EVERYBODY'S CHALLENGE - Jesuit Refugee Service | USA

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former role, whatever it was, of housewife, farmer, teacher, bank manager, but they have no new role except to wait on the decisions of others. The challenge for the pastoral worker is to establish a relationship that helps them stand, free from dependency, especially when the displaced person has urgent needs. We can be effective if we are loved by the people. But let us not be deceived. We must not be loved just for the money or goods that we bring. Finding hope or bringing hope? Do we bring hope, or do we find it there? The richness of human spirit that we discover among refugees, including a vibrant hope, is always a surprise. Obviously there is sadness in the exile’s song. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Sion (Ps. 136). The longing is tangible, a longing to see the Holy City. While there may be no rational grounds for believing that what a refugee longs for will actually come about, we also find hope. Hope is not optimism. Optimism expects things will get better. Hope is a virtue grounded in suffering. It is a grace which gives strength. Hope is a promise that takes root in the heart and is a guide to an unknown future. Those who sow in tears will sing when they reap (Ps. 125). The challenge for the pastoral worker is to search for and find the seeds of hope and to allow them to grow, to fan the feeble spark into flame. Hope is what enables us to live fully in the present moment. Our role is to help change a refugee camp from something just to survive into a time and place for growth. The refugees have a message that our world needs to hear. JRS has a mission to help the world learn from the experience of forcibly displaced people. Teilhard de Chardin said: I think that the world will not be converted to the heavenly hope of Christianity if first Christianity does not convert itself into the hope of the world. We members of a worldwide community are privileged to be able to make that first step of conversion through listening to the stories and hopes of the survivors of human conflict. Horizons for hope In order to survive a difficult situation a refugee needs to see light at the end of the tunnel. One must have a contact with the outside, 86
someone who cares, some sense that our small situation is not the whole world, some project to complete, identification with a greater purpose. The risk of a refugee camp is that armed struggle or the liberation movement will provide that sense of purpose. Refugee camps are classic recruiting grounds for rebel movements. Some movements even insist on maintaining an environment of despair so that anger can be sustained, creating a desperate will to fight and to risk. For Christians, the mystery of Christ can provide a larger picture, a meaningful story of suffering, sacrifice and hope within which to situate one’s life, a person with whom to identify. But this, we must be absolutely sure, is not in order to escape reality, but rather to engage more profoundly in it, in service of others. Listen, listen, listen Surely the only way to learn what is the hope of a refugee is to listen to him. Our biggest temptation, on seeing the distress of the refugees in Karagwe or Fungnido Camp or in a city like Johannesburg or Nairobi, is to begin projects, to give material things, to decide en masse what the refugees need. They often arrive in exile without shoes, with only one torn shirt, hungry, without a clear plan. But they did not undergo this experience in order to get a shirt or shoes. Their human experience is to be respected. They are traumatised by violence, lonely, rejected, exhausted in body certainly, but also exhausted by their loss of a place in a stable society, even sometimes guilty at what they did to survive. They want to be understood, to be heard. Their frequent question is: Why is God doing this to me? They have a right to ask this question. But it cannot be asked unless someone listens. This is our primary role, to listen to the questions, to the longing and to the fundamental human need of the refugees. Information and communication Often we and other voluntary workers are the first and only people whom a refugee can trust after the trauma of flight. They left in fear and live in shock. We have a responsibility not only to listen but also to speak, and to facilitate communication. Refugees need to be informed to learn the truth. Refugees are so often excluded from 87
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EVERYBODY’S CHALLENGE Essential D
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Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is an
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Mark Raper SJ/JRS Liberia 2000 JRS
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in this service. As one JRS group r
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Mario Almeida SJ/JRS Albania 1999 T
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20 years of JRS Letter sent by Fr G
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I wish all the courage and strength
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new 3 , the 33rd General Congregati
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esponsibility. The 34th General Con
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5. JRS gives priority to accompanim
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c. A written understanding or a par
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lies with the Provincial or Confere
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JRS communications to the Province,
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Michael Campbell-Johnston SJ in El
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The Society of Jesus and the refuge
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It is not intended that the JRS bec
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August 6 was the Feast of the Trans
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Now it is time to consider the kind
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Page 40 and 41: Pedro Arrupe SJ (seated, left) at C
Page 42 and 43: What Don Pedro had in mind when he
Page 44 and 45: land. Fr Mark Raper of the Asian Bu
Page 46 and 47: the local church had to be involved
Page 48 and 49: Review of the Jesuit Refugee Servic
Page 50 and 51: vegetables and firewood. At night t
Page 52 and 53: cution, as understood in the releva
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Page 56 and 57: through learning packets containing
Page 58 and 59: Mark Raper SJ/JRS Rwanda 1998 The m
Page 60 and 61: The history of JRS begins with the
Page 62 and 63: ment to Vietnamese refugees had dec
Page 64 and 65: After the end of Russian hegemony i
Page 66 and 67: 2. A changed world for refugees Whi
Page 68 and 69: Kuangchi Program Service/JRS Thaila
Page 70 and 71: A more personal approach Dieter B.
Page 72 and 73: A vision for JRS At the end of thei
Page 74 and 75: structures that guarantee their wea
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Page 78 and 79: The mandate given for Jesuits enter
Page 80 and 81: JRS must be flexible: closing down
Page 82 and 83: Jenny Cafiso/JRS Tanzania 1996 Radi
Page 84 and 85: William Yeomans SJ Waiting in joyfu
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Page 98 and 99: Jenny Cafiso/JRS Colombia 1998 Near
Page 100 and 101: Mark Raper SJ/JRS India 1996 JRS So
Page 102 and 103: The specific Jesuit identity of JRS
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Page 106 and 107: ambiguity in collaborating with UN
Page 108 and 109: The stress on co-operation with lai
Page 110 and 111: dries up? Certainly resources are n
Page 112 and 113: Michael Coyne/JRS Uganda 1994 Celso
Page 114 and 115: Virgin’s feet in the chapel at Mo
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Page 118 and 119: Put simply, JRS is a network of pro
Page 120 and 121: Mark Raper SJ/JRS Nepal 1999 Around
Page 122 and 123: Peter Balleis SJ/JRS Angola 1996 Th
Page 124 and 125: Displacement now Mark Raper SJ Extr
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Page 130 and 131: New scenarios for old: populations
Page 132 and 133: nal, national and personal security
Page 134 and 135: Christian reflections and responses
Page 136 and 137: Elena Marioni/JRS Albania 1999 When
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The causes of forced displacement:
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Many valid reasons for flight fail
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displacements. Community breakdown
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Jenny Cafiso/JRS Zambia 1999 Attend
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Ban Vinai William Yeomans SJ Ban Vi
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Jan Cooney/JRS Thailand 1987 Gettin
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Each of us spoke of our own work, s
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Quentin Dingham/JRS India 1996 A Sr
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The personal story of refugees is o
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Stephen Power SJ/JRS Nathaniel at a
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Mark Raper SJ/JRS Timor 1999 A joyf
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