A couple of weeks ago, a refugee lady asked me for a sewing machine. She thought I had given others one and left her out, so her feelings were a little hurt. I explained to her that I didn’t have one, but that I would pray to Jesus to give me a sewing machine for her soon. So I did pray for a sewing machine for her. A few days later, a volunteer told me she had a sewing machine she didn’t need and thought one of our students perhaps could use it. I told her about my prayer. Of course Jesus answered my prayer, and so quickly! Today I helped that sweet volunteer present the machine to that student. I reminded her that I had prayed to Jesus for a sewing machine for her. The volunteer told her that Jesus asked her to give the sewing machine to answer my prayer, and that we both said “thank you, Jesus, for answering our prayer.” Now our prayer is that Jesus will make himself and his truth known to this lady through this sewing machine. Thank you, Jesus, that you love us enough to care about even small things in our lives, like sewing machines, and for letting us be part of your work in our world.
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When this website was first designed it did not actually start out as a website. It was just a page where I would type out my thoughts. At the time it was called a blog page. I blogged weekly or more about what I felt were crazy, emotional, heart-wrenching, spiritually powerful and amazingly educational experiences in my dealing with people much different than myself culturally whom I had come to know and whom were coming to live and make their lives anew in my very own city. Learning about other cultures and other religions through refugees who became my friends became a joy and passion of mine. I quickly respected the fact that I did not know it all and that there were possibilities that I could learn from people that were not like me…even if they were a bit dirty, different and poor. (Little did I know at at that time that poor is in the eyes of the beholder so to speak.) I desired to understand things from their perspective and my heart broke as though I myself were at times literally in their shoes. The roads many of the refugees had walked were often full of nightmares, wars, death, torture, hunger and horror stories unlike any of the childhood types of domestic violence, family problems, financial problems, etc. that I had ever experienced here in America. And the kinds of challenges that many of the newcomers I met once they had arrived here in America were complicating and one challenge led to another challenge which led to another challenge. I was overwhelmed. After a day with my new friends, hoping to encourage them if even with a smiling face and a friend to walk beside, I would find time to myself and I would write. I would blog about the experience. Often times I would pray. I would write out my prayers for my friends in the blogs. I called it a Prayer Blog. When I write these, I call it a Prayer Journal.
So, I miss my Prayer Blog. I want to try to get back to it when I can. Occasionally, I’ll write about whatever might be on my heart with regards to the refugee community as it is at the time. Sometimes it can be personal…please forgive me. It’s just who I am. I’ll write and say a prayer. Remember, this is a blog. Blogs are opinionated. You are always welcome to comment. 🙂
I’ve been working more and missing the time I used to have face to face as much with refugees in our city. It’s been a good thing for me as the founder of Asha’s Refuge to pull back some and allow others to help me to help them. After all, that is what God asked me to do. Remember, I was overwhelmed! There was no way I could have managed helping so many refugees with all the many needs there were. I am not sure that I would have been able to pull back as much if I had not had been forced to. Sometimes I think God works like that. Life has forced me to ask for help more. I supposed I felt like I was burdening others. But, it seems we have the best volunteers I could have ever ever imagined! God has prepared so many ladies and gentlemen for such a time as this. The men and women are seasoned and not afraid and so ready to just love and be helping hands wherever there is a need. Thank you Jesus for providing the volunteers you have. Thank you Jesus for taking care of so many new families as you have. Thank you for showing me that it’s okay to ask for help. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your kingdoms work. Thank you for teaching me new things. Thank you for Deborah…she is such a great leader in my absence. Thank you for the many that support and encourage Asha’s Refuge. May your kingdom grow and your glory be known through us.
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People often ask what refugees need, and we are in awe of the way God uses our many friends to generously provide for those needs. We try to focus on specific things
because our storage space is limited. So here’s our current list:•Jackets and coats for winter – all sizes child and adult
•sewing machines -ladies have an opportunity to earn money by sewing at home
•a bicycle for an 11 year old boy
• liquid laundry detergent is always needed
•winter gloves, hats and scarves all sizesIf you can donate any of these items or help fund the purchase of them, please let Jamie or Deborah know. Our email addy’s are on our contact page. Thank you again for your continued generosity.
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Today we honor the life of a special gentleman who served with us at Asha’s Refuge. Sonny Skelton drove our bus to pick up and deliver students for our Thursday classes at Highland Heights Baptist Church. What a patient man! I will always remember his calm waiting while I searched out missing students or people who weren’t quite ready but didn’t want us to leave them, or while I sorted out confusion over who was coming with us. He had a little grin that let me know he was just waiting, not hurried or impatient, just waiting. I am so thankful for Sonny’s dear heart to serve Jesus by serving refugees along with us. Sonny loved Jesus and people. He’s a great example to all of us. We will miss him but we have the confidence that he is worshiping our Lord face to face now and we will join him someday. We pray comfort and peace for the Skelton family. Contributions in his memory can be made to Highland Heights Baptist Church as requested by the family.
RANSOM SKELTON, Memphis
http://www.legacy.com/Link.asp?I=LS000172814992 -
The Combined Federal Campaign of the Midsouth kicks off its 2014-2015 campaign to give Federal civilian and military employees an opportunity to support non-profit agencies throughout our community. There are many worthwhile agencies and we appreciate everyone who gives to CFC. We are honored to be an approved CFC agency and to have the opportunity to share our mission with the Federal community of generous donors. It’s an easy way for our many friends and family members who work for any of these Federal agencies to support the work of Asha’s Refuge through payroll deduction or a one-time gift. To make your gift to Asha’s Refuge through this method, simply choose Agency # 42063 when completing your pledge card on paper or on-line. Please share this information with your friends and family who are Federal civilian or military employees and may want to support Asha’s Refuge through this program.
If you are not a Federal employee, your employer may participate in United Way. You can give to Asha’s Refuge by writing in Asha’s Refuge on your United Way pledge card. We do not have a United Way number but your contributions will reach us this way too.
Your generosity enables us to serve the needs of a large community of refugees from many countries and new refugees are arriving all the time. All you have to do is watch the news for a few minutes to see there is so much war, terrorism and persecution in the world. Asha’s Refuge provides a way you can help to alleviate some of the suffering on a local basis. After years of unimaginable suffering, refugees come here full of hope to build a new life in America, but they need help to achieve their dreams. They are so appreciative of any practical help we give with language and life skills, friendship, transportation, job searches and many other way we meet needs every day. Thank you for being part of this effort to love all the people as Jesus loves all of us.
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I can feel that it is almost the “peak season” for Asha’s Refuge… If you will forgive me for calling it that. It seems like the end of the year we have more donations than any other time of year. It would make sense seeing that the holidays and giving season seems to be November, December and January. It’s a blessing, however, I often wonder why the giving is often so much dryer throughout the rest of the year. Maybe the hype of Thanksgiving and Christmas and after tax season seems to be what causes us all to find within ourselves a heart to give or to stretch ourselves and be able to give.
I’ve been challenged myself more and more to give regularly and to give “just because” the Holy Spirit impresses on me to at any time of day, week, year or season. I think it’s really a blessing to see so many take serious the heart of Thanksgiving and Christmas because it’s true…surely this time of year followers of Jesus would be compelled even more to find ways of giving back all the while being examples of Jesus’s love and brightening His light from within them. I’m thinking out loud here… I guess I’m trying to say… Friends, don’t forget to help out through out the entire year as you are prayerfully led to. It’s challenging for us to take a one time large giving season and try and spread it out carefully budgeting, managing donations and financial support throughout an entire year. I think many nonprofits struggle with this. We want to say thank you of course and do not want to be ungrateful for what a huge blessing the giving seasons are to us as we continue to support the local refugee needs.
We will try and do our part better by expressing the specific needs to our supporters more often. The busyness of serving on the ground and our everyday lives can often cause it to be challenging for us to relay all that is going on and all that we may need. You’ll soon see an updated website that we pray will make understanding who we are, what we do and what our current needs are clearer so that you can also share with others or be involved in more ways.
You can now choose Asha’s Refuge as your nonprofit of choice to donate a percentage of the total cost of your order to support our local refugee initiatives any time you shop at Amazon. Check out Amazon’s Smile program at smile.amazon.com! You can do this year round! ;). And…thank you. I trust you too will be blessed.
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It’s been great to continue hearing from Asha (the Asha our organization received it’s inspiration to start Asha’s Refuge from) and her family. They moved to Nashville about two years ago now I suppose. At first, I was pretty taken back emotionally that she would move away from all the help and resources that had been set up for her and her family here in Memphis. I thought her challenges would be too difficult for her without my help. God showed me something though…it hadn’t been me at all helping her and I knew that but at times I would momentarily backtrack and think I had some sort of helping power that I really alone didn’t have. It was God helping her through my obedience to serve with love actions and it was He who had helped her all the way back in Somalia and through the many years of her crawling around at the refugee camps. And, it would be He who would help Asha in Nashville or wherever she would later go. And like many other refugees I had become close to in friendship and caring love, I realized that refugees were adults, they were now free from all the bondage and persecution they had spent years under and they were eager to see more of their new American world. Like my adult children, it is inevitable and a good thing, one day they will want to spread their wings and fly.
Asha and her family had heard how nice Nashville was and felt the job opportunity and housing opportunities would be better. I couldn’t deny that Nashville was a neat place and probably did have some advantages over Memphis at the time for her family. Sometimes refugees get word by previous refugee individuals that a city elsewhere would be better for them to move to and they will suddenly pack up and move their entire family pulling them out of all the programs, schools and medical help they were getting. I’m not surprised, however, when I receive phone calls or the word travels from other refugees in the community that such and such in New York City is terrified, crying all the time and wants to come back but doesn’t have the funds and isn’t prepared for the fact that their first entrance refugee status help cannot be replaced as a refugee entering into the system a second time. Lately I’ve been hearing about several families who are interested in moving to a small town in Arkansas. I pray they have done the research they need to do and that they are successful. I told one moving friend, “I don’t think this little town will be prepared for you guys!” She giggled. I thought, “no really!”
Despite the challenges that face these families when they move, after some time and tough dedication many refugee families are successful in their move. Asha and her family is one example. I wasn’t too surprised that she, her hardworking smart brother, his new wife and the two girls they were raising would be successful! I miss them all dearly but am so thankful to God that they are doing so well. Asha reminds me that the friendship, love, help and teaching I was able to provide myself (in Christ) before starting Asha’s Refuge and then after starting Asha’s Refuge was a good foundation for her to feel secure and strong enough to make this move. I pray they saw Jesus in me. This is a good thing to hear… Asha’s Refuge is making a difference in the lives of others. (Thanks to Jesus and all the volunteers.)
The two girls are going to school and loving it there. Asha’s brother and his wife had a baby boy. Last I heard her brother was driving a freight truck and making good money to help support his family. Asha continues to be a stay at home mother to her too nieces (remember she calls them and sees them as her daughters so I probably should too) preparing meals, keeping up with chores around the house and making sure the girls are in school. I am sure she is babysitting her brothers little boy at times too. She is happy. They are all happy. Asha and her family have courageously spread their wings wide and have taken flight! They are experiencing many blessings from their hard work, their helpful spirit towards others and their positive attitudes. I trust that they would want you to know how very appreciative to American citizens they are for allowing this opportunity for them to be free. They have hearts aimed to work hard and give back. Here’s are some updated pictures I received that she welcomed me to share. I’d say their flight has been a success.
{Please continue to pray for Asha and her family as well as Asha’s Refuge (how we will continue being bold sharing the love of Jesus). Also pray for refugees in our community who continue to struggle in some areas and those from all the nations that remain under fear, terror and persecution desperate to get out. Thank you for your sincere prayers in advance.}
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“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 NIV)
As I reflect on the above passages taken from the Holy Bible’s book of Ecclesiastes which have come up over and over again in my studies in the last month and then again this morning at The Church at Schilling Farms by Dr. Scott Payne, I am ever so reminded that there IS a time for everything. Dr. Payne grabbed hold of the second half of Ecc. 3 verse 8 which says, “[there is]…a time for war and a time for peace” to focus on today. Just as I have in the past become tongue tied as I have tried to express
to others that sometimes war IS what just has to happen as the judgment falls upon a nation or a people according to whatever situation has occurred. In my saying this it seems others can be so quick to assume that I may be hypocritically defending Gods biblical word because the bible also says things like, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9 NIV). Some may even assume that the bible is contradictory to itself. Just as Dr. Payne expressed (oh how I wish I could express it with his same humility, wisdom and words) there comes a time when Gods patience runs out and His judgment must fall. “God doesn’t contend or compromise with evil” Dr. Payne reminds us. His judgment is perfect and right.Thinking on this, I can see from a parenting perspective how I may have told my child not to do something repeatedly (which almost always I am requesting this of them because it is in their best interest, maybe more beneficial to them and possibly has a safety factor involved) and perhaps they go against my suggestions. Maybe they go against my repeated suggestions for them to alter their decision or direction. Maybe they go against my begging of them to choose something different. In the end the punishment or consequence just happens. It’s like gravity. Things are set in place and there is nothing I can do to stop what has already been set in to motion. You speed down a windy road…you get a ticket or in an accident and hurt yourself and sometimes others. It just happens. But, afterwards, most surrender, turn and give up their own ways and see that what they had chosen was the wrong path. Sometimes one doesn’t surrender but many many others around them who witness what is happening surrender to truth, goodness and righteousness.
I’m not saying that all war or disaster has anything to do with a judgment of a nation or a people…I don’t know the answer to that. But sometimes it is obvious that someone or someone’s are going against all morals of concern for humanity and repeatedly causing the torturous death of innocent children and adults in numbers too many to count. It’s a shame to me that our human labels on people as a group cause some of us to assume
all peoples of that kind are evil. Between you and I it seems extremely immature and irrational. I think of Ruth in the bible who was a cursed Moabite who turned from her families generation of wickedness and gave up her life to follow her mother-in-law Naomi back to Bethlehem (I think it was). Ruth’s honorable action of love rewarded her to be a woman who would carry the seed generations to follow of King David and eventually our precious Jesus Christ Lord and savior! All people who are labeled with human or cultural labels, are NOT evil always as we may think. While there are extremist in every group of people, I have witnessed all too often how many families are just like my own family moving through each day seeking to learn from each day, wanting to live in kindness and goodness although trials and difficulties may come to try and trip
us up…we are pressing on in life eager to find love, truthful spiritual understanding, connections to our creator, peace with others, and more freedom in our lives to devote to our friends, our families and the things we uniquely enjoy.When disagreements between nations and people groups happen, is the answer violence and war?! I must take a stand and say it certainly isn’t ALWAYS the answer and violence shouldn’t be the first way of handling compromising situations but sometimes it IS necessary. We cannot stand by idly watching the unfair massacre of others happen just as we shouldn’t be sitting by idle knowing jillions of orphans need a home, billions of people have unclean water and no food and millions of families are without a safe place to call home.
I would also say it totally isn’t the heart of God or followers of Jesus to kill anyone however sometimes it unfortunately happens as He/we take a stand for righteousness. I believe God works through His people. In history, it seems to me that there has probably been war of some kind in most situations where an area of land ownership becomes an issue. American fought for it’s independence. Other countries have done the same.It is unfortunate that so many lives are being lost. I humbly believe that in the end righteousness will prevail. I watch the news and read news articles about what is happening over the land around Israel. I think about all the displaced innocent people who have many years to even be considered as refugees ready and approved to flee to other countries to try and start their lives over. It would be an honor to meet some of these displaced people and a privilege if Asha’s Refuge were to ever have a chance to serve them
in the likeness of the love of Jesus. I pray on behalf of all peoples involved and pray even more that Gods people will be well taken care of, His light would shine in the darkness thereby growing His kingdom, that love and wisdom would be on their side and that the end would be quick. Soften the hearts of those who promote evil…that’s my prayer.There is a time for everything. And right now, it’s my time, our time, to
stand bold speaking truth in love and PRAY. -
My heart breaks as I watch the news and see so much horror in our world today. God’s heart must be breaking too as He watches the suffering of so many. He loves ALL people so much that He gave His One and Only Son to save us and bring us back to a right relationship with Him. The pain and loss in our world transcends nationality, ethnicity, race and religion and cries out to us on a very basic level of our humanity. Who doesn’t feel compassion for those who are so traumatized by war and terror that they can only cry uncontrollably even when rescued? Seeing the faces of brokenness and suffering on my tv screen reminds me of the journey of many refugees we love and serve through Asha’s Refuge. When I ask what happened, they often share stories of homes overrun by terrorists who kill and burn everyone and everything in sight. Families grab their children and run for their very lives. This is how the journey began for many people we serve and the many horrors they’ve endured along the way mostly remain unspoken. Please join me in praying for all people enduring this terrible suffering today that God of the Angel Armies will show His mighty love and power to rescue those in distress. May He turn this terrible suffering to joy by bringing many to salvation in Jesus. “Save them, Oh God, by Your Name and vindicate them by Your Power. Hear our prayer, Oh God; Give ear to the words of our mouths.” Psalms 54:1-2.
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It’s a beautiful day! The sun is out taking ownership of the blue, cloudless, Memphis skies. Just two more days until the 2014/2015 school year starts. Two more days to help make sure the remaining couple of struggling refugee families with children have the necessary school supplies they need to begin their first school day. While it isn’t the responsibility of Asha’s Refuge to be sure every needy family in the rather large refugee community receives a backpack filled with school supplies, our heart goes out to each family who expresses the need.
Asha’s Refuge tries to primarily give school supplies and other items of need throughout each year to those local refugee families that participate with Asha’s Refuge and are also enrolled. This means approximately 110 child or teen students. A families enrollment ensures to us that those we serve are in fact legitimate legal refugees, that they understand and agree to the rules and initiatives of the Asha’s Refuge organization and that they meet the requirements of our mission…to serve those that have various challenges that make it otherwise difficult for their successful resettlement. The refugees we serve meet one or more of the following criteria: are uneducated, are women with preschool children, have a physical challenge or disability, have little to no job skills, are widowed, are young adults vulnerable to human trafficking or are elderly.
We are looking forward to the new school year and can hardly believe it’s already another year. The Asha’s Refuge American Life and Language Classes will begin again August 14th. We’ve got lots of pens and pencils left from the school supply donations to help us with our weekly adult classes. Asha’s Refuge is truly blessed to have committed volunteers eager and ready to serve as teachers and mentors to the adult and preschool students that attend classes. We have or have had retired licensed teachers, nurses, retired businessmen and women, stay at home mothers, home schooled teens, artists, missionaries, foster parents, writers, youth groups, counselors, college interns, and even a retired school principal among our list of volunteers. Our volunteers seem to come with a heart wide open, seasoned, willing and eager to serve the least of the least of these in our community. Our volunteers are flexible, creative, teachable, incredibly patient, skilled and oh so giving of themselves. We are truly thankful for the help we receive from the community of volunteers we have. Thank you volunteers for making Asha’s Refuge what it is today. It’s God in you that shines.
Asha's Refuge 