Prejudice

Lately, I've had the opportunity to be involved in the lives of some refugee children and I've learned so much through those experiences. I've re-learned that my heart is pulled towards Africans, I can't help it, I just LOVE them so much! I've learned that I get much more feisty when I hang out with African teens (and I talk differently). I've also learned alot about prejudices.

On Monday nights I'm involved in a program called Celebration. It's an outreach to refugees in a certain apartment complex. The entire complex is government housing and I believe most of the families are refugees. Anyhow we go around to several different apartments where refugee families live to pick up their kids and drive them to Celebration where we have a snack, play games and have a Bible story. So, I'm hanging out with some kids desperately trying to play this game I learned in Kenya where you pull and push rocks in and out of a circle all while you toss and catch a rock in your hand. The kids make it look SO easy and either I'm really bad at it or it's not as easy as it looks (I'm hoping for the later). As the girls laugh at me when I again fail to properly complete my turn, I get asked to lead one of the Bible study groups. I gathered my 7 little girls and we walked to find a spot to sit down. I asked them to sit in a circle and that's when it happened...

See, one of the little girls in my group was Burundi, while the other girls were Somali and what I didn't know is that the Burundi kids and the Somali kids don't get along very well. "I'm not sitting next to her, I don't like her!" to which the other girls replied in some African dialect (I've also learned that when the kids talk in their mother tongue, it's because they don't want me to know what they're saying because they know they shouldn't be saying it in the first place). I looked at my sister Kristen and we had a brief conversation with our eyes, both knowing we had to stop this before it erupted yet not knowing how to. Then, Kristen picked up one of the little girls, sat inbetween them and that simple action made it all better. The Bible story that night was about the birth of Jesus and the main point was the Jesus came to save his people from their sins.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I've been privledged to take the refugee kids to a camp called West Dallas. This is what happened the first day:

I'm trying to organize 43 kids to get them their name tags, make sure everyone stays out of the parking lot, and makes it into the gym when 6 of my kids come running up to me, "Auntie L, we're not going in there!"
"Why not?" I asked, slightly confused
"Have you seen who's in there and how many of them there are?"
I stopped and turned around at that point beyond confused but not liking the way my kids just said them. "What are you talking about?"
"Them! (pointing to the African American kids from the west Dallas community) We don't like them!"
I just stared at them, searching for the right words. "You don't even know them!"
"We know what they're like."

Racism runs deeper that skin color. Some part of me always knew that, but I'd never experienced to this degree. I was shocked. Here I was surrounded by African kids who were prejudice towards the African American children. I finally got the Somali kids inside the building where they segregated themselves from the other children and complained about how unfriendly "they" were.

"Look, they're just staring at us. See this is why we don't like them."
I'd about had it with their attitudes at this point. A few of the west Dallas kids had walked over to say hi and my kids had gone off in some African dialect. "Well, what did you expect? You walk in here, take one look at them and decide to sit in a circle away from them."
"They called us ill!"
"Well, with your attitude, I'd call you ill too!" I stood up after that, not wanting to encourage this segregation anymore.
"No, you wouldn't. You love us."
"Yes, I do. But right now, I really don't like your attitude so I'm going to talk to my other friends."

Their jaws dropped as I walked over to talk with the West Dallas kids who wanted to know why my friends weren't sitting with them. I suggested they go and introduce themselves and see if that helps. Within minutes they were all friends and apart from some of their clothing, you couldn't tell who was who.

I've gone through this process in one form or another everyday this week. It's the same kids everyday, and it still takes about the same amount of time to get them to see the world around them in a new light. You'd think the blonde, white girl is the one they'd have an attitude towards, but no, it's each with each other.

The encouraging part is that once they move past what they think they know, all the kids can be friends. We have another week with these kids, my prayer is that after spending two weeks with each other they'll stop letting themselves be brainwashed with what other people say and form their own opinions.

On another high note, the refugee children who come to West Dallas get to hear the gospel everyday and everyday I see more of them paying attention and asking more questions. It's not all cake and ice cream though. The other day as we were getting ready to leave, an uncle of one of the children came onto the bus and basically dragged his niece off. It was so unnerving to not know enough of the situation to be able to intervene. The lady who has been working daily with the refugees did all she could, but my heart still broke. Fear rippled through the bus as kids started questioning if they were going to get in trouble with any of their relatives for going. I was reminded in that moment that Satan will do anything he can to scare us away from God's truth.