Dear friends of Refuge,
I hate the idea that nonprofits “fix” things, but sometimes that language is unavoidable. And it’s the downright wrong things that often spur us to generous action, right?
One very wrong thing Bill and I noticed after we moved to Clarkston and got to know our neighbors was the lack of jobs that gave our refugee friends the opportunity to flourish here in their new home. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, that’s just the way it was. We talked about this a lot, prayed with our new friends about it, and advocated for others to do something. We simply longed for a place where our newly-arrived friends could not only earn an income, but a space where they could breathe, laugh, dream, and plan for a better future. And somehow we knew that those opportunities would turn neighbors into friends.
For me, the scariest part of starting Refuge was the knowledge that I would have to ask people for money… over and over. What I didn’t realize was the gift I would find in the asking. You would become my friends, too.
Refuge runs on relationships, and relationships thrive on generosity. Over time, Bill and I realized that Refuge made space for the “fixing” of a problem that went beyond the need for employment, and that was the problem of loneliness. These days the problem of loneliness is universally recognized. So much so that The Surgeon General called it an “epidemic” last year. Loneliness isn’t an immigration or political or economic problem. It’s a human problem, more precisely an every-human problem.
Antoine de Sainte-Exupery says in one short sentence what we have found to be so true at Refuge: :
In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude.
One of the most miraculous things a gift can do is to take one’s eyes off the chasm of whatever it is the gift “fixes”–despair, sorrow, or loneliness–so that what shines in the foreground is the bridge of friendship.
Because of your gifts, Refuge’s offerings of jobs, relationships, and a welcoming space is a bridge across the chasm of solitude for so many people: refugees, neighbors, and givers alike. It persists and shines because of you.
(Enjoy a few photos from our holiday dinner last year that seemed appropriate to share in an email about gifts!)
Last week, I took one of my granddaughters to Claire’s to spend the birthday money I gave her. I love her dearly and enjoy every minute I spend with her with the rare exception of that hour (yes, almost an hour!) spent in Claire’s. Agonizing over press-on nails and scented lotions is, well, agonizing!
But when we got back to the vacation house her parents generously shared with me that week, I reveled in the way she giddily displayed her gifts, pointing out the matching hair ties she’d picked out for her friends and the one item I bought for $4.29 that put us exactly that much over budget all because she was appalled that I don’t curl my eyelashes!
All this to say, gifts do something to us, in us, and around us. I wish I could show you what your gifts do here with greater specificity, spreading them out on a coffee table and naming them one by one. I think you’d feel what I feel. Maybe you do!
Thankfully,
Kitti
