The News

Any of you reading this blog has surely by now heard the harrowing, horrible and in some cases heartening stories of the refugees shuffling their way across Europe to find safety from their unspeakably dangerous homelands. You have no doubt seen the horrific images of unsanitary refugee camps, police in riot gear, overloaded boats, busses and trains, and hundreds of dead or dying innocent people seeking nothing but a better life.

Needless to say, this crisis has affected me and my upcoming mission among these refugees in ways that are not easy to calculate. I have told dozens of people in the last week that in February when I applied for this mission and in April when I accepted it, I could not have imagined or anticipated what the news of this past month would bring.

All summer I have been reading almost every article I could find about refugees and the refugee crisis. I’ve taken careful note of the often brief mentions of the drownings and murders of hundreds of migrants weekly on American local or national news networks. I have shared  of those articles on Facebook or in print with practically anyone who would listen.

When I would talk to people about the crisis, they would usually nod and say they had heard a thing or two about it before. But it always came with that awful sense of distance that comes with wishing to help while being overwhelmed by so many endangered people in so many places near and far.  There was almost always that sense of powerlessness, that “I wish I could do more” sort of guilt that often pervades our attempts at generosity.

And then August happened. All of a sudden an explosion of coverage the likes of which I have never seen. I’ve often said that on one hand I’m almost glad to see so many people across our nation and the world finally waking up to what has been going on for so long with so little attention.

And yet I know that the only reason for so much attention now is that the problem has now gotten so much worse because of our world’s abject failure to act. Media coverage is little consolation when the cost is the decaying remains of thousands of innocent people.

Last week I asked Austin, the rector of St.. Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church & director of the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center (also my new supervisor) what he has experienced there these last few days. “As you can see from Facebook posts, I preached on the refugee crisis this Sunday and it is sad, but a good thing that American news orbs are starting to pay more attention to what’s going on.  I’ve gotten more emails and fb messages from concerned Episcopalians this week than in the last year.  I think we will be able to do a lot to muster the concern into real support for the center and its guests this fall.”

I can only pray that he is right about that.

And one more thing: I’ve noticed a truly disheartening discrepancy in the news coverage that I can’t help but mention. Throughout the early- and mid- summer months, the tiny trickles of press attention discussed mostly North Africans fleeing countries like Mali, Chad, and others in that region. And yet since August I’ve seen virtually nothing about Africans as the flood of media has focused almost exclusively on Syrians, Iraquis, Afghans, and other Middle-Easterners. Africans seem to be completely ignored.

Everyone I’ve spoken with in Rome has been as boggled as I am by the reasons for the situation, and I’ll confess to being boggled too. The conspiracy theorist in me certainly has some reasons in mind, but I’ll keep those theories to myself for now. In the meantime, pray with me for all of the refugees, and if you can, I pray that you will donate to one of the many organizations serving these beleaguered civilians on the ground.