Walking together: Healing and hope for Colombian refugees

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It is also useful to find out what the refugee family would do to heal from painful experiences in their
home country. Would they seek pastoral accompaniment, would they wish to use music, art or writing,
would they want to talk and pray with a friend? It is fine to ask the family if they would like to talk about
what brought them to Canada as refugees. Let them know that even if they are not ready to talk at the
moment, that you would be honoured to listen to them if or when they do want to talk about it.
During the Conversation: At the beginning of a conversation about the refugee family’s past, be sure to
let them know what you can do for them - for example, unless you are a trained counsellor, psychologist
or social worker, some things that you can offer are a listening ear, privacy and confidentiality. It is good
to tell the refugee what they can expect from you. You can also let them know that if they feel like they
need more support than you can give, you would be happy to help them find the right person to talk
to. The best support the church can offer is community, however in special cases referral to a counsellor
may be appropriate.
Make sure that the control over the conversation is in the refugee’s hands. For example, let them know
that, should you ask a question that they are not comfortable answering, they should feel free not to
answer. Ensure that you always provide a comfortable way out of answering questions. This will provide a
sense of empowerment to the refugee, and will allow them to talk about what they need to talk about.
“When a person is
recently arrived,
you talk a lot about
your experiences in
Colombia. But later on
you want to leave all
that behind. Life here is
very calm and you want
to forget what happened
in Colombia...You get
tired of repeating and
repeating the negative,
the ugly experiences that
you lived through.”
- Pablo
“The church committee
wanted to know about us.
For us, it was really difficult
to revisit those memories.
We cried. They prayed for
us, for each family. The
girl who was translating
cried too. There were a lot
of emotions. Later when
I see the people from the
committee at church I
feel embarrassed, because
now they know about my
problems. It was recent. It
is like returning to the past.
It would have been good for
the church to get to know us
a bit more first.”
- Roberto
“I have this idea that one day
I’d like to sit down and write a
book about my life. Yes, I’d like
to do that. It would be good to
air out many things from my life,
and maybe then I wouldn’t see
them with so much pain. It seems
important to me to talk about
past experiences - everyone has a
different life story.”
- Dora
“Those memories come to us
when we see the tranquility that
there is here - we didn’t have that
in Colombia. With all the good
that has happened to us here, the
bad memories go. With time that
fear and the trauma that you have
goes away.”
- Jorge