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A couple of
people we are praying for these days. . .
We’ve been helping adults and children at a church-sponsored
refugee center in the heart of Dallas. A couple of weeks ago we had
a little girl show up from a Middle Eastern country. We can’t give
you her real name, but if you say “Shazam” that’s real close. The
refugee kids here are placed in a school grade only by age, and not
by aptitude. She was bringing in math, reading and science
homework, but she knows no English and couldn’t even begin to
complete her assignments. So, we went to Walmart and bought one of
those books with big letters to trace and bright pictures to go
along with the alphabet. The next time she came we started with A
for apple, then B for ball and so on. Along with the alphabet,
she’s learning English words. You’ve never seen a child so happy to
be able to learn something. We are excited for her and will help
her as much as we can to catch up to her classmates.
We pray for her that through the witness of the Christians at the
refugee center and the strong Christian influence in the Dallas
area, she will grow up hearing the message of Jesus and accept him
as her Savior someday.
Every week we help the adults with conversational English. We are
normally given a guided lesson to help the students with vocabulary
and grammar, which is supposed to be completed within the hour we
are with them. One of the gentleman that Jay is helping is a
refugee from Myanmar. He belongs to the Rohingya people who are
mostly Muslims. As our lesson started, he was asked to tell
something about his people. He gave the strong impression that
nobody had ever sat with him and listened to his story before. For
the next fifty minutes he told all about the persecution that he
and his family had suffered from Buddhists who push them out of the
country (This is no secret. You can just Google “Rohingya” and read
about it). After leaving their home, they were bounced from country
to country as refugees before finally ending up in the United
States. They long to return, but will probably never be able.
We pray that this man and his family can adjust to life in the
United States and eventually call it home. We also pray that they
continue to have loving Christians around them, helping them
through the transition. And, we pray, more than anything, that even
though they lost their homeland, they find Jesus.
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