I spent Marcus Garvey’s birthday visiting the Haitian refugee camp in St Mary. It is hard to determine exactly how many have arrived on the island by boat. It is almost certain that some have evaded our Coast Guards and found a way to integrate into informal settlements around the island, but the government of Jamaica has graciously provided facilities for the housing and feeding of around 200 Haitians, all of whom have either filed, or are in the process of filing papers to be granted asylum and a legal pathway to eventual Jamaican citizenship.
Granted the mental picture I had in my mind of what refugee camps look like, established by sundry international pictures and videos, I was delighted to discover that Jamaican hospitality is not only extended to European and American tourists. Of course this was no luxury hotel, but the serene space reminded me of my days at summer camp as a child in the country, a perfect balance of austerity and comfort surrounded by the rich luxury of pristine Jamaican landscape, a fitting welcome for brothers and sisters who had endured the unimaginable ordeal of navigating a hundred miles of unpredictable sea packed in a precarious fishing boat.
I went with the lawyer who was the face of Garvey’s Jamaica to our regional guests, a Garvey pikni to the bone, she single-handedly was undertaking pro-bono the filing process for every single resident, ensuring that the Jamaican state, all her organs and institutions do right by our CARICOM cousins and not take advantage of the vulnerability of their plight, as is rife elsewhere in the region where refugees are refusees. More than a lawyer, she is mother to the entire community, evidence to witnesses of brutal violence and mayhem that there still is love and hope in the world.
One can’t imagine the irony I felt facing the quizzical look precipitated on being introduced to our host as a churchgoing Christian by my pan African sister. That she had to emphatically vouch for my bona fides clearly indicated the church’s absence up to this point in identifying with this most critical human struggle. Had my Christian identity not been mentioned, there would have been no consternation about my presence.
The irony was that I had just completed the night before a study of The State of the Great Commission, a thoroughly comprehensive report on Global Christian Missions by the Lausanne movement founded by Billy Graham. The Caribbean Christian Leadership Network had undertaken to discuss its contents with our brother, John Roomes, former director of Wycliffe and the portion I had been allotted to cover identified refugees as a key people-group for ministry in a world where mass migration (voluntary and forced, legal and illegal) has become the most distinguishing demographic pattern.
Hospitality to strangers is not just a very necessary humanizing counter to the xenophobia that often is the cause of and result from mass migration, but also an indicator of true Christian witness. This has been, till recently, almost universally known and practiced throughout the Christian West. Quite apart from the activities of organizations with Christian roots like the Red Cross, there are many places where it is standard practice for local churches within a city to collectively organize to support and sponsor migrant families. Thousands upon thousands have not only productively integrated into new lands of promise having fled scenes of terror, but have also been won over to Christ through sheer gratitude for the loving human embrace extended them by His church during their hour of most tragic pain and abandonment.
But what of the Caribbean church?
Notwithstanding the significant and commendable voluntary and state inputs, there are still desperate needs at the camp: mothers in need of proper neonatal care, children in need of school support, clothes, supplies etc; but may I humbly say to a church I personally believe can sometimes be as transactional as the surrounding culture, that the greatest gift Jesus offers sinners and strangers alike is friendship. True friendship meets every other human need.
I had absolutely no idea that the morning after I had finished my paper, my Pan African sister would invite me to come with her to the St. Mary camp. I can only surmise that the synchronicity was due to a convergence of cries to love and be loved. The Spirit says come, but where is the bride?
YeKengalé 