Life of Refugee

This post is from one of our students, Carolyn:

"Yesterday I started learning a Lao dance that tells the story of a refugee people escaping to arrive here and finding Jesus. On my first day at Fresno Interdenominational Ministries (a.k.a. FIRM), the woman who was teaching it to me told me how she survived a land mine explosion that knocked her unconscious for a few days. She credits God for saving her so that she could later know him. Through this woman’s testimony and faith and so many stories I hear at FIRM, I am learning God’s heart for the foreigner, for compassion and justice and hope.


These three things are lacking from the Lao and Hmong peoples’ recent history. FIRM has a beautiful pan’dau, a hand-embroidered Hmong quilt illustrating a story, that taught me this history missing from mainstream textbooks: During the Vietnam War, the CIA recruited Hmong and Lao guerilla fighters to disrupt the supply chain of the Communist north that ran through Laos. After the U.S. left Vietnam and deserted these fighters, they ran from the Communist soldiers tracking them, abandoning their sick and injured so that some few could survive to cross a treacherous river into Thailand. Then they left the sickness and dangers - like poorly built stairs that collapsed beneath them - of the refugee camps there to come here.

I was taught that the U.S. is the land of opportunity where hard work brings success and prosperity, but that isn’t entirely true. This is a country that gives refugees five years on social security to learn a new language, culture, and way of life and then cuts them off, inspiring suicides. The unsettled, fragmented reality of these people was illustrated in where one woman’s children had been born: two in Laos, one in Thailand, and one in the U.S. I learned this in a practice interview in FIRM’s combination English/citizenship class, of which she was a part so that she could get work and then put her life back together.

Another way FIRM is helping Southeast Asian refugees move forward is by setting up community gardens. These allow former-farming families to sign up for a plot to grow produce and medicinal plants they otherwise would not have access to. I especially enjoyed helping all the gardeners set up the irrigation piping in the new garden because we could work together joyfully toward our common goal of finishing the last preparation for planting despite the language and cultural barriers. It was part of new, hopeful stories beginning in which healthy food is available at a reasonable price.

Today during the urban ministry class, I wrote poems as a way of processing what I am experiencing and learning. I intended to write from my perspective but adopted a refugee’s, because their stories have broken my heart over and over as I learn about them and internalize their stories:

“…finally, fleeing my continent/finding my way to another world: /new language, new culture, new friends, confusion…”

We’re all refugees in God’s kingdom, having run from evil in the world to a place of shelter and a chance at new life. So I’m looking forward to my next dance lesson tomorrow, and my next day to learn from and serve refugees and the God who took me in."

Carolyn is a 3rd year student at UCLA.

FUI pictures!

Jason and Matt get a lot of free food from the Rescue Mission

We also have a lot of students who enjoy the piano... and pictures.

FUI swim day!

Cameron at our FUI dance party!

Even the staff enjoy embracing their inner child with sparklers on 4th of July.

Students making food duirng FUI's first ever Food Justice day.

Discussing what we are learning in class.

Eric, Matt, and Bryson listen intently during our Intro to Urban Minsitry class.

Love for Motel Drive

from student Michael Quinones, a third year at Cal Poly.

"During my second day at FUI, I went on a Fresno driving tour. I was apathetic about going on this tour, since I had done the same tour back in January when I came to the Fresno plunge. One of our tour destinations was motel drive, a very low-income street.  The people who live on motel drive experience violence, drugs, and prostitution on a regular basis. As we were praying for the people who live on motel drive I felt even more apathetic. We drove down motel drive, and then we turned around and drove down motel drive in the opposite direction. I was looking at the buildings and at how desolate they were since nobody was outside. Suddenly, I felt the Holy Spirit manifesting Himself in my heart. God was telling me that He really, really, really loves the people who live at motel drive. For the next two hours, I was super convicted about what God had shown me. I know that God wants me to do something at motel drive at some point in some capacity, but I don’t know when or how. What I know is that I need to pray more for motel drive and about what God wants me to do there."

Reality Limbo

"On Saturday I had to retake part of the CSET exam and ventured out into the real world to do so. The testing site was all the way in Clovis. For those of you not familiar with Fresno think of nice rich suburb right next to a bigger city, the Sierra Madre to Pasadena if you will. While I took a break from FUI activities to review and prepare for my test, I noticed a few things.

I remember re-entry being difficult the first I participated in FUI. I remember being angry about any injustice I saw in my city. I was infuriated with the apathy I thought I saw in everyone around me. I was very prideful, but I meant well. I also heard continued stories of people having the same reactions – hatred toward the rich and the indifferent. But this time, it was different.

After spending about three weeks living in intense community where the plumbing doesn’t always work and fridges break and you get paid very little and everyone is around you all the time – I was so thankful to be away from it all. In fact I was not repulsed by any of the wealth I saw parading around me. The better stores, the bigger malls, cleaner streets, and all apparent lack of diversity in the richer part of Fresno did not disturb me, but allowed me to forget about the realities that lived downtown. I forgot about the fatherlessness, the homelessness, the brokenness, and whatever else seemed to plague the inner city. I was comfortable, and I hadn’t felt that in a long time. I could blend back in with the landscape. I could drive my car wherever I wanted because I wasn’t worried about gas. I could eat wherever I wanted because I wasn’t worried about money. I could drive by myself because it was a “safer” part of town. In short I was relaxed.

Apparently being in the city had really broken me down. I was tired of having to care so much about the people around me. In a place where I see a lot of brokenness – I had to care. The poor aren’t hidden behind gated walls, they are right there in street for you to see and for them to be seen. When I went to North Fresno, it was all hidden beneath flowerpots and paved streets, behind large gated communities and inside mansions. I didn’t have to face anything I didn’t want to because everyone was hiding from each other.

I was tired of having to constantly be present in community. When you live with seven people and are around thirty others constantly, you are always on display. Your faults are magnified to extreme degrees because they just come out in this type of environment. But on Saturday I could blend in. I could sit in a restaurant or a coffee shop and have no one talk to me if I didn’t want to talk to them. I could drive in my car with the windows up and the air conditioner blasting, all the while ignoring people walking on the street, if I actually saw any. I could basically be whoever I wanted to be – hip, cool, trendy, studious, silent, funny, or anything else. I wasn’t forced to deal with the negative aspects of who I was that come out in living with so many people.

In North Fresno my fridge wasn’t broken, my toilet wasn’t clogged, my laundry didn’t cost money, my car wasn’t teetering on empty, my air conditioner blasted, and I sat alone to drink my coffee. I don’t know what scared me more. Was it spending a whole day in North Fresno where I blended in, became invisible, and forgot all about the poverty less that twenty minutes away? Or that I liked it?

If you asked me a month ago, I would have told you that relocating was exactly my plan. I would either go into ministry or go into education – but I knew I would live in an inner city. But now, I am questioning that. And I don't know what I will choose. I know deeply that living in the inner city will not be glamours (as it appeared to me three years ago) nor will it always be fun. And God temporarily brought me out of this city and into North Fresno to show me some very harsh realities. Choosing to relocate to the inner city is a big deal. This is not a decision that can be taken lightly or that I should do because it seems cool. This is a not just a decision of where to live but how to live."

by Melissa Montecuollo, a Cal Poly Grad

Dying to Live

from Josth Stenner, a Cal State Bakersfield 2nd Year

"On Thursday we had class and the topic of the class happened to be about something that I really have a heart for, immigration. This politically controversial topic has proved to be a hot button issue on the minds of many Christians because many people don’t know what God says about it. The film brought up two very different emotions for me; it made me happy but angry at the same time. I was happy that people were learning the depth of this issue and that it made people think about it through Gods eyes rather than through some political lens. But to be completely honest, this film was frustrating. I love the idea that people are no longer viewing this as an abstract issue but that it now has a face for people, however the face that it has is not a completely accurate one. This film focused on illegal immigration from Central and Southern America and I personally feel that has been the face of immigration. 40% of the people who immigrate to the United States illegally are Asian but you never hear about them, you hear about the millions of Mexicans who cross the border, documentaries are made about the Mexicans who cross into the U.S. illegally. This is why this movie made me angry, even though you are getting people to think about immigration in a different way people are still subconsciously being fed this inaccurate idea that Mexican are the only people who are here illegally. You can see this with Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, there is no way to physically tell whether a person is illegal or not because there is no one type of illegal immigrant, with this bill, cops are left to assume that someone is not legal based on nothing. Because Mexicans are what everyone associates with illegal immigrants, they are going to be the ones who are more often ask for their papers, in Arizona. Overall, I’m glad that we watched this film, because I’ve gotten to have meaningful conversations with people about how this topic has impacted my life. 

To be completely honest, I understand that people are gonna have different opinions when it comes to this topic and I’m ok with that I just want people to understand that the people who come over are not here for any malicious reasons, they just want a better life. They don’t leave happily, it’s not an easy journey, and people die in search of a better life. The next time that somebody gets hung up about the fact that undocumented immigrants are illegal and therefore are bad people, invite them to see what Jesus say about loving your neighbor and help them see that people are literally “Dying to Live” ."

Fence Building Pictures - Day 2

Beginning construction of the new wooden fence.

Joyce Wang will start her own construction company when she is done with this fence.

The spot was too tight to actually put in the boards, so Sarah had to find another way to nail in the fence.

Zoe, Sarah, Marissa, and Monte make up Team Awesome Construction Inc.

We finished!

Fence Building Pictures Day 1

Sarah and Amanda get rid of the pile of trash that was in the backyard.

Bryson and Josth move a water cooler? Or something.

Marissa is strong and tough.

Zoe and Bryson dig a hole