I’m not sure what to do. Asha’s Refuge primarily works with disadvantaged refugee women and children. A top issue for them is finding jobs that will support adequate and affordable housing. Jobs and houses. That’s what we need. In order to be successful in a job here in America, however, refugees need time to obtain their education and get better job skills. It’s a hardship that circles from one problem to another problem. This is the type thing that happens to the poor, to those in poverty and it’s the type of circling problems that occur in third world countries around the world. In order for things to truly begin to change for the better for our friends, we need supporters and volunteers to come together to begin to find real ways to help.

One of the ways Asha’s Refuge tries to help is by encouraging our refugee friends to obtain more education. We walk along side them to teach them things we’ve learned like life skills, simple job skills, better personal hygiene and health skills, parenting skills, understanding their mail, American culture and good apartment living. We help them register in school and creatively find ways to get themselves to and from school. It’s challenging, however, for our refugee women to focus too much on their education because they are faced with a need to provide financially. You see, without a good education, jobs are limited. With no job, there is no money to rent a house and bills cannot be paid. When bills are not paid refugees are at risk for becoming homeless. In addition, without a driving education and money to purchase a vehicle and insurance, it’s complicated for refugees to get to a job.

And that’s where the reality of refugee situations in Memphis has me baffled. I don’t know how to help women when they call me in fear of being homeless. A few years back, my husband and I sold our larger home and decided to rent a home for less so that we could put more of our finances into areas we felt the Lord asking us to. Now, I sometimes feel that if I had my larger home, I could have a room or two where refugees could temporarily live while trying to get themselves on their feet. It will break my heart if any of my friends and their children become homeless due to the circumstances that are out of their control.

Asha’s Refuge has a vision to one day have a large plot of land where there are learning houses built on it where refugees can be emersed in the English language, become educated, obtain job and life skills, learn about the American culture and gradually become confident and self sufficient. It will be “a place of hope”. There is much that encompasses this vision that I cannot share on the website, but I believe God has given me this picture and one day, in His time, He will see it through. This vision becoming reality couldn’t come too soon though. Refugees are in desperate situations. In order for this vision to happen, we must have the resources necessary which I believe comes through God providing them through His people and then His people being ready and willing to help.

Please understand that most all of the refugees I work with truly want to work and give back. Many of them know that some American people think that they want to live off our tax dollars and so they therefore do not want to be seen as doing so. (By the way we are learning that a person can only receive cash assistance through welfare for five years in their whole life time. Food stamps are available but when cash assistance runs out and the poor are forced to find a job to get cash, their new job changes their income level and their food stamp amounts are greatly reduced or even stopped. Often times their new low paying job actually pays too much for them to qualify for food stamp assistance.) Refugees, like the poor in any country, are faced with complicating and difficult circling systems, that seem to keep them oppressed and stuck in poverty. My dream would be that there would no longer have to be refugees in the world, but the truth is that there is evil in our world and so long as there is evil there will always be people fighting to survive and fleeing for their safety.

My job, as a Christian, is to first, just love. While I will help feed the hungry, cloth the naked and try my best to help find shelter for the homeless, my biggest and first job is to love them. I want to stand in the mud with my friends when they are struggling even during the times when neither of us can find a way to resolve their problems. My heart doesn’t want them to feel alone in their difficulties. When I’m not sure what to do, I believe my job is to be a friend in the hard times (and the good times), praying and encouraging them as I hear the Lord calling me to do. Be the light that shows them hope and just love.