Somalia needs our sincerest prayers. There seems to be a lot of news in the press lately regarding Somali Refugees. The United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report from today estimates that there are 100,000 Somali’s fleeing from drought and famine trying to reach Mogadishu. There are additional large numbers of Somali’s fleeing to Kenya. They are all searching for food, water and shelter. The number 100,000 isn’t just a number. It represents thousands upon thousands of precious lives. Each of those lives has a name and a story.

If I think about my refugee friends from Somalia, I am overwhelmed by the thought that there are so many more just like them who are in desperate life threatening situations grasping for a chance at life. I think about the fact that some of those left in Somalia trying to make their way to refugee camps are the family members of my friends. So many have been displaced by the treacherous conditions in their native land. Some have been separated from their family. Most of them have not had a chance to education. Many were born in a refugee camp and know nothing different. They want so badly to have better opportunities.

The food crisis has caused many to die from malnourishment or disease. Record keeping in Somalia is poor so the exact number of the deaths are unknown, but it is estimated to be very high. The young children seem to be the ones that are most affected. Unsafe drinking water has been what has affected a great number of the children. In Nairobi, Kenya, it has been reported by a US official that famine in Somalia has killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5. (That immediately makes me think of specific names of Somali children I know that are 5 and under.)

When I hear of the famine crisis’s around the world it’s hard to put it into perspective. If I just think of the numbers I hear: 100,000. The media and news reports try and help us emotionally understand with photo’s of the actual children. CBSNews.com posted these pictures of some of the malnourished Somali children on their site:

Are we compelled enough to help? What can Americans do? What should we do? So many people feel terrible for the Somali’s but they somehow put the thoughts in the back of their mind and go on about their day. I mean, what else can we really do? We can pray. Please pray for Somalia.

The pictures remind me of some of the pictures of starving Ethiopian children I used to see on the TV in the 1980s. The children however are closer to my heart this time. Any one of these faces could be the face of a family member of one of my Somali friends. They could suddenly show up in Memphis, TN as a refugee and I could have an opportunity to encourage, love, cloth and feed. God willing. I’m also a mother now and I just cannot imagine having to watch my child starve. I wonder though, if the doctors or aide officials know about the nutritional miracle peanut butter paste my church youth has been involved in raising money for and sending to the Zambia children which has literally saved little lives that were on the very edge of death’s door. (I sent an email to UNHCR trying to find out who to talk to about getting the peanut butter paste to refugee camps, but I’ve not gotten a response yet. I’ll keep trying.)

I won’t ramble any longer. Asha’s Refuge wants to help. We will first pray, but we want to act as well. Maybe we can find more ways to fundraise for this nutritional peanut butter paste, Plumpy Nut, and get it into the bellies of the hungry. Perhaps there will be opportunities for us to one day get it into refugee camps all over the world. As my friends like to say, “God willing”.

There are large churches and other organizations that are beginning to take some interest in helping the refugee community. In some ways I am very excited and in other ways I am a bit apprehensive. In my experience, many large organizations with the ability to help in ways that are groundbreaking often miss the real opportunity. If they could just slow down while speaking, watching and listening to those who spend daily or weekly hours working, on the ground, face-to-face with those of need, then I think they would be better positioned to truly understand how serve and use their resources most effectively. Many throw money or stuff at the problems, but that is not going to fix things. That’s already been done on numerous occasions and it has not made anything better. As a matter of fact, that kind of help often hurts. (See, when Helping Hurts post. Also check out our Resources Page.)

Large organizations often look at the problems of poverty from a disengaged level- not a ground level. A friend of mine shared with me what I consider to be a perfect example of the point I am trying to make: an organization raised lots of funds and then purchased large bags of rice. They dropped the bags of rice out of airplanes into the villages of the starving and malnourished. They most certainly felt great about their efforts and may have shared with their donors that they were able to feed thousands. Months later, however, those that came to work on the ground with the poor realized  that the people there had no pots to cook the rice in! The people were eating the rice uncooked and were having major digestive problems as a result.

In my opinion, there are many large organizations who could really help, but not if they make decisions in a manner that will disregard the people at a ground level. It’s sort of like a president in charge of a prosperous company that makes all kinds of decisions from above not understanding or realizing how his decisions are affecting his employees.

I pray with all my heart that the Lord will bring organizations along side of Asha’s Refuge that are willing to invest some time before they invest their resources. I pray that the organization will not stand above the people on the ground, making decisions without knowing any of the workers or the poor a little more personally.

The work with Memphis area refugees is not like serving soup in a kitchen or packaging and sending out Christmas boxes. Bagging and boxing up all our old and broken stuff isn’t going to fix everything. While these ways of serving may be helpful at times, I believe it is more hurtful than helpful to my friends from other countries.

I’ll never forget the pair of seriously…and I mean SERIOUSLY… muddy shoes I was handed during a shoe drive to serve as a donation to a struggling refugee in need of warm shoes. I mean, the mud (I hope that is what it was) was CAKED on! And there were all the shoes that were all torn and tattered. Did someone seriously think that I was going to hand any of those shoes to my friends or the sweet children of my friends?? I know the refugees as my dear friends, I cannot imagine bending down and putting something like that on their little foot and smiling about it!! How can any American imagine bringing a pair of shoes to a little child or struggling refugee that are already used and worn with holes or mud?! “Forgive us Father, for we just don’t understand.”

I concluded that the shoe donors’ logic-however disconnected- was that if a person truly needed shoes then these were better than having nothing at all, and that I, as a worker with the poor, could certainly take the time to clean them or fix them for the needy before placing them on their feet. Sure I could, along with all the other 50 pairs I was given that needed cleaned up. Unfortunately, my friends’ feet were cold and they needed shoes that day, not weeks after I was able to clean and repair all the shoes. With the help of a big God, to whom problems like this are simple, we were able to purchase brand new shoes or find seriously like-new shoes for every person in need of shoes and deliver them in about a week’s time.

Asha’s Refuge will help collect items that our refugee friends need at times, but we never want to become like a large donation center. I think we will be more specific about what we need so we don’t run into as many challenges when accepting donations. I believe, we will collect items we can immediately deliver to the people in need so that a large storage room isn’t necessary to store junk, or even items in good condition but that simply are rarely needed. To accomplish our goals, Asha’s Refuge will need a lot of help from others and we will be patient with those trying to help but who may not yet understand what the true needs are. Please know, we are so very thankful for the organizations interested in helping, we just do not want to hurt those whom we have grown to love. So we are praying that those who wish to truly help will take some time to listen to us, get to know our refugee friends, and then work with us to develop strategies for how their organizations can have truly meaningful impact.

“Having stuff given to me from people I’ve never met and will never see is nice.  Having stuff handed to me from a friend means more.  I know then that I am not forgotten, I’m not alone, I am loved and I’m truly cared for.”

Nearly every one of us has participated in one form or another of ministry to the poor. From purchasing small gifts at Christmas with one’s small group at church for a needy family in your city or for an overseas orphanage, to bringing food, household, or clothing items to a drive that organized by someone at your school or workplace, to committing to sending a significant monthly financial donation to an organization that exists to feed the poor or provide safe drinking water in third world countries, all are activities familiar to many Americans. Even the occasional short-term mission trip can now safely be considered by many as a common activity associated with ministry to the poor. Although many take part in these activities through their churches, schools, and workplaces, few can say they’ve taken the time to investigate how much their participation in these programs truly impacts the lives of those they are trying to help for the long-term. The authors of the book “When Helping Hurts” examine many of these activities, ask the hard questions, and lovingly, scripturally, steer us to answers that prick our consciences and convict our hearts of the inevitable conclusion- that we must not only do more to help the poor, but that we must choose what we do with more wisdom-mindful of the dangers associated with superficial, short-term mission initiatives which may actually undermine self-esteem and personal initiative, foster attitudes of entitlement, and thus, do more harm than good.

The authors recommend that anyone serious about poverty alleviation needs to abstain from any practice of paternalism. Paternalism is a policy or practice of treating or governing people in a fatherly way, especially by providing for their needs without giving them rights or responsibilities. Paternalism can fall into many categories related to working with the poor; resource, spiritual, knowledge, labor, and managerial.

One of my favorite passages in the book relates to knowledge paternalism:

For example, during the first several decades after WW II, the leading Western economists and agriculturalists concluded that peasant farmers in the Majority World were irrational and culturally backward because the farmers failed to adopt new varieties of crops that had higher average yields. Subsequent research discovered that the farmers were, indeed, acting very rationally. While the new crop varieties had higher average yields, these new crops also had much greater variation in their yields from year to year than the farmers’ traditional varieties. For farmers living in highly vulnerable situations in which a bad crop could result in starvation for their children, it was better to choose the low-risk-low-return traditional varieties than the high-risk-high-return new varieties, particularly in a setting in which landlords and loan sharks tended to reap the majority of any increase in profits. The failure of the outside “experts” to understand the realities of life on the ground led them to give life-threatening advice to the materially poor and then to demean the poor when they failed to listen to this “expert” advice.

All of us need to remember that the materially poor really are created in the image of God and have the ability to think and to understand the world around them. They actually know something about their situation, and we need to listen to them! This does not need to degenerate into some sort of new-age, “the-truth-is-within-you” quagmire. Like all of us, the materially poor are often wrong about how the world works and can benefit from the knowledge of others. In fact, a key trigger point for change in a community is often being
exposed to a new way of understanding or of doing something. But it is reflective of a god-complex to assume that we have all the knowledge and that we always know what is best. (“When Helping Hurts”chapter 4)

“When Helping Hurts” helped me to understand how contrary to biblical teaching paternalism is and I found myself searching my heart to see how truly committed I was to advocating for refugees and their families. Did I really just want to throw some material possessions or money at them and go home? Or worse, did I want to give them all of my old stuff from my closets and drawers, and the attic-all of our cast-offs? Or was I willing to go the distance, do the research, learn the hard lessons, develop the relationships- sit with them, visit with them, eat with them, take the time to really understand their lives, perhaps even (gasp!) pray with them, learn from them, see the world as much as I could through their eyes, so that I could truly begin to help them in ways that have lasting value, generational, even eternal, impact.

“When Helping Hurts” was a wake-up call for me because it forced me to really open my eyes to the serious nature of the work that I am doing anytime I dare to set foot on territory that I’ve come to see as sovereign to my God. So much in scripture points to how intensely God loves the poor, the oppressed, the widows, the orphans. Each minute that I spend doing any work related to this ministry, I pray that I will honor Him and His great love.

Friday was a really busy day for Asha’s Refuge, filled with joy mixed with sadness.  In the morning we hosted our ESL ladies and their preschoolers for some learning time.  Thanks to all the volunteer ladies and youth who came to spend time with our ESL friends.  The afternoon was devoted to getting children on track for the new school year.  We were delighted to enroll 2 more children in The Neighborhood School, and are hoping at least one more child will be accepted Monday.  If you do not know this great school, please check out their website www.tnsmemphis.org  They have been providing quality Christian education to children in the Binghampton neighborhood since 1993, and they are doing wonderful work in our community.  Class size is very small and the staff is experienced with the needs of refugee children.  We now have three mothers who are so excited about their children receiving a wonderful Christian education.  We even have several children on the waiting list.  We are so thankful for our new friends in The Neighborhood School who faithfully love and help refugee children and their families so well.

Late Friday afternoon we visited Lester School to help other friends complete school registrations for their children.  By the end of the day, we were very proficient at explaining and completing school forms. A special thanks to Mrs. Rogers, the ESL teacher at Lester and our partners at Catholic Charities and Christ Community who worked together to organize a special registration for our refugee friends.

As we asked the questions necessary to complete forms, we learned more about the experiences of the children during their time in refugee camps.  Some questions concerned health and dietary issues.   One particularly poignant moment occurred when we asked a question regarding strange eating habits which could indicate serious medical issues.   This included eating paint chips, crayons or dirt.  Our hearts sank as Nadeen and Laya described eating dirt and erasers in Africa because they were so hungry and had nothing else to eat.  I remember watching a documentary that said children would eat dried mud cakes just to make their tummies to feel full, even though there was no nutritional value.  But nothing prepared us for hearing the children sitting in front of us describe their own experience with that type of hunger.  The experience of Nadeen and Laya is too awful to imagine.  We are so blessed with plentiful food in our nation, and it is heartbreaking to know children are so desperately hungry anywhere.  I pray that these precious girls will never again know such hunger.  Please join us in praying for other children caught up in famine and war in Africa right now that they will be protected from this horror of hunger.  We are more inspired than ever to love and encourage the refugee children and their families of our community.

As we prepare refugee children for a new school year, I also want to thank our donors who are providing backpacks, school supplies and uniforms.  Your contributions make a huge difference to these families.  We look forward to a successful school year for all the refugee children as they continue to learn and grow in their new American life.

From time to time, we’ve run into some great books, videos, news reports or movies that have helped us have a better understanding about the experiences of our friends from other countries.  Many of their stories are truly heart wrenching.  It’s interesting to read about their journey and how they may feel as they enter into the United States or other more stable countries who are willing to offer help.  Some of the resources are those of which have helped us better understand how to serve and help but not hurt them.

The books and other resources have helped as I have maintained work on the ground and face to face with those who are poorest of the poor (and I’m not just talking about having or not having access to stuff).  My heart understands even more about the possibilities of hurting my friends instead of helping them when I think I’m actually helping them.  Asha’s Refuge has taken the thoughts and perspectives into consideration as we have progressed forward.  We will occasionally write and post our review of the book or other resource for you, but for now, we are opening up a new page to just list some of our recommendations.

(Please note:  The resources recommended on this page do not express the opinions of Asha’s Refuge in complete.  As with any resource, we are looking for better understanding and pray that the Lord will open up our eyes.  We believe that our first resource is always the Holy Bible in its entirety and our daily time in prayer connecting with God.)

To view the “Resources Page”, just click on “Resources” towards the top of your screen on our menu bar.

 

People often ask me how I got started with my work with refugees. My story is posted on this site. If you are on the home page, just click the tab that says, “About Asha’s Refuge”. (I know not too many people have read it because I get status updates.)

When someone is newly interested in the volunteer work I do with my international friends, there are always initial questions. What is a refugee? Where do they come from? Are they legal? Why are they here? How long are they here? Will they ever go back to their countries? Why are refugee families split up? How can I help? How do we communicate with them if they don’t speak our language? Who allows them to stay in run down bug infested apartments? Why should I help immigrants when Americans need help? As a Christian, should I help a Muslim? Who pays for their resettlement expenses? Are they taking all of our American jobs? Should we be concerned that some may be linked to, or supportive of terrorist activity?

These questions are legitimate. I asked some of the same kinds of questions. I often still have questions and concerns. My time working on the ground with refugees, however, has given me a lot of answers and insight. I’ve got some answers. I would love to share my opinions, insights and facts. Let me at least tell you, the many refugees I’ve come to know really love America and wish no harm to Americans!

I will open a new page soon. I think I’ll call it “What You want to Know” or maybe I should just be simple and call it “Common Questions”. I’ll add questions and answers to it periodically as I or one of our staff members have the time to write and answer. I may even open up a way for others to comment anonymously and ask their own questions. I don’t have all the answers but I and the Asha’s Refuge staff have learned and researched a lot. If we don’t know an answer, we’ll work hard to research your question and give you an answer based on the facts we find and our own personal experiences.

Until then, we thank you for your prayers, encouragement and your support. I believe with all my heart and soul that we are going forward towards the “first love” focus that God has given us. We appreciate you and value your willingness to pray, serve and just love.

(PS…if it’s appropriate in a blog…our charter has been written and reviewed by our board of directors. It will be mailed soon I pray. The 501(3)c paperwork is being finished up by our advisor and will be ready for our review very soon. The logo may be complete this week. The bank account may be open for donors to help financially in less than 2 months. Praise God; may He have His way and every bit of the glory!)

There’s a lot on the calendar for us at Asha’s Refuge. With school almost back in session, many of my refugee friends need help registering for school and getting school supplies for their children. The adult education center has registrations for the adults who need basic education as well. We are working to help the refugees get registered on time and to complete all the required forms.

Every year there are several organizations that try to help children in need by providing school supplies, uniforms and backpacks. Asha’s Refuge assesses the needs of the families we work with to help them to tap into the community resources that are available for them. They are not aware of what is out there that they could access. We will work with them to help them find the school supplies they need.

With school almost back into session there will be more after school tutoring going on. Asha’s Refuge will encourage refugee children to tap in to the organizations that offer good tutoring such has Multi-National Ministries and Refugee Empowerment. The adults, however, that go to school may need some at home tutoring.

We are thankful that there are some really good organizations already in place that we can support and partner with. Asha’s Refuge doesn’t plan on reinventing the wheel but will gather information about those resources that already exist to help struggling individuals and families. We will then stand in whatever gaps there are to help meet needs. We will advocate on behalf of our friends so that they are better able to achieve successful resettlement.

Update:  August 15, 2011 – There are always two sides to every story.  After researching different ways of offering help to Dori’s family, I found that there was actually a group of people from a local church that had been trying to help.  There have been many ways the church has helped and offered help to Dori’s family in the past and continue to offer help today.  Dori and her family are very loved and are slowly understanding how to express their needs to others without crossing the respectful boundary they feel with regards to receiving help from their church.  They love their church family and are very appreciative of all of the time and help that is offered to them.  Dori realizes that her large family needs are great and is thankful for any and all help as they continue to resettle.  It was good for me to get to talk to the key people in Dori’s church to see how we could come together to encourage and love this family and not overlap.  We have enrolled two children into a Christian private school at the request of  the family and have a couple of other siblings on a waiting list at the same school.  Church members are working to help this family find better housing and better job situations.  We are all working hard to help educate the family and encouarge the older siblings to work hard in school.   The families day to day needs are being met.  I suppose the message I should pass along is that the needs of refugee families are great.  It will require many organizations, often businesses and people to work together to assist in their successful resettlement.  The collaboration efforts are happening – God is good. 

 

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There is a large refugee family that arrived over three years ago to Memphis, TN from Burundi.  I met the mother, we will call her Dori, while volunteering to help teach ESL in a class at Catholic Charities.  Dori was quiet.  She was shy.  But she was never too shy to raise her hand and say she didn’t understand something when the class was asked.  Even if she was the only one.  At the time, I was only volunteering my time at Catholic Charities on Mondays or more often as the staffed english instructor, needed.  I was new to working with refugees.  Dori always caught my eye.  Wrapped in long colorful scarves and dresses, Dori liked to dress her best.  She had large eyes, chubby cheeks and a beautiful big smile.  She often seemed tired and overwhelmed, but would always shyly offer a smile.

Dori started calling me by name after several weeks of my getting to know her.  Well, she called me Jen.  (Later, I realized that she thought we had a similar name and she liked that.  She still calls me Jen and that’s okay with me.)  She would light up on Mondays when she saw me and just make me feel happy to be able to be with her.

The more time I spent with the CC English teacher getting to know the students and helping her to teach them basic handwriting and english skills, the more I cared for them.  I admired the way the teacher seemed to relate to her students.  She often took time before, during and after class to help answer questions they had about resettling into the Memphis area.  The teacher cared and tried hard to help and answer their questions but the needs were so great.  As mentioned in the “About Asha’s Refuge” page on this site, I felt that it was time for me to try to  also help.  I began working more on the ground with my refugee friends in their homes and neighborhoods.  The choice to stop volunteering in the ESL class at Catholic Charities was bittersweet, because I knew that while there would be many of my new friends that I would spend more time with, there would be several that I would no longer have contact with.  Our lives just wouldn’t cross.  I didn’t know if I’d ever see Dori again.

While I was going to and from an apartment in the refugee community, I saw Dori walking with her children.   We remembered one another, smiled big and hugged tightly! With a little Charades/English I invited her to come for english tutoring in our apartment.  She was very happy to come.

During class, Dori works very hard to learn english.  She always wants us to give her homework.  I remember when she couldn’t even hold a pencil and now she was begging for writing homework.  She looks forward to our volunteer teachers checking over her work and placing a sticker at the top.  Dori may have never seen stickers before seeing them in our english class.  She likes them a lot.  The more time I have spent with Dori, the more opportunity I have had to get to know her and her family.  I wish I had realized that she and her family had been struggling to find help the entire three years she had been in Memphis.  During the three years she’s been struggling, I’ve been learning about refugee resettlement needs, gaps in the system and how God may have invited me to offer and solicit help.  The last few years have sort of been a training season for me.  The entire time I’ve been training, Dori and her family that includes a husband and ten children have been scared and in desperate need of help.

Several churches, organizations and occasional people have come to say they would help Dori and her family over the years.  Her family loves God and has tried to find other’s who also love God to help her.  She has kindly requested for specific simple needs to be fulfilled and for the most part she has had little follow through.  The Christians have told her they would help, but she never sees them again.  She wants to know why.

Visiting with Dori and almost all of her family in their home last week was sobering.  Crowded inside their small three bedroom apartment, I noticed the living room wall had a collage of pictures posted.  Dori’s family members are all dark-skinned.  Most all of the pictures were of a few white people standing surrounded by her big family.  I asked Dori, who the white people in the pictures were.  She had no idea, she couldn’t remember.  She had not seen them in a long time.  The reason she was keeping the pictures was because she wanted to keep the pictures of her family.  Dori said that to date, there is no one working with or trying to help her family.  My heart sank.  I had chills.  I was sad.

I was frustrated with my American people and anyone who may have called themselves a Christian and said they would help but did not follow through.  I was also cautious not to be too hard on any Christian as the needs of this family were great and I understood that they probably did not mean to hurt the family.  Perhaps they simply didn’t know how to really help.  Some Christians seem to not understand the negative effect that the lack of follow through has on a desperate family in need.  Father, forgive them, for they may not understand.

I teared up and in silence looked at Dori right in her big brown eyes.  I then looked over to her family with great love and admiration.  I had Dori’s now english speaking teenage daughter translate my heart in words for me, “I am so sorry and I refuse to be another picture on your wall.”

In my opinion, Dori’s family needs a small group of people to invest time, love, energy and resources to help them.  Her husband has a job washing dishes that only offers him four nights a week of work.  He used to be a successful ocean fisherman in his country.  We decided together that it would be fun for him to just have an American man to come and take him out to fish.  It would be a different kind of fishing of course.  Perhaps a group of men could mentor and encourage him and help him find his way to a better paying job.  This father and mother are searching for a “Church School” for their children.  They probably would love being included in a church family as well.  Dori says she is willing to work cleaning houses in the morning.  Until the family is able to get a second driver with a licence and another car, her driving husband can take her to work and pick her up as long as he is home by about 3:15 pm to get to his job at 4pm.  Dori will need an employer who is willing to be patient with her and actually teach her how to clean the way Americans like to clean.  There may be other job options for Dori, but this was the only job she could think of that she may be able to do here in America.

There are ten children in this family.  There are many needs.  Asha’s Refuge isn’t only interested in helping to meet the material needs of this family though.  Of course we will need to advocate for them a need for a bigger home or for things like toiletries and feminine items that their food stamps will not buy.  We will need to help them find the medical help they need.  We will help them gather school supplies and uniforms.  But, that is what so many of the people in the pictures on her walls have done for her in the past.  These kinds of things are often not lasting; they run out.  The members in this family need real friends willing to encourage, love and invest time with them.  The teenagers will need someone to help them walk through the processes of preparing themselves for college.  The school aged children need attention and after school tutoring.  The preschoolers need kindergarten readiness.  And, the infant could use a trusted and familiar face sit with he and his mother to teach them how to use infant learning toys.

To shorten my point in a few sentences, we are in desperate need of tangible things for Dori’s family, but Asha’s Refuge refuses to be just another picture on her wall.  If you can help provide any of the items needed, please let us know by sending and email to jamie@ashasrefuge.org and the Asha’s Refuge staff or volunteers will be happy to receive them then hand them directly to this family.  But, on the other hand, after prayerful consideration, if you feel that you or someone you know has the time, energy and love to offer this family, please let us know and we will work to introduce you to them.  Thank you in advance for understanding and helping us to not be just another picture on the wall.

The other day I took a refugee friend to the doctor for follow-up to injuries she received in a recent car accident.  I introduced myself as her friend, but the staff saw me as a translator.  I only know about 2 words of Somali, so I cannot translate anything.   It is a good thing that my friend and I have our own way of communicating, part English and part Charades.  She speaks and understands some English, but things are so different in the doctor’s office.  The staff at Campbell Clinic did so much to make our visit a good experience.  The man in Radiology assigned a lady to take x-rays for us, and invited me to join them in case she had questions.  I was able to explain some things to her a little better and helped her pose for her “pictures”.  The doctor was very prompt and kind, showing us the x-rays and explaining everything very well.  Thankfully the doctor confirmed that my friend had no broken bones and is healing appropriately.   I was so glad my friend did not have to make her visit alone.  I can only imagine being in a new country where I do not understand half of what is being said to me.  Well, I actually have had that experience, but not in a doctor’s office where everything has importance.  I am also thankful for doctors and other medical professionals who are kind and sensitive to the needs of refugees.   I wish all refugees had a friend to walk with them through unfamiliar experiences and make things a little easier.