I started this blog during our last week in Indonesia, and it has been sitting on the computer for months now and I just now got back to it, sorry it’s late but you’re welcome it’s here.
I want to bring you guys into the space that I have been operating in for the past few weeks. We are smack dab in the middle of a refugee community in Bogor, Indonesia. We are surrounded by refugees from many countries, primarily Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Oman. You know, all of the places that AIM would never let us go physically. In the previous blog, I said 90 countries, but now being here I think it may be more like 9. Most of the people that we have come into contact with are from Afghanistan, and most of the Afghans are from the Hazara people group. This minority people group has been highly persecuted, even within the borders of Afghanistan. Most have fled for their lives, and for many, the tipping point was seeing family members or friends murdered by radical Muslims. Plot twist: the Hazara people are Muslim too.
I want to pause for a moment and speak to the political climate that is happening in America right now. Just so everybody is on the same page, I definitely lean more conservative than liberal. Up until about a month ago, I am not even sure that I had a stance on immigration. But being here with these people, hearing their stories, and seeing first hand their struggle to survive, at really no fault of their own, all of this has really put things in perspective for me. The majority of people here, of Muslims here, are good people, and all they want is a better life for themselves and their children. These are not the radical suicide bombers. These are not the guys that flew the plane. I hope that everyone realizes that the LARGE MAJORITY of terrorist attacks in the past 20 years have taken place in Muslim majority countries, against other Muslims. Until we realize that Muslims are not all the same, and that it is a group of a few radicals that are really making life hard for everyone (Muslims included) we are never going to be able to fix the problems that we are facing. We have to begin dispelling the fear in the US that surrounds these people. We need so badly to start looking for the things we have in common instead of the things that separate us. Most of them are men and women that want all of the same things that you want: a peaceful place to live, a job so that they can work and provide, a good education and a better life for their children. For example, my good friend Nas’s family. (I am not using their names to protect their identity and their families identity). There are six of them here in Indonesia. Mother, father, and four brothers. Their two sisters are married, still in Iraq. The father is probably my father’s age. The boys are from 26-14. The youngest, we will call him Mark, is fluent in 6 languages (English, Arabic, Indonesian, Farsi, Ukrainian, and Urdu) and is an excellent martial artist. My friend, Nas, is a trained dentist and is only in Indonesia so he can be with his family. These people are not seeking to come to the US and live off the government’s dime. They just want an opportunity, a chance to live and provide for themselves and be free. It is easy to lump people together so that you can categorize and compartmentalize. It is hard to do the work and the research to realize that people are not all the same, Muslims are not all the same.
Even more than our shared humanity, even more than the fact that these folks have families and dreams and deep longings in their hearts, more than any of that we must start seeing them as creations of our Heavenly Father. We have got to start seeing Muslims (even the bad ones) as people who God knit together in their mothers wombs. Yeah, that verse is just as much for a Muslim born in Saudi Arabia or Iraq as it is for you and me. The Father loves them and wants to be in relationship with them and wants to save them from their sin just as much as He does and did for me.
I don’t know the answers to the questions of world politics. I don’t have a plan for immigration that would let the “good” Muslims in and keep the “bad” ones out (I put those terms in quotes because I think Paul would argue against using such language to describe people, see Romans) I don’t know. What I do know is this: Jesus gave us a commission and command to go into the world and make disciples “penta te enthne”– of every nation. I know that in the book of Revelation every tribe, tongue and nation will be represented around the throne of our mighty King. That’s a promise. I know that we as Christians should not let fear keep us from what God has already promised to fulfill. I know that if we loved people half as well as Jesus commanded us to, we wouldn’t need to worry about Muslims bombing us because they would be so transformed by the character of Jesus within our lives they wouldn’t have any reason to. What if we started seeing immigration as a means of God bringing the nations to us? Would that change our hearts, would that change the way we participate in politics? What if we quit worrying so much about what man was doing and started trying to see how God was “working all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes”? I just finished a great book called “Myth of a Christian Nation” by Greg Boyd that speaks to this idea a lot. I would really encourage any and everyone to check it out, it paints an awesome picture of what it looks like to live Kingdom lives now and talks a lot about what are the role of politics in a believers life.
One final thought. Rather, one final challenge. I dare you, the next time you see a Muslim woman in the mall or in the grocery store walking around in her hijab, go up and start a conversation with her. I mean, if Islam is as bad for women as we say it is, do you see how burdened she must be?Do you know how lonely she must be, or how isolated she feels in a country that espouses so much hate for people like her? I want to encourage you to see past the clothes, past the religion, and see the person, and love her like Jesus would. You might have more in common than you know.
PS- If I come across as preachy or harsh, that is not my heart behind this. I want to speak with boldness, and these are lessons that I have had to wrestle with myself since being on the Race. I want to call the church, myself very much included, to a higher standard, because we have such an opportunity to impact the world with the gospel. We live in an age like no other. With transportation, communication, we can go anywhere in the world in days and we can have global impact from our living room. We, as Americans, are a part of the richest civilization in history. We have so many resources, so much potential, and we often toss it out the window in the name of comfort or safety. We are capable of so much more. I want to see the American church begin to leverage the gifts we have been given and really learn what stewardship means. The Lord has very much used my time in Indonesia, even before that really, to begin to burden me with a deep, genuine love for our Muslim brothers and sisters. One of my hopes in writing this is that the Lord will do the same in you.
