Inshallah Baby
This morning I was jotting down a quick list of guests' names to remind myself to invite each of them to our next Learning Circle: Odell...Mohammed...Idrissa....Patrick...Suad... I was struck by the gift of it all--I get to be connected to each of these people and help them get off on the right foot here in Hamilton.
One has shown me the lace that she made (!!) to edge her hijab. We show off the few words we've learned in the other's language: shaay (tea), good morning, alhamdulillah (praise God), baby, supas (thank you), rice, bas (good). When she sees me, she says "inshallah baby" (if God wills it, baby), mixing her language and mine to give me the universal blessing of grandmothers. (Never mind that I'm not exactly focused on babies at the moment. Ha! I'll focus on the sentiment behind it.)
Another guest really bonded with the baby in his host home. The host sent me a video of the two of them absolutely racked by giggles. Kids can often cross language barriers in a way that we adults can only dream of!
Another guest loved to gather with friends from his country in his hosts' living room and sing worship songs together. Another beautiful video to receive!
(I’d love to share these videos with you, but we don’t share images of guests’ faces online for their safety. We don’t always know their stories or what they’re fleeing from, and can’t be too careful with their safety or that of family and connections back home. So you’ll have to use your imagination.)
Then there are the shared meals, watching an Arabic version of American Idol in the living room while a friend does his prayers in the next room, the birthday party for a past guest, the pictures of Yemen before the war, the former guest who has become a companion to a new guest (alongside the very host who welcomed him!), the discussions of the Canadian political system...so many sweet moments of connection amidst the spreadsheets, grant applications, insurance questions, and meetings.
It is all such a gift. May I remember that the next time I'm trying to contact a guest's Ontario Works worker during a quick break in a frantic day at 541, or our team is pulling our hair out over figuring out tenant insurance!
I’m so grateful to those of you who allow me to do this work through your financial support. This wouldn’t be happening without you, and the immense privilege of it all is not lost on me. Thank you!
I brought one guest to his refugee hearing a couple weeks ago. It's only the second time I've sat in on a refugee hearing. You can get either the morning or afternoon timeslot for a hearing at the Immigration and Refugee Board in Toronto.
Both times so far my friends have had morning slots, which means trying to beat the rush hour traffic to get into Toronto by 8 30 am. Both times we've arrived more than an hour early, but you can't chance being late for a refugee hearing! Everything hangs on whether a given judge on a given day finds your case credible. Some judges are known for believing hardly anyone's story, regardless of how competent their legal representation is or how straight-forward their story lines up with the definition of a refugee:
Suffice it to say there are many flaws in the system. But, unlike what some would have you believe, refugees aren't just waltzing into the country.
The hearing rooms themselves are pretty nondescript for the life-and-death dramas that play out in them. Just some mass-produced tables arranged in a square with office chairs around them and a larger desk with a computer at the end for the judge.
After some nail-biting waiting, the judge arrives, hopefully having already read the details of the case in the documents that the guest’s Legal Aid lawyer has submitted. After some basic introductions, and my promise that I am present simply as a fly on the wall and won’t participate at all, the judge and lawyer launch into some legalese. The judge begins to question the refugee claimant on the details of their story, sometimes pressing for more information, some repeating the same question at several points to see if they get a different answer. They are trying to decide if the refugee claimant needs protection and if their home country is unable to provide that protection. And, of course, whether the person before them is telling the truth, which isn’t necessarily a culturally neutral endeavor. It is nerve-wracking, slow-moving, and procedural. Every word seems to count.
I can’t imagine going through it myself—I think I would be a wreck being cross-examined by some who comes from a different culture than my own about my decisions surrounding my safety, especially when that person’s decision could either send me back to danger or grant me the freedom to live and move freely in my new country.
The hearing I attended last month was postponed at the last minute—the case file was being shuffled between three different Immigration and Refugee Board offices and someone had sent a key email at 5 pm on a Friday that one of the other offices hadn’t received in time. So the judge just didn’t show up to the hearing, assuming it was cancelled, and didn’t communicate this to the lawyer or the refugee claimant, who had sweated bullets all night and all morning. *sigh*
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I haven’t been as faithful keeping in touch through this blog as I’d like to be, in part because I’ve been writing a column for the Christian Courier every month that I was struggling to keep up with.
I’ve let that go now to have more time to focus on blogging and fundraising, but you can still go back and read my old columns if you’re interested. Here’s one from last month: Inconvenient Hospitality. Enjoy!