{"id":887,"date":"2016-11-15T19:54:59","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T16:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/?p=887"},"modified":"2017-10-15T19:59:24","modified_gmt":"2017-10-15T16:59:24","slug":"make-room-for-one-more-my-response-to-the-refugees-in-our-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/make-room-for-one-more-my-response-to-the-refugees-in-our-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Room for One More My response to the refugees in our community"},"content":{"rendered":"

~Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.~ \u00a0<\/strong>Emma Lazarus<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

By Georgia Coats<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Preferred Aisle Seat<\/p>\n

I have never been known for my punctuality.\u00a0 In fact, I characteristically run late.\u00a0 Often times it\u2019s because I get lost trying to find places, or maybe it\u2019s because I tend to be on Greek time, which means I\u2019m not technically late; it just allows me a half-hour margin for arrival.\u00a0 At my church there are either long pews or rows of seats for people to sit in as they enter the place of worship.\u00a0 I\u2019m always grateful when people scoot in towards the middle seats, so that us late arrivers can slip into the aisle seats, unnoticed.\u00a0 I prefer to avoid the awkward attention of navigating my way through a maze of knees and handbags after the service has begun to settle into the middle.\u00a0 Sometimes at special events, the pastor up front will ask everyone to scoot in a little to make room for more people to slip into the aisle seats.\u00a0 I know how it feels to be scooted in for.<\/p>\n

Lately, though, I have been on a fairly long stretch of timely arrivals, which means I have my pick of seats at church.\u00a0 Admittedly, I tend to choose a preferred aisle seat, so if I need to get up at a moment\u2019s notice I make less of a scene.\u00a0 I like the aisle seat.\u00a0 I like having a bit of space on one end between me and other people that I don\u2019t know so well.\u00a0 I like my space, my preferences, and my little comforts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Joining the Response to New Americans<\/p>\n

Last month I attended a free community event sponsored by Sabeel Media at the Caroline Kennedy Library in Dearborn Heights, discussing the response and the responsibility of the media to share the experiences and needs of refugees.\u00a0 One of the special presenters, Shane Lakatos of the Social Services for the Arab Community (SSFAC) in Toledo, challenged everyone at the event to think about the fear in our own hearts.\u00a0 We fear people we don\u2019t know.\u00a0 And in fear, we tend to think the worst of them.\u00a0 Peter Twele, another special presenter and author of the book, Rubbing Shoulders in Yemen, emphasized that refugee families relocating simply need a friend if they are to successfully assimilate in a new culture.\u00a0 Not only have they left homes, families and jobs, they\u2019ve lost neighborhoods, communities and connections.\u00a0 They need to build a new community of relationships.<\/p>\n

So as I stood in the back of the Sabeel Media event, having arrived a little late, I started to think of my own response to the refugees joining my community.\u00a0 I can donate to the cause.\u00a0 I can pray for those who suffer.\u00a0 I can speak out for the needs of these new Americans.\u00a0 I can even volunteer for an event of handing out free backpacks to refugee kids starting school in a new country.\u00a0 As I was pondering my action points, I scanned the room of attendees and my eyes fell on a beautiful young woman dressed in a bright pink sweater with a coordinated floral scarf covering her head.\u00a0 I recognized her.\u00a0 I was surprised to realize that I knew her, and not only that, but that I had been thinking about her.\u00a0 I knew her by name.\u00a0 I had given backpacks to her kids at the volunteer event in September.<\/p>\n

Scooching Over, My Point of Decision<\/p>\n

I greeted her with quiet kisses so not as to disrupt the program, and continued to listen to the needs amidst the crisis.\u00a0 The needs are dire.\u00a0 The search for hope is essential for new Americans coming into our country.\u00a0 The presenters\u2019 words rang in my ears, of our own fears, and of the refugees\u2019 need for friendship and connection with such limited resources\u2026 What was I going to do about it?\u00a0 But what about my crazy American schedule?\u00a0 Do I have room in my life for a needy new friend?\u00a0 Not really. There\u2019s work, grad school, kids, family.\u00a0 But this is a crisis we are all facing.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t just belong to some people and not others.\u00a0 We all need to scoot in, scooch over, squeeze closer together, and make room for one more in our rows in life.\u00a0 My little bit of comfort in my \u201cpreferred aisle seat\u201d isn\u2019t a lot to give up, considering the woman I\u2019m inviting to sit next to me really wants to settle her young family after fleeing disaster and living in temporary housing for over a year.\u00a0 She has her dignity.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t just want to be helped.\u00a0 She wants to go to school, get a job, help her kids learn English and assimilate into her new community.\u00a0 She\u2019s ready to work hard; she just needs some help doing it.\u00a0 She\u2019s one person, one name, one face.\u00a0 She is just one of the tired and the poor in the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.\u00a0 She\u2019s one woman I could call a friend.\u00a0 Who knows, I might end up being the needy one in our relationship and discover that my scooting over to fit one more into my life was actually to my benefit.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had that happen before.<\/p>\n

When I think about all the potential things we perceive a refugee to be: a foreigner among us, a neighbor, an enemy to fear, a widow or an orphan, or someone lost and needy\u2026I can\u2019t help but think of what Jesus the Messiah has to say about all of them.\u00a0 He says to love them.\u00a0 Love your neighbor as yourself.\u00a0 Love your enemy.\u00a0 Look after the widow, the orphan, the lost, the foreigner.\u00a0 Jesus the Messiah chose to love me without condition and with a love so compelling that I can\u2019t help but be changed by it.\u00a0 Calling one young woman this week to make time to help her find a preschool for her son, sip some tea, and help her learn English is something I can do.\u00a0 I can be inconvenienced in that way.\u00a0 I can scoot over and make a little room in my world for one more.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"~Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.~ \u00a0Emma Lazarus     The Preferred Aisle Seat I have never been known for my punctuality.\u00a0 In fact, I characteristically run late.\u00a0 Often times it\u2019s because I get lost trying to find places, or maybe it\u2019s because I tend to be on […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":890,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions\/890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}