Now that I am no longer working for Mission to the World, I have been looking for ways to stay on the international missions scene in a more direct way besides just eating at Café Instanbul and Surin every weekend. One of the opportunities that has sort of just fallen in my lap was to start teaching English to a refugee family that immigrated to Atlanta from Burundi last summer. This family was living in a refugee camp in Tanzania prior to coming to the US, and when me, Angie, and Heather met them they hardly knew any English and were just getting settled into the apartment in Clarkston. They did know Swahili, so I have been using like the 3 words I learned in Kenya with them like: Karibu Karibu! Kwaheri! Asanta sana sana!!
Anyway, we have been going over there about every week or every other week, seeking to teach some practical English to the wife, Jeannette, and her sister, Jacqueline, while the husband, Jean-Pierre was at work at a local chicken plant.
All went fairly well for the first few months. Going over there reminds me a lot of what it was like to visit homes in Kenya. There are a lot of random decorations like draperies separating the rooms, with old pictures taped up around the room of the family when they were still in Africa. The women wear African skirts and there are sometimes bugs around. Our efforts at teaching English have been coming along, and we also have loved getting to know David (6), Alphon (4) and Alice (1) and the other four kids who are often there from another family, including cute Doreen who at 4 years knows more English then any of them, but refuses to translate for us. Our reward usually is a tasty pineapple Sunkist at the end of our lesson.
Then at the beginning of Feb, we went to visit and Jean-Pierre was there and the women were not. We found out that he was hit by a car while walking in a crosswalk near his home. From what we could gather, he was in the hospital for three days, his back hurt, and he had to miss work for like 5-6 weeks. Ever since we have been trying to help the family out with filing insurance claims, helping with rent, and food cost, getting representation because he was subpoenaed to testify in court, etc. This stuff would be hard for a native American, not to mention someone who’s been here for only about eight months!
What’s been interesting to me is learning about how my attitude so often has been frustration in this situation. Not towards them, but to towards the system, towards others who want to help but are limited, to how hard it is to communicate, etc. I had a ton of patience for this when I am overseas. But now that I am in my own country and experiencing it, being able to relax and have God be in control is really hard. I keep thinking that it shouldn’t be this hard to help them, but it so is! My need to rely on God is actually the same, but it’s easier here to rely on myself, because supposedly I know the culture and the language and all the tricks supposedly to help them, and I don't want to let them down. I think we're the only Americans helping them, and we've built a good relationship with them.
So and I are going by tonight to check in on them one more time before their court date tomorrow, and to drop off February’s rent payment which folks from our small groups were so generous to donate towards. It's been really cool seeing how many people have stepped forward to help. We've gotten a lot of suggestions too, which is helpful, but sometimes I just want to take people over there for an "English lesson" so they can understand what it's like. Sometimes we're just lucky to read the kids a book or something for the love of Pete! But we'll keep trying.
