Friendships Left Behind and Forgiveness

My hubby with Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty in the background
Could I leave him behind?  Or let him go on ahead without me?

As you may have guessed by now, I was quite impressed with our visit to Ellis Island.  (Read previous posts here and here.)  I’ve been thinking a lot about what it would have been like to go through that experience and wondering if I would have had the faith to trust God to provide the better future these immigrants sought, and if I would have been able to leave everyone I loved behind.

The primary feeling that I think I would have been going through would have been loss…loss of home and homeland, loss of friends, loss of family.  I think that maybe that’s because I’m blessed to have a beautiful home, a wonderful country (even considering the flaws), dear friends, and a devoted family.  For me to leave all this behind would be devastating to me. 

Yet millions of people did just this. 

Their lives must have been so challenging and lacking hope to embark upon a journey to America, leaving everything behind, in search of a brighter future, hoping and trusting in God to find something better.  How lucky we are/I am.  Their primary feelings had to have been one of hope in order to get through this challenging experience.

Yet, no matter how much hope for the future they might have had, parting from family and friends could not have been easy.  The chance of ever again seeing the people left behind was very small.

This thought makes me wonder how easily we sometimes dismiss a friendship because of some temporarily hurtful slight; or how often we distance ourselves from a family member because he/she hurt our feelings.  If we were faced with the prospect of never seeing that person again, would those hurts matter so much?

Sometimes we find ourselves in exactly this situation, when we lose someone we love unexpectedly in their death.  How often have we heard people say, “I never got to say I was sorry” or “I never told him I forgive him” or “I didn’t get to say goodbye” or “I should have told her I loved her.”

I wonder if this doesn’t happen sometimes as a way of reminding us to mend our hearts and watch our words, to heal old wounds and let go of old hurts.   I imagine that faced with the prospect of parting company forever, there were many friendship healed of brokenness and many family fractures mended.

However, I am also fairly certain there were those who would not forgive and left for America carrying that hurt with them.  I imagine that carrying those unforgiven hurts around their whole life may have caused much bitterness, heartache and soul-searching.  I am certain there were more than a few people who wished, at some point during their lives, that they had made amends or offered forgiveness before leaving for America.

We know that anger, resentment, and holding on to old hurts can eat away at our souls, our health and our mental well-being. 

It is forgiveness which offers freedom, wellness and wholeness.   Jesus taught us this as He called out to His Father on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”   Luke 23:34

In the ultimate act of love, Jesus forgave us ALL our sins… all the hurtful ways we push God away… and died to set us free from the bondage that sin causes.  We are given that reminder every Sunday in worship. 

Let us not forget to forgive others, as we have been forgiven.  Amen.

Come worship with us this Summer @ 9:30 am on Sundays (through Labor Day).

www.elcaAndy.org

Ellis Island - Immigrant vs. Refugee

To find a better place.  Both the immigrant and the refugee put their faith in God toward this goal. 

This past Saturday I visited with friends at their home on Fire Island off Long Island (NY).  It was a great day and when we were in line waiting for the ferry to take us back to our cars, one of our group commented that we “looked like a bunch of refugees.”  There we were, sunburned, flip-flopped, carrying our minimum amount of “bare necessities” for a day at the beach and a day of visiting… chairs, coolers, umbrellas, beach bags, back packs, a cake carrier, etc.   I guess we might have looked a little tired, windblown or partied-out.  Certainly a far cry from looking like a refugee, we did look somewhat less put-together than our Sunday best.  (But at St. Andrew we’re not necessarily known for wearing our “Sunday best” anyway, so that’s par for the course I guess.)

We laughed at the analogy, but considering my recent visit to Ellis Island, it got me to thinking.

How many people who traveled through Ellis Island were not just immigrants but akin to refugees? Maybe they didn’t fit the strict definition of refugee, but many were fleeing the poverty, limited chance to prosper, or political hostilities of their home countries.

They came with just the bare necessities.  And $25 (if they had that at all.)

Yet, for all the hardships these immigrants faced in their journey to come to America, they had the hope of the promise of America.   They had faith in God to lead them to a better place. The Statue of Liberty bears a plaque with the sonnet “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus which reads, in part,

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

In America there was hope for the future.

The choice was America.

Refugees don’t often have choices.  They are running for their lives.  They also place their hope and faith in God to lead them to a better place.

The United States has an “Asylum and Refugee Policy” that, as of 1999 allowed up to 78,000 refugees to obtain asylum here annually.  Today’s global conflicts and political uprisings are numerous.  People cry out for freedom all around the globe.  According to The Voice of America , there are currently about 15 million refugees worldwide.  The U.S. State Department identifies six “protracted refugee situations.” 

1.       Liberians in West Africa
2.       Somalis in Kenya
3.       Croatians and Bosnians in Serbia
4.       Afghans in Pakistan
5.       Bhutanese in Nepal
6.       Burmese in Thailand

Since 1939, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has helped migrants and refugees to find hope and a future in American communities.  By 2008, LIRS had helped to resettle over 315,000 refugees. 

Next time we think we look like refugees as we trudge our few “necessities” back from a day at the beach, I bet we’ll all think twice about what that really means.

Thank you God for all the blessings we have in the freedom and prosperity that comes with the birthright of being an American.  Thank you, even more, for the people who fight the legal, economic and political battles on behalf of those who flee oppression and for those who help to make refugees feel welcome once they are granted the asylum they so desperately seek.  Amen.

Join us for worship this Summer at 9:30 am on Sundays.
www.elcaAndy.org

Ellis Island - Faith and Adversity

My husband and I recently visited Ellis Island.  I’ve been wanting to go ever since they renovated and re-opened it in 1990.  My children have visited this National Park Service landmark with their respective schools, but as it sometimes goes, we get too busy to enjoy the gems in our own backyard.

This will be the first of several blog posts that stem from this visit.  It is an incredibly inspiring place and the faith and determination of the people who traveled through its doors are amazing.

We purchased the audio tour because I’ve found that there is usually so much wonderful information on these soundtracks, often including the testimony of actual people.  On this audio tour there was the voice of a Russian immigrant who (in the course of the discussion of the inspection of immigrants) said, “if they refused me, there was no way I was going back to Russia.  I’d rather throw myself over the side [of the returning ship] and die in the deep of the ocean than return to Russia.”

This man’s comment really got me to thinking about how much faith these people must have had, who attempted this journey, and how very deplorable their homeland situation must have been.  They trusted God that America held a promise of a brighter future, and that He would see them safely across the Atlantic to begin a new life.

 A National Park Service Ranger who introduced a 45-minute documentary that we watched, helped us to understand how much had to be left behind and what was likely brought forward to the new homeland of these immigrants.  Picture everything of importance that you could carry in one suitcase, one basket, one bedroll, and maybe the equivalent of a backpack.  Now walk from Ellis Island at Liberty State Park to Philadelphia.  You’ll quickly determine what REALLY is the most important stuff.   Grandma’s candlesticks? Gone, left on the NJ Turnpike.  The family Bible?  Yeah…they probably managed to carry that.

That would have been the most likely type of experience of many immigrants.  People walked and carried their most prized possessions for many, many miles from villages and towns all across Europe and Russia to ports with passenger lines to America.  They had to have the fee for their passage and $25 per person to enter America.  It took years to save up that kind of money, so most didn’t have the extra money necessary to get transportation to their port of departure.  The Ranger told us that some people were so poor they carried empty suitcases so their neighbors wouldn’t know how little they had when they left and the steamer company wouldn’t turn them away for the chance of being turned back at Ellis Island for being so poor as to be “a potential burden on society.”

Think about the millions of people who came to this country through Ellis Island.  What a challenge it was!  Think how bad it must have been at home to brave this experience!  The adversity they faced in their flight to a new life!  The scariness of the unknown!  Think of the faith they put in God to get them here safely and to connect with someone who could help them get their feet on the ground and make a future here.

I don’t think most people could have survived this trip and the challenges they faced upon arrival without a deep faith in God.

I was awed, inspired, and more appreciative of my own country where I can worship as I please.  If you haven’t been to Ellis Island, take a vacation day and go.  You’ll need about three hours to tour the Main Building and do it justice.  The other buildings are not currently open to the public.   We’ve got a national treasure in our own back yard (actually lots of them).  It will stir your soul and deepen your faith.

Then come to worship and thank God for all that you have.

Summer Worship at St. Andrew, 9:30 am on Sundays

www.elcaAndy.org

Do you have a relative who came to America through Ellis Island?  What story do they tell you of the adversity they faced in this experience?