We had just walked through some of the hardest few months of our marriage together. An unexpected c-section, postpartum anxiety, multiple moves, and a delay to get back to our overseas home. When the visa issue for our newborn got settled, we were ready. Ready for a new change of clothes, seeing our apartment, introducing our newest family member to our national friends and American teammates.
Unfortunately, the road back was longer still. We waited in a Turkish airport for hours, nursing a baby in a bathroom and trying unsuccessfully to get a four-month-old to nap with flight announcements and suitcase shuffling and multiple languages filling the air. Finally after 32 hours we got the news the flight back to our overseas home had been cancelled. We needed a place to rest and try to get our little one to settle. A questionable gentlemen who seemed to work for bribes helped us get set up for the night at a shady nearby hotel. We made the best of it and showed back up to the airport the next day, multiple suitcases in tow.
When our flight finally boarded, then finally took off quite a bit later, we were so grateful. It was after 9:00 at night when we landed in our overseas city home. The process of gaining entry to the city is a long one, but we were ready. Fortunately, little one was asleep on me in a sling and settled. When it was our family’s turn, Dan ushered me before him through the metal detector. We were searched, our visas looked over, and greeted by our friend with balloons and smiles and coos at our little one.
It took me a minute to realize Dan hadn’t made it through customs quickly. When I finally looked his way, multiple officials were surrounding him. Then they took him to a small office. I looked at our friend and she was reassuring. Until a lady in uniform asked if I would come with her. Our friend smiled at me and nodded, so baby and I followed her into the airport office building. She led us into a back room with chairs and nothing else. In broken English, and my limited knowledge of the local language, it was communicated there was a problem with my husband’s visa and he might not be able to enter our city. We could stay the night in this room until we knew if our family could stay together.
The sobs that rose in me were different than others I had cried before. I knew we would go back to Turkey together before we would be separated as a family. But I grieved. I grieved the relationships we had built in the city we might not get to return to. I wept because I wanted to show Caden to our language tutor and see how her new baby had grown while we were gone. And I wept for the personal items back in our apartment home we might never see again. Sure, it was just stuff, but it was ours. Reminders of our years together and journals of memories.
But you know what the thing is? This whole situation lasted less than 2 hours. The officers simply had wanted to separate Dan from his wife and child and see if they could get a bribe from him to speed the process along. And truly, if push came to shove, we had American passports and the means to return.
But the refugees who have suffered greatly over the past months? They do not have the luxuries we did. We do. Some have made it all the way here, selling everything for safety, only to be denied access. One quote that’s been spinning in my mind is:
“you have to understand,
no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land.”
There is such nuance to this situation. I am learning some details to keep in mind we might not get in news footage and sound bites. And I truly realize one of a government’s purposes is to keep its citizens safe.
But still we have ourselves a situation in our tenure here.
The good news is, this does not have to go back to the election. We have already cast our votes. Now we simply get to be informed citizens who come together and do what is right. In fact, some of my deepest respect right now is going out to those who voted – with very clear reasoning – for our current administration, but who are now speaking out against specific decisions by it.
No matter your political ideology, can we agree innocent people are being affected right now? And more often than not by political expediency? That, in a desire for a scapegoat, has a history of being animated by evil? This does not require panic. It requires a settled heart disposition of allegiance.
While I long for all American citizens to come and reason together, the truest hope will come from the Citizens of Heaven. History shows our longing for a heavenly home is what can fuel us to seek justice on this earthly tenure. I think the decision in front of American Believers is: “Whom will you serve?”
Who will receive our highest allegiance? Will it be politics? Or will it be the God of Angel Armies? Hopefully, the two will not always force us to choose. But in the situations that do, let’s remember it’s a good thing.
And, friends, let’s choose well.
*Jennie Allen has compiled an ever-expanding list of ways we can immediately love refugees.
