On the Syrian Refugees (My 2-Cents Worth)

In light of a FB post that one of my close friends wrote, I timidly enter the raging controversy regarding Moslem refugees.  I don't think this will change any minds, but I thought I'd throw in my 2-cents worth.  Wherever side you sit in this controversy, I invoke what my daughter says in her post.  "I pray blessings and blessings and blessings upon you today! "

Dear J,

Syrian Refugees

Lest you misunderstand my position on the present question of Moslem refugees. I want to clarify that I am not against taking in bona fide refugees. When countries refused to take Jewish refugees fleeing from Hitler’s moves to annihilate them, I felt outraged that the world turned their backs on the Jews. The Jews were not in any way a threat to the security of the US. However, the security and protection of our country is the primary issue that faces us at the moment.  We don't fear the Moslem refugees.  We fear that we will not be able to adequately vet the thousands of refugees coming to us all at once by the thousands. There will be those who would take advantage of this to come and harm us.  We also have very vivid recent pictures of illegal immigrants coming into the US, again by the thousands, without adequate recording nor provisions for shelter, food, medical care, etc.

The primary responsibility of any country is the protection of its people. The President says we have a strict and lengthy vetting system.  The problem is in the implementation of this process.  We have so many, many immigration laws and a lengthy immigration process. I know. It took one of my aunts 15 years to come to the US legally.  But why do we have the current illegal immigration problems?

3,000 people were killed simply because on
that day they went to work

When 9/11 happened people pretending to be students and who were welcomed in the US as such, killed 3,000 Americans who were just going to work. We watched and listened in horror as the people of New York were killed, terrorized, maimed, and sentenced to lives constantly beset by health problems because of the dust, soot and grime that covered the city for days. We saw people jump out of the Twin Towers to their death preferring that manner of ending their lives to being burned. American life has been forever changed by 9/11 because we trusted the 19 or so student pilots who said they came to the US only to study.

Should the US ignore to take steps to protect her own people?

You've said I'm a "hypocrite who wanna make me (you) throw up."  You have no right to question my love for the Moslems just because I disagree with the mass and indiscriminate way people are planned to be brought into the country.

As I have told you earlier, I have worked in the Philippines for five years in a Moslem area trying to reach some with the love of Christ. I have also lived and worked in a Moslem country for 3-1/2 years and have some very dear Moslem friends. The first church Don pastored upon our return from our 3-1/2 year missionary stint, was right next to a mosque. We had a common fence. Don and I tried to develop  friendship with the Imam there. That church to this day, allows the Moslems to use the church parking lot. We did this because we were reaching out to them with the love of Christ.

The truth is – there are radical Moslems who are out to kill Christians or anyone who is not of their faith. We worked alongside an American missionary family in a Moslem country. They lived and worked there for 15 years. They were among the hardest working missionaries we knew. Their family lived in a little village adapting to the many ways they could to identify themselves with the nationals. After 15 years he and his family had to leave the country because he had a breakdown caused by total exhaustion and stress. When he came back to the US, he found out that his neighbor was a Moslem. He reached out to him, befriending him and trying to do what he could to help him get settled in the country. Early on in their friendship his Moslem friend told him, “You understand, if there is a Jihad, you will be the first one I would kill.”

I take this time to write you, not because I think I can change your mind, but just to present to you what we whom you have labeled “racist and freaking paranoids” and "hypocrites that make me wanna throw up" feel. We are not refusing help to the helpless, but we only ask that we be cautious and use discernment in what we do. When our missionary friends and Don and I lived and worked in a Moslem country, we faced every day the possibility that God might ask us to lay our lives down physically, so that we might reach some for Christ. We were aware of this every day of our stay there and we were prepared for it. This is the degree of commitment that every servant of Christ makes when he is sent to a foreign country. But we constantly asked for Godly discernment, so that we did not do anything to antagonize our Moslem friends or to hasten our death. Was it foolish of us to do this or should we have thrown all caution to the wind?

There are various sides to issues and sometimes they may not be agreeable with our own. You said your post was not to me particularly, but if it generally included me, then it included me. Yes, you have called me “racist,”  a “paranoid freak” and "hypocrite that make me wanna throw up" along with many others.