Pictures from my journeys

I haven't posted pictures in quite a while... and let's be honest, who will read blog entries without photos?? So here are a few shots from our visits to the refugee apartments.

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Birthday Party, Bhutanese (Nepali) Style!

Here are the parents, aunts, uncles and cousins
of the two little birthday girls.
Really it was only one birthday girl, but they
celebrate for both of them so the other does not
feel left out. Their culture is not "me-centered",
and in all they do it is a family/group event.
There weren't any gifts, but they prayed for them,
sang a worship song and then ate A LOT of traditional
Nepali food. We were stuffed.

The girls were made to look like Nepali dolls...
this isn't they way we had ever seen them!
Usually they are in whichever clothes fit,
boy or girl clothes... and no make-up!
We were a little surprised when we walked in!

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Random pics from my English lessons with the Bhutanese

They don't let me do ANYTHING.

This was a FUNNY day. Every time I go we sit around after
the lesson and eat fruit. For months I ate the flesh of the
mango out of the middle and put the skin on the plate.
They did the SAME THING! Nothing weird, right?
Well one day, a Bhutanese neighbor came to their
apartment and ate the whole slice if mango, skin and all.
I asked if that was normal in their culture and they all said,
"Well, yes. We were just eating it the other way so you wouldn't feel bad".
CLASSIC for refugees from these cultures...
they will do anything not to offend someone!
So, from that day forward, I ate Mangos like a Nepali!
They were dying laughing at me.

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The Iraqi refugees are altogether different...
and I must say, their food is VERY tasty!
I haven't had something I disliked yet, and with the Nepali food
it was often a constant internal prayer (or pleading) in order
to get the plate cleared. But don't clear it too fast or more will be
dumped on!!

Traditional Iraqi dish. Rice, ground beef and pees.
It was seasoned A TON, their dishes are very flavorful.
My husband was there and he HATES pees, so it
was interesting to watch him be 'cultural' and
finish up like a champ. These cultures show their
appreciation for you by cooking food from their
homeland. Refusing anything would be extremely insulting,
so if you don't like it... tough! Praise God I've been pregnant
twice while living here and only once have I puked
while eating food refugees prepared!
Goat Tongue Soup.... REALLY?? :-)

Mike teaching 2 Iraqi refugees ESL at the church

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Well those are all of the pictures I could find... I should start taking more, I know.

Until next time,

Kelli

The Fiasco Factor

CCIF - Cross Connection International Fellowship - a multi-ethnic church in the making. What is going to a multi-ethnic church like, you ask? Well, in one word, I would say it's unique. If you have ever attended church in a foreign country, it is pretty much the same but with some added dynamics. You see, church in the rest of the world is about building relationships, people come to be others-focused. They visit, chat, let their children sit with them, worship actively and with excitement, explain things to each other if a point in the message was missed, verbally help each other find scripture passages... ya know, acknowledge that others are with you and relate with them during service. This is church in any other part of the world... relational. If you are in Kenya, for example, you are of course thrown off guard for the first few services you attend. But after awhile you become accustomed to their culture and how it flows into all aspects of their lives, and begin to see the beauty and sensibility that it has.

In America, on the other hand, church is only relational between you and God, people come to be ‘ministered to’ and by it’s nature, American church is self-focused. Don’t get me wrong, there are many who serve the congregation week in and week out, but the majority of church-goers come on Sunday morning to get ‘filled up’ and then they go home. We show up and chat with folks before service, but the moment a "Good Morning Everyone" announcement comes, we promptly return to the seats that we have already reserved with our bibles and sweaters (since we arrived 15 minutes early). We worship, standing when they say stand and sitting when they say sit. We do nothing outside of the normal guidelines of the service (stand to worship when everyone else is sitting - inconceivable!). When it's time to greet people, we turn to the left, right, front and back to shake hands and deliver the same line week after week (Good Morning, God Bless You!). We sit and quietly listen for the duration of service. When the study is over, we pray, sing one more song, and are dismissed. If we get a guest teacher who is long-winded and the service crosses that 90-minute mark... we get fidgety and wonder if it will ever end. Get up and leave before dismissal? Never!

So what do you get when you have a church service full of people from contrary cultures? A Sunday morning at CCIF! It is much tamer than a traditional Kenyan service (used because of my personal experience there), but also not as flawless as a traditional American service either. So we meet in the middle. We have a specifically directed service, but we have a meet and greet that includes culturally relevant hellos, and we greet everyone in the sanctuary! We have organized worship, but are free to stand most of the time, but sit if you'd like! The excited flavor of worship in other countries would not exclude occasional burst of "HALLELUJAH" or "AMEN!"… so our church welcomes the enthusiasm. We have a quiet time of teaching, which is mostly calm besides the predictable cell phone ring mid-service (classic refugee ringtones not to be forgotten). We call it ‘The Fiasco Factor” and are reminded each week that church for us is more of a missionary experience, but the beauty is we didn’t have to cross an ocean to enter in.


Serving our multi-ethnic congregation is what fulfills those of us who would drop everything in a heartbeat if God opened doors overseas. It can be frustrating if we forget the nature of our ministry and refuse to be flexible, but when those things are in tact… the ministry is operating exactly as designed and we love every second.

Until next time…

Refugee Resettlement 101

I think it's necessary to devote a post to explain WHY refugees come to the states. The HOW of refugee resettlement can be found anywhere on the internet, so if you are interested in the actual process, by all means, please research it. What I want to explain is what you won't read about online... the events that cause these foreigners to land on US soil. The most common misconception about refugees is that they are the same as immigrants... leaving their homes in search of a future with more opportunity. In actuality, refugees are forced from their homes when they had no desire to leave. Many would love to return to their homes and live the rest of their lives in their village. All of them are making the best of their new lives here, but many would return if they could. But they can't. They are never allowed back to their homes that they love and miss daily. The land of their language, culture, food and familiarity. Where they know the lay of the land, the traditions, the people. The very fabric that makes them who they are -- to be stripped of that, and for it never to return... Lord help us understand even slightly!!

War is the #1 reason people are forced to flee their homes. Imagine being invaded by another country (Iraqi refugees), or having your own countrymen rise up against you (Burmese refugees), killing your loved ones and destroying your home. I do not write my opinions about these wars, but the effects they have on the people caught in the middle. If this happened to you, and you would die if you remained in your homeland, you would be forced to flee to a neighboring country. You would be left without options and on the run. This is hard to imagine for an American mind, unfathomable in fact. Nevertheless, it is reality for millions.

If they make it out alive (quite literally), a neighboring country will accept them as refugees and place them in a refugee camp on the border. Hundreds of thousands of people live in these camps, and the refugees we meet in Phoenix have spent as much as 18 years in these camps. They rely on bags of rice to be delivered by international aide organizations, they become dependent for years on end. They were used to working many hours a day in fields and farms, and now they are dependent upon bureaucracies for their most basic needs.

The 2009 World Refugee Survey reports there are over 8 million refugees who have been confined to camps for 10+ years, and 62 million refugees worldwide (unconfined).
http://www.refugees.org/FTP/WRS09PDFS/WarehousingMap.pdf

Like I said earlier, the process of resettlement can be found online so I won't go into that - but I hope you have gleaned a glimpse into their lives. Until next time...