Does God Want Me to Take Care of a Ukrainian Refugee?
by S.M. Chen | 9 August 2023 |
I wish to relate something of potential interest—this is something that is ongoing. We are not yet to Act III. It has not played out. We do not know the dénouement.
But that is all right. We each have a story to tell. All our stories are different. Like it or not, we are but players in something that is being played on the stage of the cosmos.
Some might call it The Great Controversy.
Setting
I live alone. I happen to rent a small house in a geographic area noted for high rent.
Part of the reason is that the weather is desirable. The proximity of the sea may be one factor. I count myself fortunate.
The reasons I am here are not important. What follows is important, however:
Russia, without provocation or justification, invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The toll of that “special military operation,” which has since morphed into a full-blown war, has been enormous.
Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced. Many have fled elsewhere in Europe. Poland is the country that has taken in the most refugees. Some have fled elsewhere: Germany, Ireland, Canada, and the USA.
Tens of thousands, perhaps more, have been killed or maimed—this on both sides. Perhaps more Russians than Ukrainians. The precise number may never be known. Russia is known for sowing disinformation, and Ukraine is understandably reluctant to provide casualty figures. Property loss has been in the billions.
And all this because of the large ego of one small man: Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leader.
POTUS Joe Biden, in addition to supplying Ukraine with billions of dollars of aid (both military materiel and humanitarian), has opened the United States to refugees to a limited extent.
More than a little
I have followed this war with much interest.
Edmund Burke, Irish statesman, once observed, “No one made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
The house I rent has an extra bedroom with a queen-size bed. Large enough to accommodate a couple or a single adult or adult and small child.
So I sought and obtained permission from my kindly landlord to potentially house refugees for up to two years (the length of time permitted by Biden’s program).
But I was stymied. Paperwork required by the U.S. government asked for detailed contact information on “beneficiaries.” I didn’t know them or even their name. I was merely offering to sponsor them and offer a room.
I continued to support Ukraine financially. But the thought gnawed at me: I could perhaps do more.
Helping
Then I discovered the online platform icanhelp.host. It purportedly linked Ukrainian refugees with Americans who could offer housing and sponsorship.
I assumed it was valid and legitimate. I registered. It didn’t take long before I was contacted.
(The internet can be a wonderful thing.)
The first person to contact me was a 17-year-old university student in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine. I told him I might be able to take him but I would have to file form I-134A on his behalf, and it might take time. More time, certainly, than he had before he turned 18, which was only a few days. All able-bodied males age 18-60 are prohibited from leaving Ukraine. They are being asked to stay and fight for the survival of their country as a nation.
He subsequently went to Germany, which offers financial assistance to Ukrainian refugees.
I was then contacted by a woman in her 20s who used to be a schoolteacher. Her husband was of similar age. I do not know why he was exempt from combat. But they were a trio. His mother, a woman in her early 60s, used to be a nurse, and, like the biblical Ruth to Naomi, wherever they went, she would go.
I could not take three, and told them so. I did not hear from them again.
The third party to contact me was a 25-year-old man who lived near Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. He and his 21-year-old fiancée sought to immigrate. Why was he exempt from military service? He has an autoimmune connective tissue disorder, lupus erythematosus, is taking steroids, and is considered disabled.
I decided to help them. I filed I-134A forms for him and his fiancée and waited.
I am still waiting.
Family reaction
My two adult children, with whom I talk about this sort of thing, had a somewhat different take from mine.
My son was aghast. What are you doing, taking two strangers into your home? Might they harm you, take advantage of you? Clobber you over the head in the middle of the night? How do you know they aren’t scammers? Might you want to hire a private investigator, Dad?
Legitimate questions.
My daughter was also concerned, although less so. She inquired of friends. None had offered to sponsor refugees from Ukraine.
Two more parties contacted me. A young woman, an artist, and her husband, who did something else, sent me a photo with their small dog. They were under the mistaken (deliberate?) impression I could sponsor them without any financial obligation. Having just completed the exhaustive and detailed I-134A form, I knew better.
In addition to wanting detailed financial information, the United States government asked for a recent tax return. The sponsor indeed assumes considerable financial obligation.
Another single man contacted me for potential housing and sponsorship. I have since taken down my profile at the online platform. No sense in even being listed.
My siblings and I meet weekly on the Zoom platform. Sometimes other relatives join us.
I am grateful in that it allows us to interact as if we were all in one large room, whereas, in reality, we are scattered all across the country.
I mentioned what I was doing. One relative, a man of the cloth, mentioned God was able to protect me if He so chose.
Gideon’s fleece
I thought of Gideon and his fleece. My test was even more simple: if I was about to be scammed or otherwise harmed by people whom I didn’t know, why not have the paperwork be disapproved? J B Phillips, an English man of the cloth, wrote a book some time back. I always remember its title: Your God Is Too Small. If God spoke worlds into existence, He could choose to not have the paperwork approved for the couple I intended to sponsor.
The Good Samaritan in the parable stopped to help. That we are told. I doubt the Samaritan considered the possibility that the wounded Jew was faking, and might arise at the last moment to smite him and steal his valuables.
And I thought of the wonderful novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. In it, the protagonist, a convict named Jean Valjean, is rebuffed by town folk because of his past. A kindly bishop of the city of Digne finally takes him and serves him a hot meal.
For the hospitality, the bishop is rewarded by having Valjean steal his silver.
The bishop could probably have sent Valjean back to the salt mines for good merely by telling the truth. Many of us, I surmise, might have been tempted to do that. But the novel would have then been much shorter. The bishop instead tells the arresting gendarmes he had indeed given the silver to Valjean.
Privately, he urges Valjean to become a better man. And Valjean does.
It is true this is merely a novel, a work of art, but great art recapitulates life.
And what of empathy? This, to me, is what Christianity is all about. Being able to put oneself in another’s sandals without wearing them. What if we were the ones who were seeking asylum?
It is true for many of us that “there but for the grace of God go I.”
Blanche duBois, protagonist of Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire has this to say: “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
If Gideon could put out his fleece in Biblical times, perhaps it isn’t presumptuous of me to do the same.
We’ll see what happens.
S.M. Chen writes from southern California.
