Editor,
For many weeks, we have been both horrified and touched by the stories and pictures in newspapers, on television and on the Internet. With 60 million refugees worldwide, Pope Francis and many others are calling this the worst refugee crisis since the end of Word War II. Thousands upon thousands are surging into Europe, fleeing from the war in Syria and from other life-threatening conditions in the Middle East and Africa. Most heart-wrenching are the photographs of little children — a girl crying from hunger or a toddler lifeless from drowning.
European countries are struggling to cope, particularly Germany, learning from its own history that good people must not stand by while the innocent die. America is waking up to our clear duty and is now pledging to accept 85,000 refugees from around the world next year and 100,000 the year after.
How is America to humanely handle these families as they arrive? We have done it before. At the end of the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees arrived in America to begin new lives. From those difficult days, we here on Whidbey have our model.
Inexperienced and apprehensive, but wanting to help, four South Whidbey churches worked together to sponsor a Vietnamese family: a mother, a father, and their little daughters. Some funds for resettlement came from our government, other money was donated locally. A volunteer located housing, another shopped for clothing and still another for food. Other community organizations and individuals joined in to help.
My part, with others, was teaching English lessons. The co-op preschool parents and teachers welcomed the four-year-old girl to play, learn, and laugh with children her own age. As so often happens, we who helped this family received much more in return: friendship, a world view, delicious Vietnamese food, and French-influenced chocolate desserts. Later, when a wave of Laotian refugees came, four churches each sponsored its own family. Again, the resettlement at first took energy, but satisfaction outweighed effort many times over. These former refugees and their grown-up children are now working, contributing citizens of the United States.
We’ve seen over and over on Whidbey what good can be accomplished by neighborhood, church, social and service organizations. If we each offer our best talents, miracles can happen. Begin to plan; we can do this.
GLORIA KOLL
Freeland
