I SWEAR THERE’S ANOTHER WAY
Greetings Friends,
Some of you know I said my goodbyes four years ago when an aggressive bleed sent a major surgery sideways. For a few moments, while strapped to a gurney being loaded into an emergency vehicle, I experienced what psychologists call terminal lucidity, an acute hyper-consciousness before death. Under a night sky stuffed full of beautiful stars, I caught a glimpse of what was most important to me.
Family, of course. Close friends too.
And friends from across the world who have profoundly changed me — friends who have faced war, violence, persecution, trafficking, tragedies so intense, so personal, that it is hard to fathom how they survived, let alone found the courage to push through their pain and hope again. I am better for knowing them and honored to call them friends.
On the other side of surgery, it felt like I was handed a second life. I stopped trying to please everyone and started giving myself more fully to people who mattered most. I even started telling people they should snuggle up close to death. It does a soul good! 😳
I focused on a simple question back then, which has become a daily prayer now: What is mine to do?
So when I announced to Stephan that I wanted to become a therapist, he wasn’t surprised. Okay, he may have said something like, “Therapy? Hasn’t cancer punished you enough?”
Turns out therapy wasn’t punishment at all but a whole new level of awesome. Still is.
WHAT IS YOURS TO DO?
Three years later, and with a shiny new degree, I am splitting my time between Together International and therapy with unaccompanied refugee minors. I’d say more, but they are a vulnerable group, especially today. What I can say is this: everyday I get to bear witness to some of the bravest, most resilient kids I’ve ever met.
As for Together, we are piloting a trauma-informed, resilience curriculum with our new American friends here in Michigan, and we are launching a giving community this fall focused on resourcing local ministries in hard places.
Maybe my question is for you: What is yours to do?
It can be as simple as a kind word, a smile, or gesture — just being human at a time when the world is starving for compassion.
WE INSIST UPON YOUR DIGNITY
You may have seen our new series on Substack about human dignity. Some people are cheering us on while others are pressing in. Are we really witnessing a collapse of human dignity today?
We realize this is a bold claim. Stephan and I have been at this a long time — a decade in Africa plus travel to so many countries we’ve lost count. Honestly, in our lifetimes, we never could have imagined what we are seeing today — the fracturing of our communities, even families and close friends, over politics. The surge of brutality in the U.S. against immigrants and refugees, and across the world in places like Gaza and Sudan.
What we are experiencing matters not only for our friends who are vulnerable, but for all of us. When human worth is stolen from anyone, it is stolen from everyone. Give it a read or listen and let us know what you think.
We also started a Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs) page to address the good questions coming our way — questions like:
What is motivating you to talk about human dignity?
Why are you mixing politics and faith?
What do you hope will change?
What can I do?
Click herefor the FAQs, where you can also submit a question of your own.
Maybe, like us, you are lamenting the shuttering of our national doors to people seeking protection from war or persecution. Or the neighbors down the road who pulled their kids from school just to keep them safe.
Gone are the days when families could make a new start in the United States. Like Heinrich Bauman, who immigrated in the 1800s as a young man in search of a better life. As far as we can tell, he was admitted through Ellis Island after a brief health and background check.
My grandfather, Alexis Kolshanov, a Jewish boy, was sent by his family to escape the European rise of fascism. Alexis was turned away by the United States because he was Jewish, so he immigrated to Canada and later became a U.S. citizen after changing his name and hiding his faith. Alexis’s brother, Fyodor, survived Dachau, and his sister, Valentina, lost her life at Auschwitz.
Stephan and I are the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” just a few generations removed.
What about you?
Today’s “huddled masses” are being violently deported to the shame of Lady Liberty’s. Some are being killed. Like Lorenzo Salgado and Joan Sebastian Guerrero.
In the words of Mumford and Sons, “I swear there’s another way.”
If you are weary, you are in good company. Injustice preys upon those who refuse to accept the world as it is. But “violence is not completely fatal,” wrote Thomas Merton, “until it ceases to disturb us.”
May we never stop being disturbed.
Three-month-old Rim Abu Hiyye survived a military on her family’s home in Gaza. (Click here or the image above to read the article.)
WHAT MAKES AMERICA GREAT?
In the early days of our country, a French diplomat, Alexis de Tocqueville, traveled to the United States to document what made it great. "I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the common good, and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always give each other faithful support,” he wrote. “If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
With his former colleagues from World Relief, Matthew Soerens and Issam Smeir, Stephan just completed a second edition of Seeking Refuge. I am so proud of Matt, Issam, and Stephan for this important book at a crucial time. When they wrote the first edition in 2016, we faced an unprecedented refugee crisis — 60 million people forcibly displaced from their homes. Remember the image of Aylan, the little boy who washed up on the shore of the Mediterranean?
A decade later, the number of people displaced has doubled to nearly 120 million, the highest in history. Our response to the global refugee crisis will define us — as a nation, and as a people — for generations to come. Will we turn away from refugees who have fled violence and persecution? Or will we stand with our friends, many of whom have become trusted, contributing members of our communities?
Seeking Refuge is available online and at major book sellers, or reach out to us and we’ll send you a copy. All royalties benefit refugees and immigrants through the work of World Relief.
LOVE IS WAY ABOVE THAT
Many of our refugee friends have been rejected from their countries of origin. Ivanna, for example, was rejected by the countries she considered home her whole life — Russia and Ukraine. In her words, “I realized that I was becoming something I’d only read about in books — a refugee.”
“Thousands and thousands” of people are forced to flee their homes and the things they love, according to Ivanna. “I myself was a refugee, so I understand deeply. Don’t let yourself be carried away by political ideas,” she said. “Jesus was a refugee too. We all have views, but love is way above that.”