Searching for Home: A Church of Migrants in Paris
“To be human is to long for home.”
Jen Pollock Michel
Not exactly my dream
home, but it has great moments—the freedom to explore, the close-knit
experience with my wife and children, and the low cost. The instability of it,
however, can be crushing. A home gives you more than just a place to stay. It
grounds you in a community—interlinks your life to friends, neighborhood,
church, and place. We often come up against a terrifying “where will we stay
tomorrow” moment. The nomadic lifestyle cuts us off from a place to care for,
friends whom we need, and family we miss. It’s a precarious hour.
When we envision the migrant crisis we might imagine images like this: desperate people on boats in the Mediterranean. Like Khider, however, the vast majority endured treacherous journeys on foot. PC: here. |
And so, when I met refugees
like Khider in Paris several months ago, I felt just a glimmer of their pain. A
Kurdish Iraqi, Khider fled persecution against his people nearly six years ago.[2] In that time he and his wife endured a
dramatic separation from their families, the loss of a culture familiar to them,
a death-defying trek across the Eurasian Steppe, years of awaiting asylum
papers in Finland, a forced move to Paris, the birth of their children, and a
precarious place in French society.
Or perhaps I feel
something much smaller than a glimmer.
The weight of Khider’s
experience is shared by everyone I meet in Paris. Mazan, a farmer pushed out of
South Sudan, who dreams of living in Chicago. Mahmud, an Iranian who after
converting to Christianity chose the refugee’s fragile road over imprisonment
for his beliefs. Mafar, a young mother fleeing Libya’s destroyed economy and
merciless kidnappings. As they each tell my wife and me their stories they say
the same thing: “All we want is a place to raise our children, to contribute
our gifts, and live in peace.” Famine and war deeply separate our experiences,
but still, I am struck by how similar we are. At the end of the road, we just
want a home.
Parc d’Aubervilliers
In a black hatchback,
barreling through a damp Parisian tunnel, my wife and I ride with Samir Salibi to
Parc d’Aubervilliers, a central meeting place for migrants and refugees. In the
back our cargo shuffles as we whip through traffic. We’re carrying several
dozen eggs, a crate of socks, a few backpacks, shoes, and one floppy twin
mattress. “It’s all for an incredible family from Sudan,” Salibi says, looking
my way long enough to make me nervous.
With his eyes now
fixed on the thickening traffic he continues, “They came by way of Libya, where
the husband was kidnapped and never seen again. The mother and her three
children were locked in a Libyan prison for weeks. She begged them everyday to
let her go, and one day they did. Then onto a boat, across the Mediterranean,
walk through Italy, and into Paris.” He says it all like a man who has heard
this story a hundred times. Meanwhile, I feel like I’m two steps behind, husband and father disappeared!?
Samir Salibi, a French-Lebanese refugee himself, pastors At Home. PC: abbeyingallsphoto.com |
We traveled to France because of the church Salibi pastors: Paris At Home. I met Salibi and several
other church leaders at a conference last fall and felt an overwhelming call to
go and see them serve in the streets of Paris. Current and former refugees fill
the church’s leadership. Salibi himself came to Paris as a teenager, he and his
family having fled Lebanon’s civil war.
A software engineer by trade, Salibi never intended to spend
his evenings in Parisian parks. But in 2014 when French President Emmanuel
Macron announced that France would open its doors to thousands of migrants,
Salibi felt God whisper to his spirit, and
who better to welcome them than you?
And welcome they would need.
Since 2011 France has processed over 500,000 applications
for asylum—rejecting more than seventy
percent.[3] Estimates
vary widely, but at least 300,000
refugees have immigrated in each of the last five years. No one knows
the number of unregistered migrants. Some estimate as many as 500,000 people
live undocumented in the Paris metro area. Whatever the number, tent cities in
Paris’ core shelter thousands of people awaiting applications and many who have
been denied papers but have no where else to go. Growing hostilities toward
migrants compelled Macron’s government to put stricter limitations on the
asylum process and to outlaw the constantly reappearing tent cities .
The welcome of 2014 has rapidly waned, to the point that many migrants I speak
with express hopelessness—they can’t return home for fear of their lives, and
the French system seems intent on preventing them from building a new life
here.
People in the Park
When we arrive at Parc d’Aubervilliers we’re greeted by a
group of Sudanese men starting a fire from a rotted sign post and the remains
of a nearly empty oil can. The damp Parisian winter has them huddling under
dripping trees. We trudge through the park’s bare and quickly muddying ground
to a group of church members waiting for us. As I meet Mehdi, a refugee and key
leader in Salibi’s congregation, a flaming pizza box glides
past my feet like a blazing tumbleweed.
There are several hundred people in the park. We pass one
family with luggage, “They’ve likely just arrived and have no place to go, but
this is a good place for them to find help,” Salibi reassures us.
It’s a startling sight. I’ve spent much of my career in
ministry among houseless people in the United States, but this feels very
different. There are children everywhere. The people we talk to are erudite.
They’re sturdy and educated people who have endured the greatest migration of
our time. And there is not the faintest sign of inebriation anywhere.
The first person I really talk to is a man named Maahir. He
tells me he walked from Afghanistan to Paris, a four-thousand-mile journey,
throughout 2013. He fled the endless war there, which had destroyed his
family’s residences and burned up his crops in 2009 and 2012. Why stop in Paris,
I ask him. “It’s the end of the line,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders.
With Brexit unfolding, many migrants fear an attempted crossing of the English
Channel. He didn’t stop here because it’s an easy place to get asylum papers.
For more than a year he has languished in a decomposing tent under the sparkle
and prestige of Paris’ famous landmarks. He feels alone, scared, uncertain of
everything. What does he want most? A home—people to call family, friends to
hang out with in security, and an opportunity to contribute to society. Most
days he has no reason to hope that such things will ever be his. But I can tell
he senses a glimpse of such things in Salibi’s presence. They share a moment in
French and embrace. “This guy, he’s good!” He says pointing at Salibi who is
disappearing into another crowd happy to hug him.
It is difficult to ignore the contrast between the living conditions of someone like Maahir and the sparkling landmarks that adorn Paris. PC: abbeyingallsphoto.com |
Salibi and other church members head into the streets two
nights a week looking for people just like Maahir. They believe the Church, in
particular their church, is designed to meet those deep, God-designed desires.
“Only the Church can offer these people the fullness of a true home. We can provide
love. We can give them Jesus. We can give them each other. We can help them
adjust to France. Each of them, these are the things they want most,” Salibi
says as he motions toward the park’s expanding crowd.
“And why shouldn’t God bless them through us,” remarks
Fouad, an Iranian-Kurd and faithful church member. He too stares out on the
crowd as he tells me about how he ended up in Paris. His journey began ten
years ago. He fled Iran because of persecution. “There were no jobs for people
like me,” he says soberly. It took him almost ten years from his initial
departure to settling in France. He’s a cook by trade, but because his asylum
papers have yet to come through he cannot work. “So I come here with Samir and
help people going through the same difficulties I’m on the other side of. I
know it’s what Jesus wants me to do.”
I find this to be a common theme—the people serving in the
park are refugees themselves. Some came to France decades ago. Some arrived only
months before. But they all share an urgent desire to help people like them.
In the shadow of a glistening white cathedral on Paris’
western end we enter nondescript double doors at the bottom of an equally unassuming
grey building. Inside, a quaint sanctuary greets us, gilded with red velvet and
dark wooden pews. A crowd hums with jovial conversation as they prepare for
worship. It bears a marked contrast to the inspiring yet forlorn cathedrals so
famous to the French landscape.
“We worship in four languages because we want everyone to
know they are welcome,” Samir tells me as he preps his computer to display
Matthew 10 in French, Arabic, Farsi, and English. Hearing the words in your own
language helps people feel at home, he explains. I am discovering that phrase,
“at home,” is not a shallow moniker. It describes the church’s every move. As
Paris, the E.U., and the world grapple with people fleeing disaster, At Home is
giving every ounce they have toward easing the journey.
Near the beginning of the service a young man named Nadeem,
from Syria, comes forward to share his testimony. “At first I came to At Home
because I thought being here would mean I’d get help. Then I went to the Bible
Study and you started talking about Jesus.” He lowers his head before
continuing, “I just didn’t know Jesus. You helped me see him and now he is my
one and only God.” The room applauds.
Later Salibi tells me, “We help anyone, you know. Not just
the people who convert or come to church.” Some have doubted the sincerity of
Muslim converts in Europe on these very grounds. They argue that
conversion is a tool used by desperate migrants to procure services from
congregations or governments.[4]
That may be the case sometimes, but is that a reason to stop preaching the
Gospel, Salibi adds. As I think on it, it seems extraordinarily paternalistic
to presume I can know the mind of Muslims converting to Christianity better
than they do. And among those converts I meet, I find an enthusiasm and
tear-filled thankfulness for Jesus rarely seen in my American church experience.
I could not cast doubt or aspersion upon their sacred choice to claim Jesus as
their Lord.
Conversion ends up being something Salibi and I talk about a
lot. It’s a topic he’s quite passionate about, but careful in how he explains.
“The Gospel is about seeing the person in front of you. It does not matter if
the person is a Muslim or a Christian or anything else. You have to slow down
and really see the person.” He reminds me about John 1:14, “’And the Word
became flesh and dwelled among us.’ That’s where we begin with every person.
But in our life, yes, we will talk about Jesus all the time. And we find people
ache to meet Jesus. And that’s as good as it gets,” he finishes by leaning back
in his chair and staring through a window in his living room. Softly he
finishes, “Truly, as good as it gets.”
The church is “seeing” people in all kinds of contexts now.
“At first everything began in the park, but now friends, neighbors,
schoolmates, they’re all passing people on to us.” With France restricting
migrant laws the church has made an effort to engage Christian immigration
attorneys. “It’s not an unlimited resource. We only have a few lawyers and they
have to make a living so we don’t offer legal advice to everyone. But when we
do it’s helped people a lot, because the system gets more complicated every
month.”
The church also offers free weekly French classes, “which
anyone can join,” Salibi is careful to qualify. As with any international
transition, these migrant’s future opportunities expand dramatically with an
ability to speak French.
Since my trip they’ve added an At Home soccer team—in some
ways soccer is the universal language of sport, excepting for the States. It
provides an opportunity for their church community to come together on an
understood playing field—languages and cultures no matter. In a similar vein,
At Home supports a dance team. Daiane, a native Brazilian, leads this ministry
with a passion to use dance to bring people together.
This bringing together seems to me to explain all that At Home
is. They walk in the gap between Christ and people, between cultures at war,
between languages, between policy and mercy, between fear and hope, between
isolation and inclusion.
After the service I ask Nadeem what it’s like to be a new
Christian here. His eyes brighten as he says, “It’s good. Look around, this is
my new family.” As he speaks, he looks around with a gaze of calm
satisfaction. And I feel a gratefulness
that this church has chosen to walk this narrow path “between,” so much so that
I embarrass Nadeem and myself with my uncontrollable tears.
The World We Live In
"God makes homes for the homeless . . . ."
Psalm 68:6a (The Message)
As church ends and people begin filing out of the sanctuary
I find myself chatting with Ehsan. A twenty-five year old French-Iranian
webmaster, Ehsan serves as Salibi’s chief translator to Farsi. Ehsan is easy to
talk to. His voice is polished and his smile makes me feel accepted
and at ease. As we talk he mentions that for years he worshipped quietly in a
French-Iranian congregation led by his mother. Why did he join in with At Home,
I ask. “Ah, it is important,” he says in his deliberate English. “I came to
France as a refugee when I was two. When I was six my parents enrolled me in
school. On the first day my teacher brought me to the front of the class and
said, ‘This is Ehsan. He is from Iran. He is not a good kid. Do not be his
friend.’” From that day forward France has never felt like a real home for
Ehsan. His French-Iranian bubble had helped him cope, but in a way it’s separation
from French society only highlighted his isolation. “But Jesus told me, ‘Join At
Home. Here you will be at home and
through me you will build a new home for these people.’”
And again with my tears. I am certain I gave the impression
that I cry all the time. And maybe I do.
My son is six. And he does not have a “proper” home. I
cannot imagine my fury and sorrow if a teacher did to him what was done to
Ehsan. But this is the world we live in—we call buildings and nationalities
“home,” and we create sterile labels for those who don’t fit these home molds.
Labels like homeless, refugee, migrant. We toss them around casually, almost as
casually as we dismiss or ignore the pain behind these categories. In America
Ehsan would be seen by many as a usurper of French resources, a person who
should have stayed where he belonged. Like his first teacher, authoritative
voices would tell us, “This is a bad guy, don’t be his friend.”
But if we listen to Ehsan we might see Jesus calling us to a new perspective. He bears a different imagination for what makes a home. He
sees not the labels and categories, but starts with the pain and gives it good
news. He looks into our heartbreak and says, “I will build you a home.” A home
we may carry now in our hearts. A home that expresses itself in our love for
others. A home that is bigger than our death, bigger than time, bigger than policies,
bigger than hate. A home in the arms of Christ. That’s the kind of place At Home is building.
As the world flails about trying to sequester the crisis, I'm very thankful that this kind of home has come to Ehsan and his friends. Then it occurs to me, that’s the home I live in now, and thankfully it fits just right in my tiny trailer.[5]
As the world flails about trying to sequester the crisis, I'm very thankful that this kind of home has come to Ehsan and his friends. Then it occurs to me, that’s the home I live in now, and thankfully it fits just right in my tiny trailer.[5]
. . .
You can learn more and give to At Home here.
[3]
For comparison, Germany rejected 49.8 percent of 2018 applications, while the
U.S. rejected 61.8 percent of 2017 applications.
[5]
You may note I never answered a pressing question, “What should we do about the
migrant crisis?” I left that out intentionally. My hope is that before you or I
consider ourselves capable of choosing these people’s fates, we’d first stare
into their eyes, meet them, recognize our common humanity, see the spark of God’s
creative design in them, and sit with Jesus’ love for us both. Call me an
idealist, but I tend to think such a process of empathy empowers us to evaluate
policies with a much sharper focus.
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