blaming God.
Instead of asking why, we can ask what is the way forward and how can I be part of the solution.
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| Buduburam Refugee Camp |
A refugee is defined as people who flee their country of origin and cannot return due to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social or political opinion.
Migrants leave or flee their home to seek better or safer surroundings. Migration can be volunteer or forced but generally a combination of choices and constraints are involved.
The world saw a massive migration of people into Europe that sharply rose in June 2015 but still continues today. One million Syrians relocated to Europe. Five million stayed closer to home in countries like Lebanon and Jordan. (source) A quarter of a million refugees and asylum seekers left Afghanistan. (source) The United States accepted 85,000 refugees from Myanmar between 2005-2017 (source). The United States admitted 53,716 people who are refugees seeking asylum in fiscal year 2017. (source)
According to the ICRC, the European migration has decreased in 2017 but continues to bring new arrivals to Italy and Greece where people become stranded in their country of arrival. In Italy, the number of unaccompanied children who have arrive this year alone is 14,597 and in Greece about 18,000 have arrived this year who are unaccompanied.
My church leaders brought this crisis to the attention of all of us in April 2016 General Conference. They launched the I Was A Stranger campaign and counseled us: “One of the fundamental principles of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is to ‘impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, . . . administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants’ (Mosiah 4:26). . . .
“. . . ‘I Was a Stranger’ gives sisters a way to serve as individuals, in families, and in organizations and to offer friendship, mentoring, and other Christlike service to the refugees in our midst. . . .
“Sisters may participate in this effort when time and circumstances allow, making sure that no one is expected to ‘run faster than [she] has strength’ and that all ‘things are done in wisdom and order’
In addition the general church membership was counseled: “We must be careful that news of the refugees’ plight does not somehow become commonplace when the initial shock wears off and yet the wars continue and the families keep coming. Millions of refugees worldwide, whose stories no longer make the news, are still in desperate need of help.
If you are asking, “What can I do?” let us first remember that we should not serve at the expense of our families and other responsibilities, nor should we expect our leaders to organize projects for us. But as youth, men, women, and families, we can join in this great humanitarian endeavor.”
My people don’t have to look far to find a shared experience with modern refugees.
“In the early decades of the 1800s, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons, found themselves first misunderstood, then violently persecuted, and finally driven, displaced—or in some cases, dead. From the outset, Protestant America rejected Latter-day Saints. They believed that Mormons were either duped or dull-witted, and for a variety of reasons the persecution began. Fleeing from New York to Ohio and from Ohio to Missouri, at virtually each stop homes were burned and demolished. Men were beaten, sometimes to death; others were simply left with crippling injuries; women were harassed, threatened, and often enough sexually assaulted in full view of their husbands and children.
Things hit rock bottom in 1838 when Governor Lilburn W. Boggs of Missouri issued his infamous “Extermination Order.” Boggs declared, “The Mormons must be treated as enemies . . . and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary.” Yes, I stand before you as an officer of the only church in United States history which has had an “extermination order” issued against it.
In such dire circumstances, the Latter-day Saints found themselves homeless, hopeless, and in desperate need of a sanctuary. They fled from Missouri to Illinois, where in 1844 their Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred at age 38. The ragged corpus of the Church forged on to the West, where they eventually found refuge in the Great Basin desert, nestled between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the emerging mecca of California on the west.” (Jeffrey R Holland)
Now, in different times, the LDS church funds projects to help others who experience similar distress. In 2015 The Church supported a project by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to grant help to 225,000 children from refugee families in Italy. Children are receiving clothing, blankets and toys. Supplementary feeding kits will be available to younger children and their parents. The Church has funded a mobile medical unit for a MEDU (Physicians for Human Rights), a nonprofit organization based in Italy. The International Medical Corps provides primary medical and psychological services to refugees arriving on various Greek islands, including Leros, Samos and Kos. With financial assistance from the Church, this humanitarian organization will administer medical and psychological care and refer those in need to local hospitals for higher-level care.
The living prophet, Thomas S Monson, has said, “Often we live side by side but do not communicate heart to heart. There are those within the sphere of our own influence who, with outstretched hands, cry out, “Is there no balm in Gilead? My brothers and sisters, we are surrounded by those in need of our attention, our encouragement, our support, our comfort, our kindness—be they family members, friends, acquaintances, or strangers. We are the Lord’s hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift His children."
Marion G Romney said, Many programs have been set up by well-meaning individuals to aid those who are in need. However, many of these programs are designed with the short-sighted objective of “helping people,” as opposed to “helping people help themselves.” (Marion Romney, The Celestial Nature of Self Reliance)
“This principle [of self reliance] does not deny to the needy nor to the poor the assistance they should have. The wholly incapacitated, the aged, the sickly are cared for with all tenderness, but every able-bided person is enjoined to do his utmost for himself to avoid dependence, if his own efforts can make such a course possible; to look upon adversity as temporary; to combine his faith in his own ability with honest toil; to rehabilitate himself and his family to a position of independence; in every case to minimize the need for help and to supplement any help given with his own best efforts.” (ibid)
Self reliance is a prerequisite to service. We cannot give when we have nothing with which to offer. We must be prepared with food and water in a disaster to be able to offer our time and talents to others. We must be strong ourselves to be able to serve those who are sick and widowed. Money to assist the needy cannot come from an empty purse. And yet, we are all self reliant in some areas and dependent in others. Therefore, we should strive to help others in areas where we have strengths.
When we help others help themselves we foster faith to combine honest work with goals for future success. We can bring back the independence that people need to succeed.
A Few Ways You Can Help
- Contribute to the online project missingmaps.org
- Volunteer at the Red Cross with their Restoring Family Links Program
- Donate to charities that provide direct assistance to refugees
- Find out who helps Refugees in your local area and lend a hand
- Be a mentor to help one refugee learn an income-generating skill
- Adopt a refugee family during their first few months in this country
- Write a letter and thank a US government official for the work they do on your behalf for refugees if you are a US citizen. Here's an email address: SandovalSK@state.gov (She's a public affairs officer for the U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration) If you are a citizen of another country, research what your country is doing for refugees.
Sources Quoted
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