Can you believe that it’s already time to prepare for the summer activities? Asha’s Refuge partners with Opportunity Camp each summer encouraging refugee children to enjoy some outdoor camp fun and learning. If you want to be involved let us know! There is a need for camp counselors.
Check out the link below for more information:
http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=e0f04ee7cc&id=65f9e5e6c4&e=96fadfa91f
Asha’s Refuge is providing an opportunity for you to learn more about how you can serve refugees in our community. Please plan to attend our Volunteer Orientation on Saturday, March 8 at 10:00am, at The Church at Schilling Farms, 1035 Winchester, Collierville. We will meet upstairs in the Youth Suite for about an hour to provide information on who refugees are, how they get here, and how you can help Asha’s Refuge love and serve refugees. You will also have a chance to ask questions and meet some of our volunteers. For more information, please contact Jamie Koch at Jamie@ashasrefuge.org or Deborah Eaton at Deborah@ashasrefuge.org.
We are excited about new opportunities for refugees as we partner with a friend that cleans houses to teach job skills. We will certainly need more houses as this training begins to take shape and we get more refugees ready and willing to be trained. We are so appreciative of our friend and supporter at Covenant Cleaning who is ready to take some of her time by teaching our refugee friends the American ways if cleaning.
It has been interesting to watch our friends from other countries clean their apartments. It seems that they are very unfamiliar with our cleaning tools, do not really understand what germs are, and are a bit overwhelmed with the American pressures for them to disinfect everything, throw junk in the garbage and to better organize their homes. Cleaning the American way doesn’t come naturally for our friends and they therefore can often be frustrated and unsuccessful if they are thrown into a job such as cleaning hotel rooms.
I once witnessed a group of young adult refugee women pull a thick bedspread and house rugs out of the bathtub soaking wet then drag them through their apartment to hang over the apartment porch to drip dry. I can’t imagine if they tried this to one of the bedspreads they were attempting to clean in a hotel suite.
I’ve seen refugee ladies confused by our everyday household cleaners as to what to do with various types of tools, sprays, wipes and chemicals. This could be dangerous!
Now that I look back, here’s a funny but true story. One late afternoon, I watched one young women who was kindly preparing dinner for me pick up an old gray dingy rag that was in a corner of the floor by a mop. She dried up some water droplets on the floor and then used that now somewhat wet rag to begin drying off her dishes. That day she also filled a cup with water and began tossing it onto the floury countertops she was trying to clean. She took two fingers and began circling them in the puddles of water on the counter thereby rubbing the pasty flour off of the counter. As if that weren’t enough to shock my OCD American house cleaning self, this sweet young lady then reached for a roll of toilet paper that sat atop her refrigerator. She unrolled the paper and began drying off the counter with the toilet paper! What makes it even more interesting was that I noticed soggy bits of toilet paper pieces left of the counter. My friend threw the dough she had just finished making onto the counter and began shaping little meat filled triangular pastries (they call these Samboosa) to fry. The toilet paper pieces were now in the pastries! And..yes…I smiled at her and ATE the pastries. 😉
I am always amazed at how God protects me and also shows me that my way of American living isn’t necessarily the only way. I’m
continually learning to be flexible with the less important stuff and stand strong for what matters most to God! So I ate a few bits of toilet paper but was able to remain at peace as I watched a young lady prepare my meal. There was a lot of discussion going on in that kitchen that day. I can assure you that our talk, the encouragement I felt God allowing me to offer, and the growing in Christ I my self was doing was much more important than my worrying frantically over a few strings of wet toilet paper.
I did, however, become more sensitive to the fact that most refugee women are not aware of our American way of cleaning and will need a lot of training to be successful in a cleaning job. They very much need to understand more about germs for their families health sake but not to the point of becoming an OCD, panicking germa-phoebe. Refugee women and men also need to understand good apartment cleaning and house cleaning habits to keep bugs from taking over their homes, to show respect for others as well as appreciation and care to God for what He has blessed them with.
If you are interested in helping us with this project, please let us know. Again, we will need more homes to clean. We promise to leave your house cleaner than it was when we came and we won’t put your bedspreads in the shower or tub! The house cleaning will be monitored by a professional American House Cleaner with a heart to use her skills to help those refugees in need of learning this job skill. We trust that there will be opportunities for Kingdoms growth as our friend at Covenant Cleaning is able to build friendships and be the hands and feet of Jesus as she does her training. Please be praying for Covenant Cleaning to be blessed beyond measure as they move forward with this new adventure in her life too. We mostly need reassurance that CAN actually communicate with those refugees who do not speak English. Thank you for your prayers!
Contact Covenant Cleaning for a quote to clean your house at (901) 315-4863. Tell them Asha’s Refuge referred you.
At Asha’s Refuge, we talk about how God gives us a love language that transcends barriers that arise when working with people of other language groups, and we see that gift in action all the time. We talk about playing charades to enable communication and we really do communicate much more easily than you might expect. We firmly believe that Love Never Fails and that God demonstrates that frequently through this unique ability to communicate. One current example is a young man from Bhutan who has been coming to our American Life and Language classes recently. He is deaf and mute as well as being from the Bhutanese language group. He always has the biggest smiles and is so enthusiastic about coming to class. He seems to enjoy the experience each week although communication is difficult. His patient teacher Kathy is teaching him to write his ABCs and says he making good progress. He obviously feels loved, welcomed and secure by the way he responds to everyone with smiles and handshakes, so we are communicating to him through God’s amazing love language. We are concerned though that he needs a lot more educational help than we are currently skilled to provide.
What we really need to make this man’s time at American Life and Language class more effective is a volunteer who knows American Sign Language. We don’t know that he is really using ASL now but it is the one method that would facilitate conversation with him and further his education. If you are skilled at ASL and available on Thursday mornings to volunteer in our classes, we’d love to hear from you. If you would like to do this but Thursday is not good for you, we can work on another time for you to work with this man. So just drop us a message here to let us know of your interest. We promise it will be a challenging and rewarding experience for you.
But just so you know that we are not all serious all the time and that we do have a sense of humor, I want to share a story about last week’s class. I generally float among the classes and the office making sure the volunteers and students have what they need to have a good experience. Last week I was checking in with the class that includes the young deaf man I described above. He was excited to see me and was earnestly trying to explain something to me using signs. Now I know about three signs which I learned from a praise chorus in church. Put that with my lack of Bhutanese language skills and my chances of meaningful conversation go way down.
I was, however, pleased to see that a Bhutanese lady sitting nearby seemed to understand his signs and reply to them with signs of her own. That gave me the idea that we could indeed communicate with this young man by asking her to translate. My hopes were dashed when I learned just how limited her English was.
After apologizing to the young man that I didn’t understand, I went back to the office where I related my disappointment to Elaine. She proposed a great solution. She had just registered a new Bhutanese student with great English. Surely he could ask the lady what the deaf man signed to her and tell us. Bingo! What a great idea! The new student was delighted to be helpful so off we went to find out what the deaf student wanted to tell me.
As we eagerly awaited news, the new student conversed with the Bhutanese lady who had exchanged signs with the deaf student. He then turned to us and replied “She doesn’t know what he said. She was just being polite to him. No one knows what he said because no one speaks his language.” We will press forward in trying to communicate with the young deaf man, but in the mean time we laughed at our situation. Basically, we asked the Bhutanese man who speaks English to ask the Bhutanese lady who doesn’t speak English to explain what the deaf and mute Bhutanese man signed to me! Pretty much like a bad game of Telephone.
Evidently we aren’t the only ones who had this bright idea. Here’s a funny scene from West Wing that it is similar to our experience today. I hope it gives you a laugh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_5GpQvY-gY
People often ask me if we have any success stories. I’m sure with all the desperate requests for help we have made and the many stories we have shared about struggling refugees the success stories are not expressed as loudly. We actually do have several of our refugee clients who have moved forward pretty successfully with their new life here in America.
Our very own Asha and her family is a success story. She first came to Memphis speaking no English, having no form of transportation, no wheelchair to aide her in getting around since she was unable to use either of her legs, no easy way of getting in and out of the bathtub, no decent place to call home, no job or job skills, no understanding of her bills, no way of communicating with her nieces new teachers (which she considers her own children since she has taken care of them since they were infants right after her sister, their mother passed away), not enough food to eat in her pantry, no warm coat and very little clothing, broken furniture, no warm blanket, no soaps or toiletries and the list goes on. Since 2009 when I met Asha and started
working with her family, Asha, her brother Abdullahi and two nieces have learned a lot.
Asha and her family currently live in Nashville in a townhome. While she is still receiving some assistance for her housing expense, she and Abdullahi are doing well. Asha has an electric wheelchair and a manual one that enables her a lot more freedom. The last I heard, Abdullahi had moved from folding laundry in a hotel in Memphis to driving a truck for a company in Nashville. He and she have been continuing their education which includes English classes. The two girls have been doing well in school and speak fluent English. I can now have a phone conversation with Asha and each time I do it melts my heart. Asha has learned to function well as a disabled young woman in America. She has figured out how to get in and out of the shower more easily with her shower chair and how to reach the things she needs in the kitchen cabinets when cooking. This family has gradually collected the furniture and household items they have needed to pull their home together and have been able to make small payments for a long couch for their living room. Everyone in the family seems to be doing very well with lots of healthy smiles and great thankful attitudes for the opportunity they have been given to live in America away from the civil war backlash and hard life living in the refugee camp. They have each obtained their green card and are looking forward to studying hard to become naturalized citizens.
I continue to check in with Asha and her family periodically. She came to visit me and Deborah in Memphis a month or so ago. She looked so happy and was giggly as she tried to express to me what she remembered from the first time she and I met and I would help her hold her pencil to teach her to write her name and to where she is today. She and I exchanged texts New Years Day to say Happy New Year as we do every year. Asha still has a way of encouraging me with Asha’s Refuge
as we continue to help others in similar situations to what she was in when I first met her. She reminds me that she one day wants to volunteer and help me at Asha’s Refuge serve
and help others. I look forward to that day. I continue to tell her the reason I have had a heart to help her and others was because of Jesus and she always listens contently…I only pray that Asha will fully know the Jesus I know. It’s in Jesus’s hands…I have surely planted the seed and trust that He will water and grow it.
Happy New Year to all our volunteers and supporters! We appreciate you all so much. The beginning of a fresh new year brings new opportunities to love and serve refugees in our community. We could sure use your help if you are not already volunteering. Our greatest volunteer need right now is for people to work in our American Life and Language classes on Thursday mornings at Highland Heights Baptist Church. We would like to have one-on-one coaching for all our students, but we need more volunteers to do this. If you are available to either help adults learn English and American life skills or to help preschoolers prepare for kindergarten, please let us know. Jamie and I would love to talk to you about how you can get involved. Please get in touch using the contact form on our “Contact Us” page.
Do you have a double bed frame you could donate to Asha’s Refuge? A young mother with a large family needs one for her girls. Their dad is still waiting in Ethiopia to join his family here, so the mother is on her own caring for her children. The girls’ bed frame got broken in a recent move and cannot be repaired. She does not have money to buy a replacement. If you have one you’d like to donate, please let me know and we’ll work out pick up and delivery. Thanks so much.
Thank you so much for supporting Asha’s Refuge Cookies for a Cause Fundraiser. Classes today were great and we want you to know that we have been blessed with opportunities to serve more and more refugees. With more refugees we will need continued help. Your past support has helped us to serve refugees through our American Life and Language classes and through our in home visitations. As we move towards the end of this year and approach 2014, we have enjoyed pulling together with you to do our annual Cookies for a Cause Fundraiser. Here’s some current fundraiser information we need you to know.
We are preparing assortments of delicious cookies, baked with love and wrapped with care. Funds raised from this project will enable Asha’s Refuge to meet critical needs of the most disadvantaged refugees in our community. Here is some important information about the event.
Saturday, December 14 – Bakers should drop off their homemade cookies between 9-11 am at the Church at Schilling Farms, 1035 Winchester, Collierville. Please use disposable packaging to transport your cookies. If you can help us package cookies, please be at the church by 9 am.
Saturday, December 14 – Cookie orders should be picked up at the Church at Schilling Farms between 2-4pm.
Sunday, December 15 – Late cookie pick-ups will be allowed after church service from 12N-1:30pm at The Church at Schilling Farms at 1035 Winchester Blvd., Collierville, TN.
Thanks so much for your support of Asha’s Refuge through baking, packaging or buying cookies. If you have any questions, please contact us.
I will be delivering more coats to those refugees in need this weekend. Thank you for your donated warm coats. It is such a blessing to have the gift to be able to hand someone a coat and see them put it on, feel warm and smile. Especially a child! It’s getting colder in Memphis and we are thankful for everyone’s help.
We are searching for coats! We have had request from several refugee mothers who need coats for their children. We need many sizes so please consider donating any coats your children or teens have outgrown. We need women’s sized coats and a few men’s coats as well.
Yes, we have collected coats before. Our friends at Refugee Empowerment also collects and hands out coats each year. The need is great so everyone pulling together to help is good. Remember that refugee children grow just like our children do and we therefore have a need for coats each year. We also have new refugee families coming into our city all the time who may have never owned a coat. I have even seen some of the women in our class hand their coat to an older refugee friend who didn’t have a coat which leaves them needing a coat again. One other thing, refugees often come in to our city after years of being malnourished. Their coat sizes change sometimes just because they are eating better and getting healthier. 🙂
Warm caps, socks, gloves and scarves are also welcome. Please donate items in good condition. Please no stains, smoke, holes, broken zippers or pet hair. Some refugees are allergic to that. Rule of thumb: If you wouldn’t give the item to a family member as a gift then please don’t give it to our refugee friends. Give as if you were giving to Jesus, because you are! 😉
Every opportunity we have to give out of the abundance that God has given us is an actual opportunity for us to love and serve Jesus. We appreciate your hearts to help us keep our friends feeling warm and loved through the colder winter months.
Asha's Refuge 