Ethnographic Sketches of Two Refugees in Response to Crises
WCIU Journal: Community and Societal Development Topic
November 25, 201
by Sunny Hong and Esther Miller
Sunny Hong, Ph.D., SIL International
Sunny Hong has served with Wycliffe and SIL since 1994. She currently works as a senior intercultural consultant at SIL International and is an adjunct professor at Dallas International University. One of her research topics is refugee issues.
Esther Miller, SIL International
Esther works with SIL International in a sensitive context in West Asia. She considers herself privileged to have had various opportunities to simply “do life” alongside refugees. One of her closest friends is a Muslim refugee woman living in the United States.
Refugees have been described with words like “severely trauma-stricken”; those who have lost their homes, language, culture, and normal life; “marginalized”; “powerless”; “victims of a social force”; “deprived”; “vulnerable”; and “dehumanized.” Their severe experiences impact their identity and their survival tremendously. However, because of outside forces that threaten their lives, sometimes their situations cause them to seek more in their spiritual life and can result in their becoming messengers of the gospel. Being exposed to many languages and cultures also causes them to look at their language and culture from different perspectives. Through the ethnographic description of two refugees, this paper uses sociological approaches to understand how they responded to crises; what factors made them seek spiritual life; what has impacted their spiritual journeys; how their identities have been changed; how their language and culture have impacted their lives; how their trauma has been dealt with; how they participate in the global economy; and how family relationships are impacted throughout their refugee lives. Below we describe two true stories of Samira and Lin[1].
Samira’s Story
There was a knock on the door. I opened the door and life as I knew it just ended. The intelligence service entered without permission and tore the house apart. Any excuse to persecute this Sunni-Shia mixed family of four would do. They found a copy of a forbidden novel. Fortunately, my husband wasn’t home at the moment. As soon as I made contact with him, we immediately began our crucial escape from the country. “We walked through four feet of snow, through the mountains, over two nights, with our two kids, to save our lives. We nearly froze to death. I could feel the blood getting slower and slower in my veins. I could feel myself freezing. And I thought we were finished” [emphasis added].
I had married when I was only fifteen years old. My husband was a Sunni Muslim, I was a Shia Muslim. At that time in my home country in the Middle East[2], Sunnis were a heavily persecuted minority. I finished high school, then went to college and earned both bachelor and master degrees. I had just begun working on my doctorate degree when I heard the knock that changed our lives.
In Transit Places
Our blood-slowing journey to save our lives finally ended in the country next door. We had no documentation, no money, and nowhere to go. My husband’s brothers living in Dubai sent us money, and we hired smugglers to take us to Canada. The smugglers gave us fake passports with fake visas to Mexico and a one-day transit visa through Paris. We had a single day to pass through.
I was, at only 23 or 24 years old, unexpectedly in another country and trying to survive with two children, an approaching visa date, and no money for tickets. My husband called his brothers and they sent money again. The banks in our temporary location were very corrupt, so they intentionally delayed the money. I went to the travel agency and asked the lady, “Can I at least reserve these tickets? We are waiting for our money. The bank is delaying it.” The lady asked, “Which bank are you working with?” When I told her, she said, “Oh, I’m dating the son of the owner of the bank. Let me see what I can do.” She picked up the phone, got the money, and I bought the tickets right then. We arrived in Mexico City. The smugglers had given us a phone number to call after we arrived in Mexico, at which point they would send some guys to take us to Canada. But, it was a wrong number. The smugglers had taken our money and left us in the middle of a big city whose language we did not speak, with no documentation, less than $500, no way forward, no way backward, and two children who were supposed to be in school. My husband was just losing his mind.
We were living with a local family throughout that year. I inquired of them one evening about a few thousand dollars my mom had sent us and I found out that they had stolen it. The family kicked us out. It was a rainy December night, one of my kids had a high fever. I was broken-hearted. I remember just dragging the kids as we walked twenty minutes to get a cab to a hotel in downtown Mexico City. It was Christmas Eve and I remember hearing the Christmas music from the hotel. I was really, really broken-hearted. I just sat and cried. “That was a very special moment when I felt God’s comfort in a very special way. I’ve never experienced God as being absent. There’s just assurance of God being always present, but I experienced His comfort at that moment in a particular way” [emphasis added].
The oppression of Sunni Muslims in my home country at that time was severe, and a leader of my husband’s mosque had recently been arrested. We had been in Mexico a year, but now the embassy of my home country located us. So, we fled again. We arrived in New Laredo on the Texas-Mexico border. Then, we crossed the Rio Grande. “We walked through the river. That was one of the scariest things I have ever done. That was the day when, for the first time, I begged. As a mother, I begged for my children. I was feeling terrified for my children. This was a very, very difficult day” [emphasis added].
Fleeing to the U.S.
Arriving on the United States’ soil, we turned ourselves in and applied for asylum. We took a bus to Dallas and arrived at 7:00 a.m. I began calling apartments and found out quickly that we could not rent an apartment because we did not have jobs or social security numbers. Flipping through the Yellow Pages, I saw an Islamic Center and called them for help. They gave me the number of a Christian woman who was helping Muslim Bosnian refugees. This woman had prepared an apartment the month before for a Bosnian family who had failed to arrive. She came to us immediately, and by 11:30 a.m. we were in our own apartment, had done grocery shopping, and had paid a month of rent—all in a city where we had not known a soul and with no documentation. These people being Christians, I told them about my long-standing interest in Christianity. One of the helpers said, “Well, why don’t you come to church with us?” Six months later I was baptized in his church.
Early Life
I had been born and raised in a nominally Muslim family, so there had never been any religious talk at home. At six years old, I had a vision of the Virgin Mary. I asked my mom in the morning, “Who’s Mary?” I told her what I had seen and my mom said, “Oh, that’s Mary, the mother of the Prophet Jesus.” Then, when I was nine, I received a calling into ministry by watching a Christian movie. I knew that my life belonged to the church, but I had no idea what the church was. In my country at that time, the Catholic Church was all that was known about. My nominally Muslim mother, knowing about my experiences with the dream and the movie, just wanted her daughter to be happy and flourishing so she took me to apply at a teeny, tiny convent left over from WWII. The convent was dying, though, and they did not accept me. Even though I was living in a decidedly Muslim country, I had significant Christian influence. By the age of ten, I had read all the classics including Les Misérables, Daddy-Long-Legs, and The Brothers Karamazov. These being deeply Christian books, they influenced me, and through them, God was forming my heart, though I did not know it. “So it’s always interesting and humbling to know that when we meet people, God has already gone before us. God has already been at work in their lives, and it’s not like we are just bringing something totally new to them. It’s sweet” [emphasis added].
New Christian Life
After arriving in Dallas, I started reading the Bible from Genesis and it seemed ridiculous to me. It just did not make any sense. I thought it was superstitious and nonsense. I persevered, but “it was really just the love of God that I came to believe, and to believe in Jesus.” When I reached the New Testament, I particularly loved the Gospel of John. I began doing exegesis, learning more deeply, and then eventually went to seminary. My growth of faith and understanding was a process of God revealing Himself and taking me deeper and deeper. My learning was never just head knowledge, though; belonging with God was what really brought me to faith. I had always believed in the God who was the Creator of the universe, who was One, and who would judge the world at the end. “When I became a Christian, I came to know God as love as expressed in the Holy Trinity. I came to know his love as was given on the cross and his power for salvation through the resurrection. I came to know his intimate and personal friendship and empowerment by the Holy Spirit. God was abstract, distant, harsh in Islam, but loving, personal, intimate, and saving in Christianity. I came to know Jesus through the Gospel of John and the love of Christians. Jesus became real to me through his hands and feet in the Church and that reality has progressed and developed as I serve others.”
Family
My mother came to the U.S. to visit me once and learned about Christianity. A couple of years ago through a financial miracle, she came again with the particular objective of being baptized. When she went back to her country, she shared the Gospel with my sister who came to faith. My sister became on fire. She started sharing but had no idea how dangerous it was. In a month, twenty people came to faith through her. She was holding meetings, and then her in-laws found out. That’s when major trouble started for her. I have not seen my father or siblings in twenty-one years. My brothers do not know our mom is a Christian, and I am not sure whether my father knows about my mother’s baptism. When I was baptized, I told my mother but she did not tell my father. He found out about it seven years ago when I was invited to be on a TV program going live into my home country. At the bottom of the screen, it said, “Reverend Samira, Diocese of Dallas” in our language. All of a sudden the station got this call, and on live television, this man said, “This is my daughter, and I’m so proud that she’s a servant of Jesus Christ.” He choked up, then hung up. At the time, I had not seen my father in about fourteen years, and I knew he had not been happy about my mother reading the Bible. When he saw me on TV, though, God opened his heart. The people from the TV station called and prayed with him twice. The next day, my father called me and he did not say a word about my conversion or vocation. The only thing he said was “I didn’t know that Christians were so human. The Christians had called to pray with me, and Muslims don’t do that.”
Ministry and Reflections
After finishing seminary and being ordained, I started praying, asking God what it was He wanted me to do. I prayed through my life, looked at what God had taught me through my journey, and considered the refugees and what was available to them. I noticed that there was not a systematic way of mobilizing churches to do refugee ministry in a holistic way. So, I became a missionary to refugees. In the United States, I am most thankful for the Church. “I’m talking about the body of Christ, which is the Church universal. Jesus Christ does not have denominations—He has one body, one mission, and I love this body.” Life here in the U.S. is not hard, but what can sometimes be difficult is when I see a lack of Gospel action in response to human crises like the refugee crisis or famine, or whatever is going on in the world. “Everything that we do, if we are truly the Church, we ought to be as a light to the nations and to make the name of the Lord known—not proselytizing, because conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit, but making the name of the Lord known, making His love shown. That’s the task of the Church. If the Church doesn’t do that, the Church doesn’t exist. You know, we are not a club.” As for the purpose of my own pain, I really appreciate the image of the Wounded Healer. I see how our wounds—by God’s grace and by the Spirit of God—become sources of healing for others. Had I not gone through the sufferings that I have gone through, I do not think I would have as much compassion for refugees or as much patience with them. I see my difficult experiences as being an equipping for the work of the ministry. So I believe that “every wound that we have if we live in Christ and by the power of His Spirit, can be a source of God’s glory. So that’s what I see with my wounds.”
Lin’s story
I traveled by car from Chin State to Yangon, the Burmese capital, which took four days, then I went on to a small border town. Then the smugglers led us, a hodgepodge group of ten, by foot across the Burmese border, through Thailand, and into Malaysia. For one week, we walked at night and slept in the forest by day. Sometimes we saw the police—Thai police, Malaysian police. The thought of freedom gave me hope, but the terror of arrest was ever present. We tried to stay hidden at all times. Things had gotten very dangerous for me in Chin State before I fled to Malaysia. Any day I could have been arrested and forced to join the national army where I would have had to fight against my brothers and friends in the Chin State army. So, my uncle arranged for me to come to Malaysia where he was already working. He had paid the smugglers, and I left my parents and four younger siblings. I was fifteen years old.
In a Transit Place
After about a week of walking, we arrived in Malaysia. To me, this was a very rich country. I worked construction. The conditions were poor, the work dangerous. Any workers with passports were protected by work contracts promising compensation to family members for the injury or death of a worker. I, however, without a passport, was dispensable and unprotected. From time to time, workers died from falling or being electrocuted. I lived on the construction site in a small shipping container—ten men in one container—and used a piece of plastic I had picked up on the site as my blanket. I had a United Nations card, but the local police did not accept these cards. I and other workers without passports were always afraid of arrest. “We go out to use the bus, we see police. ‘Come, come, show your passport,’ they say, ‘but we don’t have a passport.’ Always we’re worrying.” My cousin was arrested and put in jail. He was fed poorly and faced various punishments. After six months he was released and thrown to the border of Thailand, from which a smuggler lead him back to Malaysia. For two months after his release, he could not sleep at night from the trauma. Though he now is also settled in Dallas, he still has no feeling in parts of his back where he bears scars from his whippings.
Remembering Life in Chin State
Chin State is so beautiful, full of mountains and rivers. I especially love the month of April when the flowers are fresh and the air is windy. It is such a good feeling. My mother, brothers, and cousins are there. Everyone likes his own country, likes his own village. I have no regrets about coming, though, because my country is very bad. I pray, “Thank you, God, for blessing me here,” because life in the United States is much better and I am able to financially support my family in the village. Yet, if my country were better, I would certainly prefer to live in my own village. I remember how I went to the local Burmese government school for four years, starting at age five in Chin State. My village was small, so we went home for lunch. The boys played soccer in our free time, and after school, we would go to the river to swim, then play soccer again. I would help my father farm, doing the jobs little boys could do, like hoeing the fields and carrying water. When I began school, I did not speak a word of Burmese, and all the lessons were in Burmese. When I finished elementary school at age nine, though, I could speak Burmese. Being from a poorer family in the village, I was not able to move to another village for school beyond grade four, so I worked with my family farming. It seemed everyone in Chin State was farming.
Questioning and Grace
My father and mother had always been Christians, so I had grown up in a Christian family. Here I am now in Malaysia. I see that the Muslims are rich and successful, while “my life is very troubled, my family is very poor, my state has a lot of problems.” I constantly think how if I had been born in the United States or Europe, maybe I could be a professional soccer player by now. But instead, I was born in a very poor country. “Why?!” I ask God again and again.I am nineteen years old now and by “this time I’m very depressed, I don’t want to pray. My family taught: always before eating—pray, before sleep time—pray. Everything is ‘Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.’ But my mind is different. In Malaysia, I’m changed. I don’t want to believe God. I don’t want to go to church. Against God, I’m always questioning.” I think, “If I die—I don’t believe in God, I’ll go to hell. No problem. I’ll go there. Many people will be there. These Malaysians will go too, Buddhist Chinese go too. I think about how I will go to hell myself, but a lot of people go too” [emphasis added.] I look at the people around me and see nothing good, people are doing only bad. There is no love, and sometimes their talk is awful. Over a period of several years, my depression grows very bad. I quit going to church and quit believing in God. During this time I am drinking and doing bad things, thinking, “If I die—no problem.”
Once on a day off work, I go into Kuala Lumpur to stay with a fellow Chin State refugee who works in a restaurant and has an apartment. My friend says, “Hey, let’s go to church this Sunday. This famous pastor is coming here.” I say, “Ack, I don’t wanna believe God. My life, you can see that. Why did Creator God make my life like this?” He says, “Ok, if you don’t wanna come with me, you listen to him on YouTube ten minutes.” The pastor explains how God has a purpose for our lives and “Ohhh, a lot of questions come to me. While I’m working, I think about only about this. Ohhh, my life. God created life and He has a purpose for why. We don’t know, but God already knows. I can’t sleep, always this I’m hearing within myself” [emphasis added]. Finally, I say, “Ok, my friend, I wanna come with you.
So, I go with my friend to the church where the famous Burmese pastor is preaching about Jesus: “We are Christian, we grow up with a Christian life, but we don’t know Jesus Christ. Knowing about God and knowing God are very different, Christian brother, sister!” He gives examples of this from the Bible. “Ohhh!” I realize. “My life is only knowing about Jesus. That’s why I came to depression!” I had doubted God and deeply questioned God, but now “my mind changes! I study the Bible again, I go to the church again, I talk to the pastor. I go to a conference all day for teaching about Jesus. During this time I understand grace. God loves so much. He prepared for my life a plan.” During this time of deep personal change, I was working doing the wiring for a Malaysian boss. The construction site where I was working had many shipping containers, owned by different bosses of various nationalities and inhabited by workers from various countries. I was living alone in one of the containers alongside the wire in storage, when at 3:00 a.m. one night while I am sound asleep, there is pounding on the container door, and then "Wake up! Wake up! Hora mana? Hora mana? (Where are you from?)” “I’m from Myanmar.” “Show the passport.” “I don’t have a passport.” I present my U.N. card, but they say it doesn’t work. I remember my cousin’s brother, and think, “Ohhhh, if I go to jail…” But, my boss is a good man and he and I have a good relationship, so he contacts the police on my behalf. The police accept money from my boss—a Malaysian man—and they let me go the same day. The same thing happens again a few months later. I had been in Malaysia six years by now and had had significant anxiety and depression, “but now I understand grace, so I don’t care. Grace—after I understand grace, my life doesn’t matter, happiness doesn’t matter, trouble doesn’t matter—because God loves me so much, my life is praising Him, my life is satisfaction” [emphasis added]. The time in Malaysia was difficult, I was constantly afraid of arrest. But “more worry? More prayer, more trusting God!” Finally, everything came together, and I came to the United States in October 2012 after eight years in Malaysia.
Life in the U.S. and Reflections
When I arrived in the United States, Catholic Charities helped me significantly with finding a job and initial transitions. I had no English, but a small town factory an hour north of the city couldn’t find local employees, so they hired a group of immigrants from Dallas. I am a forklift driver there. At 5:30 a.m. each morning my rideshare leaves from Dallas, arriving back in Dallas between 5 and 6 p.m., depending on traffic. I take English classes at Vickery Meadow Learning Center two evenings a week. Writing English is challenging to me, and unfortunately, everything in this country seems to use writing—applying online, and so on. I deeply appreciate the Zotung Chin church in Dallas. The congregation is very small, though, and does not have a building. We have been meeting in the community center of an American church for three hours on Sunday afternoon. But how is this enough? There is only time for a few songs, and worship is so important! Saturday night and Sunday night the church meets in the apartments of various church members. But where can we practice for Sunday worship? Neighbors would report our noise level. The hardest thing about my life in the U.S. is that I can only worship God for three hours on Sunday. I wish I could worship God every day with my fellow Christian brothers and sisters. “People’s lives are not always successful. Sometimes times are difficult, sometimes we’re crying, sometimes it is hard, but we know Jesus Christ. Yes, knowing Jesus and knowing about Jesus are different. This is very important. Before—me too, I was knowing about Jesus. Now I’m knowing Jesus.”
Sociological Analysis
This section analyzes the stories of Samira and Lin sociologically to understand and describe how they responded to the crises of being refugees.
Background Information on Samira and Lin
Samira was born in a Middle Eastern country with a current population of 83 million, 98% of whom are Muslim (90-95% Shia, 5-10% Sunni) according to the Central Intelligence Agency, and 1.3% of whom are Christian (0.95% Evangelical) according to Joshua Project. The Evangelical annual growth rate is 19.6% as reported by Joshua project, one of the highest in the world.
Lin was born and raised in a 120-house Zotung-speaking village in Chin State—a remote mountainous province located in the far west of Myanmar bordering India. The Zotung people originated from the Tibeto-Burman group of peoples, and though their culture is similar to many neighboring Chin groups, their language is distinct. Currently, 53,000 people live in the Zotung Chin area and 75% of them are Christians which contrasts with the Buddhist government and most citizens of Myanmar. American Baptist missionaries in the 1930s came to the Zotung area and shared the gospel. Prior to the missionaries’ arrival, they had been isolated from the rest of the country due to difficulty traveling in the mountain terrain. The whole Bible was published in the Zotung language in 2016 (Ethnologue).
Samira was Shia and her husband was Sunni, which represent the two major divisions within Islam. The country had a revolution in the 1970s, which resulted in the country becoming an Islamic nation (Britannica). After the country became officially Islamic, persecution of Sunnis began, which contributed to Samira’s family escaping and becoming refugees.
Some Zotung people became refugees during Myanmar’s military regime (1962–1988) when it was under martial law. They were subjected to religious persecution and their young men were forced to join the national army to fight against their Chin army, which is why Lin fled the country. Zotung people resettled in the U.S., Malaysia, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Denmark, India, Thailand, South Korea, and the Philippines (Zotung Christian Church).
Identity Issues
Refugees, like other immigrants, often form multiple identities or hidden identities in response to the cultural and social experiences in which they have participated. They may choose to keep their ethnic identity, adopt the identity of their host country, or mix several cultures together as part of their identity. Though he is not ethnically Burmese, in the U.S. Lin introduces himself as being from Myanmar because Zotung is not a recognizable ethnicity, and introducing himself in an unrecognizable way could lead to a reduced view of him. This form of introduction actually is inaccurate, though, identifying himself as someone he is not (Hong 2018, 166) and ironic, as his assumed identity is the very group which caused him severe trouble. He could more accurately say that he is from Myanmar but is Zotung Chin rather than Burmese, but this is a very cumbersome introduction. Internally, he considers himself to be Zotung-American.
Being from the majority ethnic group, language, and religion of her home country, Samira does not share Lin’s problem to the same extent. She also identifies herself as her home country-American. Both Lin and Samira retain their ethnic/origin identity, then add the new identity of their host country. They become hyphenated persons who are able to navigate two different cultures based on the social situation (Chen 2015, 5).
Lin struggled with his ethnic identity as being a minority person in Myanmar and again a double-layered minority in the U.S., but his identity rests firmly in Christ. Lin said, “My life is important because the Holy Spirit lives in me. I have zero education but God opened my eyes.” Samira also has a firm identity not only as a Christian but also as a Kingdom worker. Their spiritual identities form the strongest portion of their identity.
Linguistic Impact
Lin’s mother tongue, Zotung, is widely used in the Zotung Chin area, unthreatened by the Burmese language. The Ethnologue rated Zotung as a 5 on the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale, indicating that “the language is in vigorous use, with literature in a standardized form being used by some, though this is not yet widespread or sustainable” (Lewis & Simons 2016, 80). After four years of schooling in his village, Lin was able to hold casual conversations in Burmese, but through increased usage of Burmese (particularly church-related) during his time in Malaysia, he achieved fluency in Burmese. Since the Bible in Zotung was not available during the time of his spiritual growth, Lin reads the Bible in Burmese and prefers Burmese as his religious language. Some minority people compartmentalize language based on the domain of life, as Van Dam’s research also demonstrates among the Roma people in Romania who use only the national language in their religious activities and find it difficult to use their mother tongue for any spiritual activities (2018, 330). Lin prays in both Zotung and Burmese and prefers Scripture reading in Burmese, Zotung, and English, respectively. Had Lin not left home, he would speak Zotung, though with some fluency in Burmese. However, becoming a refugee exposed him to multilingualism as he learned Malay and English for his survival. Lin enjoys discovering how different languages give him a deeper understanding of the Bible, e.g., while Burmese and Zotung do not separate the spirit from the soul, English does. Lin observes that in his Zotung church in Dallas, members over 40 prefer to worship in Zotung, those 20-40 in Burmese, and those younger than 20 in English. This pattern reflects the primary languages Zotung people have acquired throughout their journeys as refugees and has created language gaps across the Zotung generations.
In addition to the choice of the primary languages, culture may reflect generational differences. “In some cases this dual identity may be split socially across generations with older folks maintaining the traditional ways and younger people accepting external innovations and participating in the outside world” (Lewis 2018, 53). Samira’s mother tongue is the national language of the country, so she did not go through the same language issues as Lin did. Being linguistically gifted, she learned English and Greek while she was still in her homeland. When she became a Christian, she started reading the Bible in English and Greek because the Bible available in her mother tongue is not a quality translation. She connects emotionally with the English and Greek Bible translations and uses English in her private prayer. When she preaches in her mother tongue, she translates the passage from the English Bible to her mother tongue. With Samira's religious language not being her mother tongue, she also demonstrates domain-based language compartmentalization.
Both Lin and Samira have retained their mother tongue and their ethnic/national identity. “… language shift with an identity shift could result in the complete loss of their ethnic identity” (Simons & Quakenbush 2018, 401). Holding on to their mother tongue and their home culture, they have kept their ethnic identity and their relationships in their homelands.
Psychological Issues
Refugees go through many traumas: loss of normal life, loss of home, loss of family members, loss of identity, seeing physical death, and ethnic cleansing. “Trauma means living with the recurrent, tormenting memories of atrocities witnessed or borne. Memories infect victims’ sleep with horrific nightmares, destroy relationships, inhibit capacity to work or study, torment their emotions, shatter their faith, and mutilate hope” (Langberg & Monroe 2016, 471). Refugees often feel deprived, powerless, vulnerable, victimized, and meaningless. “Physical illnesses necessitating the attentions of a physician were inseparable from the psychological and social traumas associated with being a refugee” (Coker 2004, 403). Samira was dehumanized the most when she begged for her children in Mexico. Lin was traumatized by the thought that he might be put into jail because of his illegal status in Malaysia. Traumas are one of the major issues that refugees face. Lin and Samira dealt with their trauma with God’s grace.
Family Relationships
One of the tragedies that refugees experience is separation from their family members. Samira has not only been unable to visit her family in her homeland but has also been unable to call family members back home for over twenty years due to security issues. She has only seen her mother two times when her mother visited the U.S. At the heart of Arab culture is the family. The extended Arab family enjoys a solidarity that has resisted the changes of time. The individual is expected to suppress his/her personal needs and interests if they interfere with those of the family. The family is still the main source of security and to win the approval of one’s family and to maintain its confidence is still of primary importance. (Middle East Christian Outreach 1993, 6) Samira’s culture has a similar understanding about family to Arab culture. Samira has to bear the pain of not being able to fulfill the basic family responsibility of visiting her family.
Lin has not seen his family members for thirteen years but periodically calls his parents back home and has a plan to visit his homeland in the near future. When, in a collectivist culture such as Lin's, the smallest unit of society is a family rather than individuals, so being removed from one's family brings difficulties. In some cases, refugees form a family with a group of people who fled together rather than with blood-related people. "The social breakdown was explicitly acknowledged over and over again by the refugees" (Coker 2004, 408). This social deconstruction is particularly devastating for refugees, especially those from collectivistic cultures because their core sense of identity is found within the family unit, not the individual. So there is the agonizing sense that they cannot exist apart from belonging to a family unit, and a great need to be a part of even a surrogate one.
Economic Issues
Financial remittance is the sending of money to family members in the home country by a foreign worker or immigrant, which creates a flow in the global economy. Refugees feel obligated and desire to send money to family in the homeland or in refugee camps because their remaining family members usually are not capable of meeting ends by themselves. Some feel proud of helping family members back home and others feel guilty and distressed when they cannot. Many refugees send money back home in spite of their current needs not being met (Hong, 2018) due to cultural expectations. Remittances in 2018 were 689 billion dollars globally. In 2017, Myanmar received 2.75 billion and the individuals living in the U.S. sent 68 billion dollars (World Bank). One year, Lin sent $3,000 for his family to host a Christmas party for the whole village in addition to the regular financial remittances he sent.
Globalized People
As the refugees are exposed to many different cultures and languages through their journeys, they become at least bi-cultural persons or globalized persons up to a certain degree. They understand different cultures and languages and navigate their life without too many difficulties. They become borderless, transnational and global. “Transcultural mediators are those who have the capabilities to go beyond their cultural group and form bonds with outsiders…” (Song 2011, 126). Lin was exposed to his home culture, Myanmar, Malaysia, and U.S. culture while Samira to her home culture, Mexico, and U.S. culture. They use technology to keep connected with their homelands and have also retained their relationships in the transit places because these relational components form part of their cultural identity. At the same time, they live their lives in their country of resettlement, relating to people around themselves. Their cultural and linguistic exposure increases their ability to join different speech communities and to bridge the gap between the U.S. and their home countries as they utilize their existing networks.
Conclusion
Refugees’ experiences of suffering have impacted their lives greatly, though not everyone responds positively to his or her suffering. “Movement of people outside their homeland has resulted in both improved lives and impoverished lives” (Wan 2011, 74). Scriptures speak of suffering in vain (Gal. 3:4), however, both Lin and Samira responded positively not only to the suffering in their spiritual lives, but also to the psychological, cultural, economic, relational, linguistic, and identity issues they struggled with. They testify to how great God has been in the midst of their suffering and how valuable suffering has been in their lives (Ps. 119:71). Craig Ott says, “In each regard the movement of peoples may be viewed as evidence of God’s sovereign working in a larger plan for the nations and the spread of the gospel” (2011, 75). If Samira had not been a refugee, she would likely have lived out a typical life in her homeland, searching but never finding a real relationship with God. However, Samira became a wounded healer (Nouwen 1979) through her journey of being a refugee. Lin reflected that if he had not become a refugee and had stayed in the Zotung area, he would have little spiritual awakening. He is very thankful to have lots of experiences in the spiritual, cultural, linguistic, and relational areas by meeting people from very different backgrounds. In spite of the many sufferings he went through, by way of those experiences, he found God. Both Samira and Lin are eager to share God’s grace to the people with whom they interact, equipped with multiple languages and cultures.
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[1] Due to a security reason, their family names are not identified.
[2] Due to a security reason, Samira’s home country is not identified.