Paris, France is proud and beautiful. She is full of windy streets and cobblestones, bakeries and cafés around each corners. A puff of cigarette smoke wafts in with each breath of city air. We arrived in a huff, dropping off our heavy backpacks at the door after peeling off our shoes as we explored our new home for a week. I stepped out on the teeny, tiny balcony and breathed in; the air was fresh after the rain. I breathed in deep. We have finally arrived.
Our small team of 7 (we split into smaller teams from our larger squad) are staying in the northern part of Paris in a hustling and bustling part of the city. It is crowded and busy yet a lot of people are just visiting. Many Parisian businesses close in August and many locals vacation and get out of the city. As a result, August in Paris is full of tourists and few locals. Many refugees are also here in Paris.
I will go tomorrow to see the refugees for the first time and don’t know what to expect. Many on my squad have already talked and prayed with them but I haven’t been to the main Porte de la Chapelle area, where the refugees are en masse yet.
I’ve heard snippets, bits and pieces from others . From the Parisians we’ve talked to, there is a mixture of subdued sympathy and general discomfort when talking about the refugees, but many have not seen them.
While waiting in the park today, I chatted up with a family who has lived in France for 30 years and they mentioned the refugees are a big problem. France has so many refugees because they were coming through France to get to the UK, but when the UK closed their borders, they were stuck in France. France shut down their official refugee center in Calais and the refugees dispersed into small towns around Calais and congregated in Paris, at the Porte de la Chapelle.
A lot of people I talked to here in the city haven’t yet seen them with their own eyes and approach it as a problem to solve. I wonder what I’ll feel when I finally see them. They are very close, about a 10 minute walk. They don’t seem real yet. I haven’t yet seen their tents or seen their eyes Last summer, I served refugees who were already housed in government centers in Germany. They had a roof over their heads; these are sleeping outside under the rain.
I heard from teammates that went today that it was overwhelming and that the magnitude was hard to process. That the locals were walking around the area acting as if the locals were dangerous. I talked to a contact who has lived in Paris his whole life and he said the refugees are a big problem in France. He mentioned some people think that there are French people who need help and that helping the refugees would be unfair to the French.
My heart aches for the refugees, for Paris, and for France. Paris has gone through so much; she’s on her defense. Every major place we’ve gone, we’ve had to go through security checks in local markets, shopping centers, and historic areas. We were sitting on a bench in a clean, calm part of town La Defense and I saw 6 armed military personnel walk around. I asked why they were there and my Parisian friend said they’ve increased their security since the Charles Hebdo attack in 2015.
Paris is proud but hurting. Beautiful but scarred. The people are friendly but are spiritually apathetic. Christianity is seen as a relic of the past and viewed as closed minded.
Please pray and intercede on behalf of the French and the refugees. Please pray for us to see people as God sees them. Many horrible things brought the refugees to France but let us view this as an opportunity to love on them and to share God’s love with them, we may not have been able to reach them if they had not come.
