GUEST BLOGGER: SOPHIA JENKINS - MISSIONARY KID REFLECTIONS ON THE USA REFUGEE CRISIS OF UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN

Sophia as baby on the back in Uganda, 1993

Growing up in East Africa, I have many friends who were born in times of trouble, war, and genocide. Often when given the opportunity their families left their countries in order to save the lives of their children. My friends lived in refugee camps and were fed by relief efforts of wealthier nations. Neighboring countries opened their arms providing refugee children with the opportunities to go to school and gave their parents jobs. I did not fully understand the complexity when I was a small child in Uganda; and my best friend was not Ugandan, but Rwandan. Our favorite thing to do was sit under the jack fruit tree’s at church, tell stories, and take turns on the swing. As children our stories never involved violence and abuse.  My friend and I were blessed to live with our parents in safety.

 As I grew older and lived in Rwanda, one of my best friends in high school was

Doreen Rwigamba and her dad who served with others to stop Genocide

born in Uganda during times of trouble. Her father served in the Rwandan Patriotic Front, and she and I talked much of war and politics that raged throughout sub-Saharan Africa past and present. We had the luxury of attending a school where we were taught to engage in public issues and social change, because we were all aware of how our country Rwanda and the region was changing all around us.

Now I live in the US, and it is very easy for me to forget about the ugly, war ravaged places in the world. It is very easy for me to go through out my day and never once read the news. I am grateful that I still have friends and family, who continue to share stories that are often ignored.

          This week I have not been able to avoid the stories on my Facebook feed or the news on my television. I am bewildered and disgusted by watching the stories on the US News. If a nation in the global south had between 60,000 and 80,000 children cross their border fleeing violence the western media would call it a "refugee crisis."(http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/opinion/sunday/a-refugee-crisis-not-an-immigration-crisis.html?referrer=,
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20140629-refusing-sanctuary-to-children-in-need.ece.)

2011 Kigali International Community School Graduates

How do we show compassion to these children? I do not know what I can do to make a change. I am overwhelmed with questions.  How can we provide for these children? How can we welcome them into America? (http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/some-towns-immigrants-met-aid-instead-anger-n148956, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bethany-anderson/unaccompanied-alien-child_b_5555584.html?utm_content=buffer3f3a1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer.)

          On the news I see plenty of discussion centered on border control, more agents, more guns, and very little discussion on protection of the most innocent and vulnerable. My father reminded me of some African stories.   President Kagame and Museveni when they guarded borders would let children cross and protected them from men with guns. Many of the children who are coming to the US have been victims of rape, abuse, their lives have been threatened.  Yet in response the most common public response is to say, “Return to your country.” I question this line of deportation thought that encourages children to go back to their abusers; the drug lords and gangs that control their homes.

         

Sophia and Doreen Rwigamba

Today I am grateful for the resources, the compassion of the church, African nations (and others) who cared for my friends when they lived for a season as refugees. I am praying that the same or even better treatment, care and compassion can be extended to the thousands of children that are fleeing Central America for the United States (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-wallis/the-moral-failure-of-immi_b_5557775.html.)

 I fervently ask, “Lord Jesus send us Your hope, provide a way for the most hopeless in our world. As Your people we often strip the dignity away from the most deserving. Remind us that You yourself came as a child. Jesus You fled to Egypt as a refugee. When I cry out in confusion and grief for these children, I am reminded that You are there with them. You have experienced their pain, and You are caring for each child now. Teach me, teach Your church, Your people how to love the way You love and to see the humanity in each child You have created”

CONFESSING THE SINS OF MY FATHERS AND MYSELF

One of my most dear earthly homes, Rwanda is in a period of mourning from the horrific Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.   In grief many emotions overwhelm us – denial, anger, sadness, and acceptance.   Grief that is caused by human sin must never be accepted as a cover up of the darkest actions of man.   Rightly, the victim’s blood cries out for generations for justice.   Yet, in the cries sometimes we deny our own dark places that make such horrific actions possible.   In true acceptance we seek to change our own lives, and resolve to make a world where human initiated horror is unlikely to ever happen again.

These seasons of grief bring us back to one of the oldest spiritual disciplines – confession and repentance.    God requires those of us who build after tragedy to humbly acknowledge the actions of our fathers and ourselves that created such tragedy.   A Diaspora builder of old confessed,

 “O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with

those who love him and keep his commandments; let thy ear be attentive, and thy eyes open, to hear the prayer of thy servant which I now pray before thee day and night … confessing the sins of the people… which we have sinned against thee. Yea, I and my father’s house have sinned.  We have acted very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments… (Nehemiah 1:5-7, Revised Standard Version.)”

I am an American Mulokole (Evangelical / Saved One.)   My people have sinned greatly.

I have read the histories and listened to the stories of Africa’s Great Lake’s Bzee.   My people, the nation of America has sinned greatly.  We repeatedly manipulated political processes in Africa’s Great Lakes after Independence.  We supported regimes who repeatedly forfeited their moral authority for our gain of resources or political stability during the Cold War.   We cared little for the consequences upon the people of Africa’s Great Lakes.   During the Genocide we hid in nuances of grammar, legal technicalities, and political rhetoric.   We could have done more.   We were cowardly.

My people, the Balokole have sinned.   We retreated into a world of the spirit and forgot the affairs of men on earth.   When Independence came we did not offer a prophetic voice.   We did not participate in building of enduring institutions.  In the end, the killing fields of Rwanda were our own church buildings.

I have sinned.  From my childhood, Rwanda fascinated me.   My earliest Ugandan friends were Banyarwanda.   Yet, when I read hateful literature that masqueraded as academic reasoning I was silent.   When my Bazungu clan mates repeated mythology that would later justify Genocide I was silent.   When the Genocide began I did not write a single letter or make a single phone call to any government official who could have made a difference.

I offer my God and the people of Rwanda my deepest apologies.  I pray that my people and I will never act in a similar way again so help me God.