Strangers as Friends 3/26/2022
Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge, North Kent Presbyterian Church
The images are haunting. Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 3.7 million Ukrainians have fled their country for their lives. 10 million Ukrainian people are displaced inside Ukraine, searching for safety from the fighting and the shelling of civilian buildings. Today, we are witnessing the biggest European refugee crisis since WWII. Most of the people who are fleeing Ukraine are women and children. There are
stories of families crossing the Ukrainian border together only to have the men kiss their wives and children goodbye and then turn around to head back into Ukraine in order to defend their homes and neighborhoods.
My friend, the Rev. Scott Parmenter from Allegan Baptist is currently serving as the pastor at the International Christian Fellowship Church in Warsaw, Poland. He and his congregation have turned their church building into a refugee housing center. There has been a steady stream of refugees walking through their doors. But because of the
destruction, it is not always possible for these people to ever go back home. Pastor Scott writes: “The look in their eyes, I don’t think I will ever forget. They’re blank; they’re empty. When you give them something, they’re grateful, but very little emotion because they’re just in shock, I think, over what’s happened to them.”
Over 40 times in the Bible we are encouraged to care for the immigrant, the
stranger in our midst. As followers of Jesus, we are specifically instructed to take in, welcome and to take care of those strangers who are immigrants, refugees, those who are homeless. We are reminded that just as the children of Israel were starving and found food and welcome in the land of Egypt, so too we are obligated to welcome the stranger as friends.
The United States has recently announced that they will temporarily take in 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. To immigrate permanently, the refugees would need to apply for asylum, a difficult and complex government system that is widely considered to already be overstretched. Locally, Bethany Christian Services is searching for churches and organizations that can volunteer to help refugee families adjust to living in the U.S. They need volunteers’ help to find apartments and to outfit them with necessities, as well as people to meet refugees at the airport, folks to teach refugees
how to use our public transportation services, and often people to serve as tutors to help refugees learn English as a second language. There is also a program called New Neighbor where you commit to a three-month friendship with a refugee family to help serve as a cultural advisor to help them to navigate the customs and expectations of life in the Grand Rapids area. I wonder what it would look like if every church in the Rockford area committed themselves to helping one refugee family? While we certainly would save the lives of people who are fleeing for their lives, how would our lives and our faith be changed if we actually had the courage to welcome these strangers as friends? After all, Matthew 25 reminds us that what we do for the least of these refugees is what we do for Jesus. Are
we ready to step up and follow Jesus’ instructions to us? I pray that we are.
