Befriended

The floor was mopped, the tea was made, cookies were arranged on a platter and orange, plastic chairs curved in a circle.  Everything was ready.  Soon, people would show up.  

While my husband, Bobby, and I were missionaries in Austria from 1995 to 1997, this was our normal Friday night thing. Bible study. Those invited were the refugees we spent our time visiting and praying for. These gatherings began with singing, moved on to a Bible lesson, and ended with food. 

Bobby dreaded Friday nights, but not because of the Bible studies. He loved those. He just knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours after drinking even one cup of hot, black tea and I would want him to stay awake with me and talk. 

Bobby and our teammate, Miriam, left me to finish setting up while they drove to a nearby refugee pension to collect our regular attenders. Miriam could fit four people in her tiny, powder blue Fiat Panda and we could fit that many in our Honda Kombi wagon. 

Two people I hoped to see that night were Ramin and Leila. Their children, Vahid and Ashti, though they were quite young, would undoubtedly come too.

Ramin and Leila were new friends of ours, recently arrived from Iran. They weren’t Believers in Jesus. But, like many refugees we befriended, they would sit through just about anything for the chance at a night out. Our Friday night studies delivered a chance for these men and women to feel valuable. For a few hours, they were everyday people, not one of a herd, shuffled to meals and lawyer appointments and clothing rooms, one of the masses. On Friday nights they were human again, part of a small group, talked with, listened to and served. 

Ramin and Leila were Muslim, and openly so. They didn’t give the impression of being particularly religious and they weren’t planning on converting to Christianity, unless it made their asylum chances better. If you’ve been persecuted at home because of religious reasons, you’re more likely to make your case for shelter in another country. But you must prove it.

Ramin and Leila were a little older than Bobby and me and already had kids. Ramin was tall and imposing with thick, curly hair. He rarely smiled and spoke near perfect English. His wife, Leila, was petite, quiet and anxious. She had expected their journey to be much easier, much quicker. She was surprised to find herself living in a room with her husband and children for months on end. They had no money and few possessions. 

Ramin and Leila’s children were tiny, beautiful people. Their daughter, Ashti, had shiny, straight, dark hair.  Their son, Vahid, had curly black hair like his dad’s. The kids were rambunctious and happy, not old enough to truly understand what was going on. They were on an adventure, meeting strange and interesting people. Too young for school, they were spared the confusion and frustration of being thrust into a room all day, away from their parents, not understanding a word of what was happening. 

One day, I had Leila over for lunch along with her children.  We ate on my porch and walked around in slippers. The children played on the stairs leading to our loft bedroom.  I remember Leila almost falling, slipping on the wood floor in her borrowed slippers and the children giggling a lot.  I don’t remember what we ate or what we talked about. But I remember the look on her face when she walked into our modest, but homey house, shock and joy and jealousy and relief. It was so much smaller than where she had lived in Iran she said, and so much bigger than the room she presently occupied.

Leila told wistful stories about her house back in Iran; the smoky brown, glass cups she drank tea from, the patio on the roof of the home she shared with Ramin’s parents, the lavish clothes she wore to parties. I wondered once why she had left. The stories she told made Iran sound exotic, elaborate and opulent. Asking her to explain, Leila just shook her head and clicked her tongue. “There’s no future there,” she said. Life was hard in Iran and getting worse.

Leila's sister and her family traveled to Austria with Ramin and Leila. They lived next door to each other in the pension. Ramin and Leila, along with Leila’s sister and her family, had hopes of going to America or Canada. They knew people who had gone before them and would help them when they arrived. In Austria they didn’t know anyone. 

At one point Leila’s sister and her family decided to leave Austria. They had waited long enough and made the risky move of forging ahead, uninvited, to another country. Ramin and Leila chose to stay put. I don’t know if fear or common sense or a lack of money caused them to say goodbye. But I know parting was terribly hard on those sisters. And I don’t know where Leila’s sister and her family ended up.

Ramin didn’t ask many questions or talk much during those Friday night Bible studies. But he would translate for his wife and any other Farsi speakers. He once said, "We should pray to God. We pray to Mohammed, and he doesn't help us." I wasn't entirely sure God was going to help them in the way Ramin wanted. But I was excited he might give it a try.

As far as I know Ramin and Leila are still living in Austria. We believe they received asylum, permission to live there permanently. 

We tried to introduce Ramin and Leila to the One who could give them a future and a hope. Though we didn’t see them make a decision to follow Christ, we heard they did just after we left. 

I hope and pray it’s true. 

“Refugees didn’t just escape a place. They had to escape a thousand memories until they’d put enough time and distance between them and their misery to wake to a better day.”

Nadia Hashimi