Give Me
Refuge
Naomi*
Mirah,* a young woman from Syria, sat in
the Swedish coffee shop with me as my
Hungarian friend Kristina* arrived. I introduced the two, and Kristina asked how
long Mirah had been in Sweden and how
she had made her way here. Mirah replied
that her journey had taken 30 days across
the Middle East and Europe. She had slept
on the streets in Hungary and had mostly
traveled at night, on foot or via trains and
buses. She carried only the one suitcase
that contained everything she now owned.
Sometimes, she did not know what she
would eat, and usually, she slept in a bunker or warehouse that was tightly guarded.
She and the other refugees received food
on trays through windows, shut up like
prisoners.
I saw Kristina try to piece all of this together, explaining, “Well, Hungary is the
first port of entry into the Schengen states,
so our country bears the responsibility for
screening people. People get access to all
of Europe at these borders. Also, mobs of
OMS Worker
in Europe
refugees are stressed out and sometimes
riot. Government officials need established
controls.”
Compassion and reality were meeting in
their conversation.
Mirah listened, filtering this information
through a lens of experience from the other
side. She had seen pictures of Hungary and
had wanted to see the beautiful landmarks
and cities one day, but because she traveled across barren countryside on trains at
night, she didn’t really see anything … nor
in Austria or any of the other beautiful lands
as she passed through.
Mirah shared her dream of one day
opening her own restaurant, saying she
had been excited about food and cooking
since she was 10. Kristina, who is looking
for a job, volunteered to help Mirah attain
her dream.
A friendship bloomed.
Europe, and the world, is a tempest. God
has brought people from closed countries
to us in the West. Europeans now struggle
12