Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15
“We should help the Venezuelan refugees,” someone stated at a gathering of friends a few weeks ago. “The refugees?” I questioned. I wasn’t even aware of their growing presence in San Jose. “The Venezuelan government has been deteriorating for over 10 years. Why are there more refugees here right now?” “Are some of them walking to the States?” “Should we even help them on that journey?”
Sunday morning as we drove as a family into San Jose to help host a pancake breakfast for the Venezuelan refugees, I don’t know what I expected. But what I found was incredibly different. Families emerging from their tents alongside the road began to pack the tents up peacefully, combing children’s hair and smiling a welcome to us. An air of camaraderie and helpfulness among them amazed me. As 350 eggs and pancakes were fried and served, men, women, and children waited patiently for their turn to get in line.
“Are you hungry?” I asked one man standing off to the side. “Oh! Very!” he responded. “But there are still kids and older people here. We’ll wait to see if there is enough after they’ve eaten.” A woman on whose front step refugees sat received phones from some of them to take into her house to charge. She told my mom, “This street used to be full of problems. There was prostitution and insecurity. But since the refugees have been camping here, none of that is happening. They are peaceful and clean up after themselves.”
And then we began to hear their stories. Some men are professionals looking for work in any country that will receive them so that they can send money to their families. Others have the hearts set on the US. Yet all of the people there were driven by enough desperation to walk through the “selva” of the Darién Gap, a lawless mass of mountainous jungle between Colombia and Panama. There are no roads through the Darién Gap, so the only access for anyone without a passport is by traveling on foot, a crossing that takes 4-9 days.
“At times the mud was up to our thighs,” one woman reported. “We carried the children, barely slept, and faced horrors of many kinds.” Each group saw people die. One old man convinced the group to leave him to die because he couldn’t continue. Some children drowned in the mud or were swept away in the river crossing. “We traveled with another young couple,” a lovely young lady, Estephania, told me. “Lovely people. But the last mountain took us four hours to climb, holding on to roots to pull ourselves up in the pouring rain. Near the top, the other lady lost hold of the root, fell back from the cliff, and died when her head hit a rock. We had to leave her.” Tears squeezed out of my eyes to match Estephania’s as I shook my head at the horror.
‘When did you finish coming through the selva?” I asked this group, astonished at their clean clothes and smiles.
“Six days ago” they answered, pulling back their socks to show still-swollen feet.
“But God has been with us,” they reported. “He has blessed us.” “We waited for the river to go down and he told us when to cross.” As they combed their hair using the rearview mirror of our van, they talked of God’s faithfulness.
Wednesday of this week the Vida220 students and some staff went down to the same area where around 500 Venezuelan refugees are camped to share hundreds of homemade burritos, notes, and hearts to listen. Our group from 8 countries, some with stories of their own displacement from their home countries, dispersed up and down the street to sit and mingle with the refugees. Later, a spontaneous worship service emerged as Orelle picked up the guitar, Jorge joined on the cajón, and children danced joyfully around. Kids shrieked with laughter as they play hopscotch and grown men let tears flow as others prayed with them. Bold evangelist Carlos preached a spontaneous sermon as the patrolling police cars peacefully wove around the crowd that spilled into the first lane of traffic.
“Instead of cursing God for hardships, they are blessing him,” Vida220 student Jorge reported. “This morning I asked God for faith more like theirs.” The US has now closed its border to Venezuelan refugees, so some of the men we met are now walking back to Venezuela. But two days ago Panama also closed its border to Venezuelans, so this group is currently stuck.
While a WhatsApp chat group I am in is “blowing up” with ideas, opinions, and cautions about how to best help the refugees without creating long-term problems, I pour my morning coffee and wonder aloud how God can be so patient with me when so many other people have “bigger” problems.
“God’s not like that,” my Honduran friend, Cristiana, encourages me. “His heart can hold both you and them, and he feels deep love toward you both.” I shake my head in wonder at such a God who can hold the large and small. And I think again about the words in Romans 12:15 to “Weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.” Life isn’t fair. There are no simple answers to immigration issues. But today we ask Jesus for the ability to love those in front of us as best we can – to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice.
By Melanie Nofziger
VidaNet Director
As a read your story, faces were coming to mind, you see as a teenager I was in Venezuela on a mission team and lived there with a Venezuelian family. I have no contact anymore with anyone. I have memories and some names. Thank you for helping the people of Venezuela who are turned away on many fronts. May God continue to bless this ministry.
Thanks for the message of God’s big enoughness to see and love each of us in our individual situations. I felt the same feelings of insignificant problems yesterday while sitting with a family that just lost a son to suicide. How do I see my own issues as significant? God sees and loves us each in our own set of difficulties and can care and help us each as well.
Thank you for sharing this heart-rending account. May God bless you and them as you look to Him for answers. Keep sharing!!❤️
I wish I could help these dear people. I am glad VidaNet is doing what they can.
Thanks for sharing this experience. Its heartbreaking. No easy solutions. God sees each precious soul. Im glad you get to serve them.
DeAnn, mom of Andrew and Faith Miller😊
Goshen, In