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Mike Brown, our evangelism board director, will be posting several entries on his experience with helping a refugee family. A Good Neighbor doesn’t stay on his side of the street or even his own city sometimes.
33 “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins,[c] telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
36 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.
37 The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”
Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”-Luke 10:33-37
I wanted to write this blog series for several reasons. First, I want to share my experience with being a good neighbor to the sojourners in our land. People who are refugees from their native lands, because of some type of persecution. Also, the Bible commands me to love others as myself. And it doesn’t say only those whom I am comfortable with, but for all those Jesus died for. Finally, I myself was a stranger in a foreign land once. Every time I walked in Gods house I felt like a foreigner, but Gods grace welcomed me and showed me love. By His example, shall I live.
I have been working with a program called Exodus World Services. I got involved with them at first as a research tool for introducing a new program to my church. Which afforded me with a personal ministry opportunity to be a “good neighbor” to an Afghan refugee. The ministry is called Conversations with a Refugee. The idea being to help them with their English and to befriend them at the same time. In addition, a by product of that exchange is a cross cultural understanding that is hard to obtain any other way.
There is a lot to unpack in this journey I have been on. Much personal growth has happened. In just 8 weeks I have learned a lot about life in Afghanistan and that of a refugee and myself. Which I intend to share here over the coming weeks. If your curious as to how we can relate to a person from a different culture, religion, country and well everything, stay tuned.