Friends and strangers

ANAHEIM, Calif.—They looked lost and haggard at the Los Angeles airport terminal, watching human traffic zigzag in all directions. It had been a long flight from Afghanistan via Saudi Arabia for the family of five and the 25-year-old bachelor. They’d been strangers back home, but here in this bustling airport, the family and young man were linked by a temporary kinship: They were all Muslim Afghan refugees waiting for a stranger to pick them up in a strange country.

Fadi Benosh spotted them immediately. He’d become an expert at finding fresh refugees in an airport crowd: This was at least his 50th time doing so. He knew exactly what they were thinking and feeling, and understood how overwhelming and terrifying it is to arrive in a new country with an armful of bundles and heart full of uncertainties.

So Benosh greeted them with a giant smile. He bought everybody coffee, juice, and potato chips, and then walked them out of the chaotic airport as leisurely as through a botanical garden.

Outside, Benosh introduced himself again. “My name is Fadi Benosh. I work for a nonprofit Christian organization called Voice of Refugees that helps any refugees in need. We’re not your assigned resettlement agency, but we sometimes give refugees rides. We do this with love, we do this in Jesus’ name.”

The two men grasped Benosh’s hand with both hands and thanked him profusely. The wife silently nodded, while her son and two toddler daughters peered curiously about with wide eyes. Then Benosh opened his arms wide and said something he’d been yearning to say since he gained his own U.S. citizenship in May: “Welcome to my country!”

The world is facing its worst refugee crisis on record, according to the United Nations, with the scale of global forced displacement “clearly dwarfing anything seen before.” Last year alone, armed conflicts or persecution uprooted 13.9 million people—driving 11 million from their towns and 2.9 million across national borders. Altogether, there are 59.5 million internally displaced persons and national refugees worldwide.

Ongoing terrorism in Syria and Iraq has driven tens of thousands of people into neighboring countries such as Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon. Impoverished Africans have resorted to paying smugglers to sail them secretly to Europe. Rohingya migrants have packed into boats to flee discrimination in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Sometimes, when trickles of immigrants become a flood, sympathy dries up: Southeast Asian nations turned away boats full of starving Rohingya migrants in May, but reversed course under international pressure.

The United States, too, is a major destination, taking in 70,000 refugees last year. In Southern California, one of the top resettlement regions, many Christians are viewing refugees and asylum seekers as an opportunity, not a burden. With wars and persecution propelling unreached communities right into their backyards, they no longer have to look for a mission field: The mission field has come to them.

The city of Westminster in Orange County, for example, transformed into “Little Saigon” in the ’80s after receiving the second massive wave of post–Vietnam War refugees, famously known as the “boat people.” More than 130,000 Vietnamese took refuge at Camp Pendleton, south of Los Angeles, and the majority eventually resettled across Southern California.

In response to the boat people crisis, World Relief, an evangelical Christian organization that provides resettlement services, opened an office in Garden Grove, Calif. World Relief mobilized local churches to sponsor the Vietnamese refugees, and church members drove to Camp Pendleton to pick them up, some even hosting them for weeks or months.

This April, when Orange County’s Vietnamese community commemorated the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, churches that had sponsored the refugees also celebrated the founding of the first Vietnamese-speaking churches in America—fruits reaped from interactions between local churches and strangers.

“It was a big celebration for evangelicals too,” said World Relief Garden Grove director Glen Peterson. “People were so open to the gospel in a way that they’ve never been in their own country, because churches here responded to their needs.” More recently, his office has been working to mobilize local Christian families to “adopt” refugee families, not just to donate couches or write checks, but to walk alongside them as friends and neighbors.

Today, Southern California receives a huge portion of Middle Eastern refugees, since many of them have family and friends who already live in the area. Migration is shifting the cultural landscape of towns and neighborhoods: El Cajon near San Diego, for example, is now nearly one-third Iraqi-American, largely due to refugees from the Iraq War. Anaheim is now home to Little Arabia, a concentrated row of halal markets, hookah cafes, and Islamic apparel shops. That’s why Voice of Refugees (VOR) chose Anaheim as its headquarters.

The building VOR rents belongs to a Southern Baptist church that shares its sanctuary with a Korean Baptist church, a Spanish-speaking church, and a nondenominational Arabic-speaking church called Christian Arabic Church of Anaheim. Senior pastor Nabil Abraham, an Egyptian-American, said his church was established with the mission of bringing the gospel to all Arabs. Starting with just 20 people in 1992, the church swelled to 350-400 members, mostly of Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Lebanese backgrounds, and some of them Muslim converts and refugees.

“Anaheim is turning into a huge mission field, where you can find people from every walk of life and every tongue and nation—so that we can witness to them the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Abraham said. “In the past, the U.S. sent missionaries to the Middle East, but now, God is bringing the mission field to us in America.”

For Benosh, much of his mission work takes place in a donated van. When stuck in LA traffic with passengers restless and chatty after a 16-hour flight, doors to evangelism open easily.

That evening in the van with the Afghan refugees, the three children dozed off almost immediately. The mother sat quietly pondering, but the two men were thirsty for companionship. They’d both waited two years to enter the United States through the Special Immigration Visa—a status granted to individuals employed by the U.S. government in Afghanistan or Iraq. Back home, they feared retribution from the Taliban. Here, they worried aloud about finding employment.

Glancing at their furrowed brows, Benosh paused to think, then said, “I learned one thing in my life: I put my eyes upon our Lord. I will not depend on others, but I will only look to Him, because God is so good. He loves us so much.” It was not an answer the men expected, but they nodded solemnly, and nodded some more as Benosh continued dropping bite-size gospel comments during their conversation. Later the younger man mused, “We grew up in a country where we just accept our customs and beliefs. I think it’s losing its effect on me.”

The sky was dark when Benosh finally shook their hands goodbye. The family had friends to host them, but the young man stayed at a motel. Benosh left his cellphone number and said, “My organization, VOR, we want to pray for you. Contact me whenever you want.” The whole trip took six hours—that’s in addition to Benosh’s regular work hours.

As he drove back to Anaheim, Benosh couldn’t stop thinking about the father and the weight of responsibilities he must be feeling as a family breadwinner. Few understand the trauma and trials refugees experience, but Benosh does: He was a refugee himself, a former youth pastor from Baghdad who survived a terrorist kidnapping.

After being held for six days in a cave by Islamic extremists and hearing the shrieks and hacks of a beheading, Benosh’s captors inexplicably released him—but he still lived every moment in fear. “I was so scared even to go outside my house,” he recalled. “Yes, I trust that Jesus Christ protects me, but I couldn’t ignore my feelings. I prayed to Him, ‘Lord, I’m afraid, so afraid! I don’t want to live with this fear anymore.’”

So in 2007, Benosh moved with his parents to Egypt, where they applied for refugee status in the United States. For the next 16 months, they filled out tedious paperwork, endured intensive interviews, and waited, and waited. The wait turned agonizing when Benosh received approval but his parents did not. Then one evening, after just having been told to wait at least another year, a dejected Benosh received a call informing him both parents had suddenly received approval. He immediately dropped to his knees. His mother picked up his cellphone and apologized, “Sorry, my son can’t answer right now because he’s crying.” Benosh still presses his thumb into wet eyes when he recalls that moment.

In September 2009 Benosh and his parents arrived in California. Today, he’s one of several former refugees working at VOR. When families weep to him about their hardships, Benosh weeps with them: “I so desire that these people open their eyes to see the beauty of Jesus Christ. It’s a secret in life, but if they can just discover it, what joy they can have despite their sufferings!”

Three local Christians from Iraq, Kuwait, and Jordan founded VOR in 2009 after they saw the fresh waves of Iraqi refugees in Southern California. Starting from a home garage converted to a donation storeroom, these Californians used their local connections to help refugees with their needs.

And their needs are many: Refugees often arrive with few personal possessions and have to rebuild their lives from scratch. They need help finding housing, and then need furniture, cooking utensils, clothes, and shoes. They struggle to learn English, find employment, enroll their children in school, navigate the transportation system, and understand American culture.

Many suffer from PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and many become angry or disappointed when their unrealistic expectations are not met. Refugees in America get basic help from the government—cash and medical assistance during their first eight months, food stamps, and donated furniture and clothing—but after three years, they slip through the cracks. That’s when a long-term support system becomes crucial.

Over the years, VOR expanded to include ESL classes, summer tutoring programs, a food pantry, casework assistance, translation services, transportation, job search help, and financial coaching—often facilitated by volunteers from local churches. But in terms of funding, VOR is still dwarfed by Muslim-run groups such as Access California, a major nonprofit that contracts with Orange County and has deep roots in the existing Muslim community—a rich resource for jobs, services, and connections.

Yet some refugees still choose to attend ESL classes at VOR. They say something is different about VOR. Executive director and pastor Mike Long says it’s the love of Jesus: “Look, there isn’t a single material that we can offer that they can’t find someplace else. So the only thing we have to offer them is eternity through the gospel.”

I spent an afternoon at an intermediate ESL class with eight women in their mid-20s to 40s—four Muslims, three Christians, and one Baha’i from Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Egypt. Some had spent years in refugee camps at border countries. They all sorely missed their hometowns and families.

One former pharmacist told me she fled Cairo with her husband and three children after witnessing a kidnapping incident. She was with her young son when somebody sprayed a liquid into a man’s eyes, pulled his son into a car, and drove off. “We didn’t feel safe to walk the streets after that,” she said. Currently, she’s frustrated about having to retake the examination to become a pharmacist in a language that still feels like a sock over her tongue.

At the end of the class, a middle-aged Muslim Iraqi woman introduced me to her 14-year-old daughter, wrote down her home address onto my notepad, and kissed me on both cheeks, saying, “Come visit us anytime. I cook for you delicious Arabic food, you like?” And then she added, “I very bored at home.” VOR reminds her of family, which is why she enjoys coming. She first heard about VOR through her neighbors, and doesn’t seem to mind that it’s unabashedly Christian. Her daughter said, “You can’t not hear about VOR in our community. Everybody knows VOR.”

That’s how Reem Sharshar found VOR. She and her Syrian family waited four years in the United States before finally receiving approval for asylum. During that period of delay and uncertainty, Sharshar said she was “lost in desperation and fear.” She couldn’t speak English and was jobless, lonely, and homesick. At times, she ran out of her apartment, raised her hands “like a crazy woman,” and screamed, “Oh God, where are you?” Then one day, a Muslim neighbor heard her speak Arabic and told her, “Meet me here at 8 a.m. tomorrow.” The next morning, she took Sharshar to VOR—just in time for the daily morning devotion.

Raised an Orthodox Christian, Sharshar had always assumed she was a believer. But after two years interacting with VOR staff as an ESL student, she realized, “I’ve just been following tradition. I have no real relationship with Jesus.” Sharshar says she gave her life to Christ in August 2013—“and He changed me,” she said, beaming. “By the Holy Spirit, I’m a happy person now.”

Today, Sharshar’s English is good enough that she sometimes interprets during devotion time. She works part time at VOR, caring for kids while their parents attend ESL classes. She teaches the children the Bible and how to pray in Jesus’ name. The mothers notice her vibrant joy and unload their burdens to her. A common grievance: “My husband never says a single kind word to me.” Sometimes it’s more serious: Domestic abuse is a significant problem. Sharshar then speaks about the God she knows and prays with them. One Muslim woman exclaimed, “Never have I heard that God is love! I was always so afraid of him.”

At VOR’s morning devotion, it’s not unusual to see a woman in a hijab reading a Bible or a grown man crying silently. “I believe the Holy Spirit is here,” Sharshar said. “VOR does these many services in Jesus’ name. I’m so proud. In my country, you cannot, you cannot! They’ll persecute you, kill you. You cannot be free as here. God gave opportunity here to show His love.”