Refugees and Children
Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, children have been the forgotten victims of the horrific war. They drink from polluted wells, wash in sewage, eat leaves and rotten rice, and lack basic sterile conditions for medical and humanitarian aid. An estimated 5.6 million children inside the country are facing dire situations—caught in the crossfire, displaced from their homes, or facing extreme poverty.
50% of the 7.6 million people displaced within Syria are children.
Many of these children may spend their entire life away from home. And these children are far more vulnerable to abuse, neglect, or other types of violence. Most have been out of school for months, if not years. Children affected by the Syrian conflict are at risk of becoming ill, malnourished, abused, or exploited.
Innocent children have been victims of kidnapping and torture. Over 10,000 children have lost their lives (just this week: Syrian refugee’s wife and 7 children drown off Turkish coast: ‘I’ve lost my family, my world’), more than 8,000 children have crossed Syria’s borders without parents, and five million children presently need emergency help. One third of all children in Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan displayed aggressive behavior and self-harm. One in ten refugee children are working as cheap labor on farms, shops, or as beggars on city streets. There are 83,000 pregnant women living as refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, and 37,000 babies have been born as refugees.
For these children, what’s at stake isn’t politics. It’s their future. Having already lost their homes, schools and communities, their chances of building any kind of future are severely crippled.
Four risks these children face:
- Children are susceptible to malnutrition and diseases brought on by poor sanitation, including diarrheal diseases like cholera.
- Many refugee children have to work to support their families. Often they labor in dangerous or demeaning circumstances for little pay.
- Children are more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation in unfamiliar and overcrowded conditions. Without adequate income to support their families and fearful of their daughters being molested, parents — especially single mothers — may opt to arrange marriage for girls, some as young as 13.
- Between 2 million and 3 million Syrian children are not attending school. The U.N. children’s agency says the war reversed 10 years of progress in education for Syrian children.
From my humble and personal observation, it seems that human decency, biblical compassion, and moral responsibility are getting trumped by political expediency. These are facts about the Syrian refugee crisis that too many Christians tend to overlook.
“When I talk to conservative Christians about their stance on a hot button issue like abortion or gay marriage, they usually quote the Bible. But when I’ve spoken to them about admitting Syrian refugees, almost none of them do.”
Jonathan Merritt
The purpose of this post isn’t to get political, but the opposite.
Perhaps we can lay politics aside long enough to read our Bibles and listen to God’s heartbeat for the impoverished sojourner and those alienated on the margins of society (Deuteronomy 10:18-19, Leviticus 19:33-34, Leviticus 19:9-10, Ezekiel 16:49, Exodus 23:9, Malachi 3:5, 1 Kings 8:41-44, Job 31:32, Matthew 25:25-36, Luke 10:25-37).
Most political campaigns today are engineered to breed fear in order to get a vote. My aim isn’t to inject any politics here. Frankly, I’m still not sure what the right policy is in dealing with the refugee crisis. But I do have a ministerial calling to point people to the Word of God. And what I am most concerned about momentarily is the rhetoric of so many Christians who fail to bring God’s Word into the refugee discussion.
In a heated election season, it’s too easy for Christians to become political pawns rather than compassionate followers of Jesus who flesh out into being His hands and feet for innocent families and children who have had their world shattered and everything taken away from them because of the senseless ideology of others.
I feel terribly sorry for the Christians who do nothing more than bank all their hope for the world, our country, and the future, on the next voting cycle. They will get all charged up in political arguments over the next 47 weeks, go to church each week and sing songs about compassion, maybe attend a midweek Bible study or small group here and there, then do it all over again repeatedly until next year’s election. Then they will punch a ballot and hope to change the world.
Friends, I don’t have the political answer, but I do know this: The world’s hope isn’t found in elections; THE HOPE OF THE WORLD is found in the PEOPLE of GOD, fleshing out as the hands and feet of JESUS and living missionally beyond the walls of our attractional church buildings, air-conditioned fellowship halls, and padded pews. We must go to where the ruins of society exist, namely where broken people have been displaced, and minister to their wounds in a way that reflects what Jesus taught his disciples about serving others–especially those who are different from us (Luke 10:25-37).
We won’t look like Jesus sitting in our recliners, engrossed in CNN, NBC, FOX News, being engaged in partisan political rants over the next 11 months. Yet we will look more like Jesus when we turn down the political jargon, get back to reading our Bibles, listen for God’s heartbeat over the brokenness in our world, pray desperately (II Chronicles 7:14), and then live out God’s mission with Him and others in the margins of society.
This is what the world in our day desperately needs from the church. Not just another election campaign, but compassion–care in action!
So instead of just praying for God to bless America, which I do pray, maybe we should spend more time praying that Christians would let God stir their hearts and mobilize them to flesh out into the world and serve hurting people the way His Word compels us to.
Maybe.
Sources: UN, US GOV, UNICEF, WORLD VISION
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