Missions Insider Podcast

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
We know that every year thousands of people drown trying
to cross. Either they have great vision, or they have
great faith, or their circumstances are so bad, or a
combination of all the above.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
To embark in a journey like this.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Welcome to Missions Insider podcast and inside look at the
world's most difficult mission fields. All right, today we welcome
brother Louis and he is the Area director of Europe
and MINA and MINA is Middle East and North Africa
for Christian Aid Mission.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome Louise, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for
having me.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
And today we're going to be talking about ministry to
refugees both in Middle East and Europe.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
I'll start us out, so could you tell us what
you're seeing with the influx of refugees in Europe and
the Middle East.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Sure, And if you allow me, I'd like to make
sort of a little technical input as far as the
use of the world refugees. What we call refugees in
Christian Aid, the same word in like a United Nations
language would be called forcibly displaced people.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
The term forcibly displaced people.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Is a term that is wider and it comprises refugees
but it also comprises asylum seekers and what is called
internally displaced people, that is, people that are refugees as
we call them, but in their own country. So in
Christinate terminology, when we say refugees, we're actually talking about

(01:55):
this brother's scope.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Of people.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
That some of them are in the process of seeking asylum,
some of them have been granted refugee status, and some
of them are displaced in their own countries. And within
this big umbrella you have also other types of people
that fall in it, like vulnerable migrants, on accompanied minors,

(02:25):
stateless people, and trafficked people. So that's a very big,
very broad, you know, scope of ministry that some of
the people that we assist in the ground work with.
Now back to your question, can you tell us what

(02:47):
you're saying with the influx of refugees. Yes, there are
a few things that I am able to see. One
is that it seems to be very increasing.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
It's like.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Year after year after years, there's a new wave coming.
And you know, about three and a half years ago
I moved to Spain. I live in a small town
near the ocean, and in these three years, it's amazing
the amount of people that have arrived in the area

(03:29):
that would be in this term refugees. You're walking down
the streets and it's amazing how much Ukrainian or Russian
you're listening people talk. And the presence of people that
came from Sub Sahara Africa that are now like walking

(03:51):
in the streets and in the beaches and all that
is really really surprising. So like this, Europe, especially especially Spain,
in the last probably year and a half or year,
has had a spike on people trying to arrive, trying
to get to Europe through the Canary Islands. So that's

(04:12):
the first thing that I that I can that I
can you know that I can say. The second thing
that I found is that you find refugees in countries
you would never think, you know, you have these great
receivers of refuges like Turkey or Lebanon and Jordan, in

(04:32):
the Middle East, or of course Europe, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden,
uk Italy, Greece, Spain, Sarabat. In my trips and my travels,
I found that in Morocco I saw a lot of refugees.
In Egypt, there's a bunch of refugees as well from Sudan,

(04:53):
and other places. Even in a country like Mauritania, there
are people there that are refugees from Sub Sahara and Africa,
and there's even some African nations that now are hosting
big numbers of refugees. So that's another interesting thing. That
thing that I have found. Maybe a third thing is

(05:19):
there is a rise of anti refugee sentiments in these
refugee receiving countries and even anti refugee policies now. So
for the last couple of years, we've had had reports
from Turkey, Lebanon, several countries in Europe or people, I

(05:43):
mean the you know, society in general, or certain sectors
of society are not liking the fact that they have
so many refugees. They're blaming them for a lot of things,
sometimes unfairly. And that's also one thing that you're seeing,
and that is also affecting policy. Even the response to

(06:07):
this refugee phenomenon is shaping who gets selected in certain countries.
It's like it's part of their political agenda and what
they say, what they're going to go do with refuge
and all that that can lean the balance one side
or the other, and even diplomatic relationships sometimes can get affected,

(06:30):
you know, countries not being happy with your European Union
because of the general policy for refugees. For example, there
was a law in UK recently that they are going
to be sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
And now what that.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Is causing is thousands of illegal we would call them refugees,
but illegal migrants crossing to Ireland. That Ireland, you know,
is part of the European Union and right now there
is no border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, so they're
they're going to Northern Ireland and crossing to Ireland so

(07:12):
that they can get to Europe and not being deported,
and others talks about a border between Ireland and Northern
Ireland because of these situation. So even we we know
stories of countries using refugees as a proxy war and
to this is you know, make another country that is

(07:34):
learning me unstable. So it has a lot of connotations
and things that you find out as you you know,
start working in these scenarios.

Speaker 4 (07:46):
It sounds like this is getting worse every year. Like
you said, why why is that the case? Are there
more refugees or forcibly displaced people in the world now
than there have ever been. I remember, you know, my
my attention was drawn to the refugee crisis back in
like twenty eleven with the rise of Isis and Syria

(08:06):
and Iraq, and all these Syrian and Iraqis were flooding
to European countries and that kind of thing, or Lebanon
and neighboring countries. But it just seems like since that
point in time, there have just been all these other
wars and things that have been causing influx of refugees

(08:27):
into these countries. And so I'm just wondering, could you
tell us a little bit about why this is happening,
kind of who these refugees are and why they're leaving
their home countries.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Sure, well, you're right on. I mean these people.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
For someone to be tact as refugee, they need to
be fleeing for their.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Lives, either because of war, because of.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Persecution in some cases can be religious persecutions. Sometimes it
can even be sexual or into persecution. There's refugees of
that kind as well, and or extreme poverty. You know,
they need to prove that the conditions where they live,
their lives were threatened and that's why they.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Had to live. So there's that, and of course the
majority of this.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Phenomenon is happening because after Isis, you had the situation
in Afghanistan, you had the invasion, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sudan,
the civil war in Sudan, and you keep, i mean,
the situation in Sub Saharan Africa, especially Sahil region, where
there is these terrorist groups moving down Islamic terrorist groups

(09:45):
moving down into Christian territories who speak and massacring villages.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
And you have all this situation in the.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
World that is, there's a lot of corruption in certain
places as well.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
And and then besides.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
That, then you also have this probably there's people that
make money out of it. There's traffickers, yeah, and they
probably sell them I mean, not all of them, of course,
but many come with this idea of maybe the European

(10:22):
dream mm hm.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
And so you have that as well.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
So all this, you factor all of this and more information,
more social media people also, and so went this you
know to Germany. Whatever, let's go reach him, or let's
let's let's follow the same path or you know, so
all this combined we arrived at what you just said

(10:52):
that the number of forcibly displaced people is like never before,
and it's you know, it's it's increasing year by year.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
Louise, have you been able to visit some of the
tent camps where the ministries are working and what was
that like? Can you paint a picture for us?

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (11:16):
I have visited several areas. Not all the time it's
tent camps. There's different Sometimes it's tent camps. Sometimes it
can be that several families are cramped into like an
apartment in the city, so.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
There's different scenarios.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Some ministries even have their own centers for their accommodate people,
so it's different scenarios.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
I've had the possibility.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Of visiting these kinds of places in Lebanon and Turkey,
also Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, in the Middle East and Europe,
in Spain, Netherlands and Greece. So yeah, there's there's many stories,

(12:08):
many things that probably I could share in Spain, maybe
I'll narrate some of my encounters with some of these
people that are in this condition.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Let me start maybe with one in Spain. He he was.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
A refugee many years ago, before this big influx into Spain.
He was like one of the first, the first ones
to arrive from Nigeria, and through him, through knowing him
and learning about his travels, I realized how tough it

(12:52):
is for many of these refugees to just arrive in
Europe from him going to Niger area, all the way
to Morocco to try, you know, to try to cross
them Mediterranean.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
To get into Spain, you.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Need to cross the Sahara Desert, and of course these
people basically have no money, so it's a trip that
takes them probably have a year, several.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Months, maybe even more.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
They need to be stopping in different places trying to
find some kind of work to have the means to
continue with the next stage of their of their journey.
And then once they get into Morocco, then they you know,
the crossing, but they cramp these people in these boats
that are designed for maybe twenty people and they cram them,

(13:46):
cram them with maybe one hundred and twenty people. And
then they don't follow straight paths across them Inditerranean because
they want to avoid you know, coastguard or whatever, so
they take all these very long routes. Sometimes they can
run into a storm, and we know that every year
thousands of people drown trying to cross so this specific

(14:13):
brother because he's he's he's a believer.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
He he he can't swim.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
So the boat flipped and while he was going down,
he called upon the Lord and he said that something
pushed him up.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
He was able to grab onto the boat.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
But while he was trying to get onto the boat,
the propeller h' you know, hurt his leg. He was
so he was almost he almost died from the bleeding.
When they arrived in Spain. He had to be rushed
to hospital. He was maybe a couple of months in
the hospital. So but what he told me is that

(14:53):
the experience of people dying in the sea is not
as dramatic as the experience of seeing people die in
the desert.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
I wasn't aware of that. I always thought, all the
big problem with the crossing.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Is the sea. Well, in his narrative, it was the desert.
He says they lost more people there, and he says,
people dye in the desert is a very slow depth
and it's you know, people drowning. It's something that goes quick.
But so that gives us an idea of you know,

(15:26):
these people they're really either they have great vision, or
they have great faith, or their circumstances are so bad
or a combination of all the above that you need
a lot of drive to embark in a journey like this. Yes,
and there's all kinds of stories of you know, and

(15:48):
there's movies that I don't know if I can recommend one,
but there's one that probably portrays a good It's called Swimmers.
It's the story of two city and girls that that
they are so mer in Sydia and you know, they
became refugees and they had to you know, take a
boat from Turkey and cross to Greece and all these

(16:10):
things happening.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
When they arrive in Europe.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
It's not the end of their sufferings or their challenges,
is the beginning of a new set of challenges. You know,
you need to be have legal papers, you need to
learn a new language, you need to you don't know anybody,
probably if you had some studies wherever you came from,
because not all refugees are like very poor.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Some refugees are.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
They had a business, they had a profession, they were
professionals in their in their in their country, and then
you're in Europe, you're nobody. Probably your diploma or your
studies don't you know, they're not recognized by the European Union,
so it's a whole new set of challenges. And probably
you're going to live for several months in a barrack

(17:00):
or in a tent as you mentioned, or in some
place that is not really a nice place to live.
So there's there's This is some of the of the
of the of the situations that I've seen hearing their stories.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
I've heard a lot of stories from a lot of
refugees in Iraq.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
For example, I met the Yacidi family and they narrated
how they were just by minutes able to escape from
Isis and they just they had a car that like
everybody just got into the car and just drove away.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Well, they saw how Isis.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Was arriving on the other side of town. And I
met them in a refugee camp in Iraq. And for example,
they had been there for maybe two or three years.
Back in her home country. She was studying to be

(18:03):
a doctor. Oh wow, now she's there for three years,
just in a very small area that they used as
a house. And so these are some of the of
the kinds of stories. But also when the gospel, when

(18:25):
when when the light of the gospel shines upon them.
It's like, really, for them is night and then it's day.
And I remember some of those faces that I've seen.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
In Lebanon, for example, there was the whole family that
they had been They had been baptized, I think a
week before I arrived at the camp, and and so
the leader took me to meet them. And I could
not communicate very well with them because I don't speak

(19:04):
out of it, and it was very basic what we
could say to each other.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
But their faces.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
I still have their faces in my in my imagination,
in my because they're so there. I mean, how can
I describe it. I even have a picture of them.
And they work in the fields. And they brought some
flowers and gave them to me first time only time
in my life, so somebody has given me flowers. But

(19:32):
they're there there, their faces. It was just like this
radiance and innocence and purity and just they had discovered
in the midst of their suffering. They discovered the love
of God and they discovered Christ. So the change in
their life was so so so notorious. Also in Iraq,

(19:59):
we visited the family with the ministry leader who assist
Kurdish family that was also refuge They were from serial
refugees in that area, and they became believers and they
had been baptized. I actually attended their baptism because there
was a secret meeting with several people were baptized in

(20:20):
a very secret place, and they were part of that group.
And then the following week we went to their home
for a Bible study, and you know, they asked me
if if I would lead the Bible study. So I
was like, oh, no, no, no, no, you know, it's okay.
So what I said is, I'm basically going to read

(20:41):
the passage of Scripture and I'm going to just go
through some questions of understanding what we're reading and then
how it applies to our lives. I'm not going to
preach to them because I don't think it's a good idea,
but let's discover the Bible together. So we did that.
Help of this brother was translating, and and you know,

(21:02):
we're at a story of the of the Gospels and
I would ask them questions.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
The responses I got from them, I was amazed, r
very amazed. It's like when.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Jesus was with the you know, the scribes, and they
were amazed at his answers.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Being a young boy.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Well, these people coming from a Muslim background, new believers.
I was not expecting great answers from them, but not
only sharp answers, like they were really paying attention, but
also insight of you know, how this applies to our lives,
and how we need are to lover enemies, and how

(21:43):
this and that. It's like you're talking to a very
mature believer or somebody that is used to Bible studier.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
So I was really really amazed by that encounter.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
So, I mean, I could give you other examples of
stories and people that I've meant, but it's you know,
I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Bore you or something, So.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
This is anything but boring. Louis.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, I know that.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
Christian Aid Mission assists multiple ministries in Europe and Middle
East that are helping internally displaced in refugees. Would you
be able to just, you know, pick one of those
ministries and kind of give us an example or of
the type of work that they're doing. How are they
reaching refugees.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Okay, let's go to maybe two two extremes of the
so you can get an idea. There is one ministry
in Turkey, for example, that visits a camp.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
They when the refuge.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Started arriving from Sitia, all of a sudden in your
city you have all these camps of people that are
These camps are very improvised camps.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
They are not.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
The tents are not even just tents somebody bought, somebody
bought or something. It's just with plastic or whatever. They
made their own tents. So these camps, I don't know,
maybe you maybe the camp that they visit, I'm going
to say it's maybe eight hundred families, probably around that number,

(23:30):
a lot of children.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
The conditions of these camps are horrible in all way imaginable.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
They don't have any basically anything, so they the little
money they get.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Is from working in the fields.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Of course, because they're not legal, they get paid maybe
one third of what would be the regular salary, which
already was very low.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
So it's just for bait sik survival.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
So this ministry and you need to understand also we
need we need to remember that Turkey, the number of
believers in Turkey is very small. So when you're talking
about a ministry in Turkey or church in Turkey, it's
usually very small in number and not and not very capable,
you know, financially, so they always go like beyond their.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Their capabilities.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
So basically they visit this camp as often as they
can and try to alleviate some way or another their situation.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
So that and then as people greet.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Them, and you know, they enter the tents and share
with people, and so people greet them, they respect them.
They've been been doing that for years, and that opens
the door for the for them to share the gospel,
to hear their stories, and you know, maybe one time
they take shoes for the children, and maybe some other

(25:05):
time they take basic food items or hygiene or you know,
whatever they can.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
The other the other.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Extreme of the of the scope would be a ministry,
which is in Spain, they run the a program that
is is approved by the government, so that means that
they receive asylum seekers or from the government to go
through a six month process.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
So in this case they have their own facilities.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
The refugees are put in much nicer you know, in
a building, in different apartments in a building or much
nicer situations. So they receive food there, they they're taught
the language, and they are they do everything that they
knew they need to do from a legal standpoint, from

(26:04):
a practical standpoint, so that they can start a life
in Spain with the language, with work opportunities. They also
go through a sick you know, they have psychologists that
help them and in this process they see the love
of Christ through the people that help them. And outside
the program, they are invited to Bible studies or two

(26:27):
small groups where they can learn the Gospel. So these
are the two, you know, the two extremes of this,
and then in between there's all kinds of you know,
things that are done. Like in between these two, some
ministries provide medical assistance with refugees, I mean everything they need.

(26:47):
They have need of everything, So ministries provide different things
for them, and and and and but the most important
I think is that because the quality of the of
the of the how these ministries these workers treat them,

(27:11):
which is different.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Than maybe just a U N organization or maybe.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Different from Muslims or maybe different from the government that
you know, it's not personal, it's not a care about you,
I love you, is more of a you know, it's
a different feeling. So they they they they are touched
by that why are you here?

Speaker 2 (27:35):
You know what moves you to be here.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Why so sometimes they even say, well don't if you
don't have anything to bring us, that's fine. We understand
that it's we like it when you come. So that's
that's a great difference. That that makes a difference in
their lives, and that creates opportunities to to then say, well,
would come here because we're obeying gees, and that starts

(28:02):
I can start the conversation.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
Thank you for joining us for part one as we
learned about refugees from Luis, and we will return next
week with part two. In the meantime, if you'd like
to learn more, go to Christianaid dot org.