As the last remaining embers of my time in Greece begin to fade, the few things remain deny me sleep. My body continues to keep in rhyme of Athens time and I find myself drinking Greek filtered coffee and enjoy a pear I happened to stuff in my bag from breakfast that last morning.. making the long journey with me. But it’s not so much the fact that I’m waking at 4am wide eyed and ready for the day rather its all that I am attempting to process through, sifting through the images my mind’s eye has captured in time.. trying to make sense of it all, see the bigger picture. Yet this big picture isn’t a beautiful one, in fact.. its crushing. The more I seek to know, to understand, to make some sense of.. the more I’m convinced that the real problem in this world is not the economic crisis.. rather it is that of the human condition.. the cries of humanity is on its knees.
The face of Europe is changing.. and faster than many are willing to admit. In almost every, if not all countries in Europe, the death rate is higher than the birth rate. It’s a dying continent. This creates big problems for countries that are very depend on the social welfare of their government. You have smaller younger generations having to support a rapidly aging population. The problem there is that this younger generation is not finding work not are they having children. I’ve come to learn that there is a village in France, the mayor of the town is paying the women to encourage them to have babies and to commit to keep them in school in town until a certain age in order to ‘guarantee’ the survival of the community. That’s incredible!
So how are these countries to live on..? Or maybe the first question to address is why are the Europeans not having children or only one child? There is so much to speak on this issue, which I will save for another entry. Yet there are those who are having children, and lots of them: Immigrants.
This is a massive issue to tackle in even being able to speak about, understand and comprehend. I’ve not only experienced first hand this reality throughout Europe, but I’ve spent time speaking to various immigrants over the years, spent endless hours pouring over articles, news reports and reading first hand accounts. It’s amazing to study migration of people. Look at the end of the 19th century. Europeans were moving out of this continent in droves. A hundred years later, droves are pouring into Europe from all over.
NPR recently did a weekly series on morning edition called: Racism in Europe (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99220519) and MSNBC has put together a wonderful website addressing the changes facing Europe through the eyes of immigrants:( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19227137 ) Please take the time to watch the story on Kingsley from Africa.
Where I tend to lose my composure is when I read and watch the individual stories following the journey of a migrant/refugee from their home to Europe. Why do they leave for Europe? For each of them there is a cruel reality I hope I never experience in my lifetime. Each leave hopeful of a life better than what they’ve lived. Their families either gone or are encouraging of their trip for they too have hope for their child, parent, brother or friend to make a better life. This journey takes months, years even. So many die in the process. While in Greece, the last day I was there I saw images of a 13 years old boy from Iraq who had buried to death from hiding under a truck trying to get on a ship to Italy. They are at the mercy of those strangers willing to help them make their way to Europe, their beacon of hope. Why this is hard to watch is because of the reality that I know awaits them in Europe…
I think about how I moved to Italy because I wanted to experience another culture, learn a language and do something that pushed me to see a world bigger than my own. I chose to leave and looked at is as an experience to put under my belt. I didn’t have to leave because I was being pushed out of my country. I didn’t leave because living conditions were so horrible that I had to risk everything in hopes to have something. It’s humbling to recognize how God has allowed this for my life and continues to show me Grace.
There was a night while living in Florence that I was with a Albanian friend of mine. He was illegal living in Italy. I remember him lying on the wall along the Arno river. I don’t remember what we were talking about except that I remember looking at him as he lay there pinching that place between your eyes and the bridge of your nose. Tears slid down his face and he said ‘this life is no good. This life is no good.’ He worked every day of the week and two different jobs, manual labor. Here I was in Italy acquiring a language and a new life because I wanted the experience. Here he was living in Italy speaking three language to survive and . At that time, I couldn’t understand really what he was feeling. How naïve I was. Now I think back to that night and my heart breaks. I want to be a voice for those who live in the margins and are denied so much because of where they are from.
Once again I’ve created rabbit trails with my thoughts. I’m trying to make sense of all that I’ve seen and experienced. I’m not sure how He will continue to work through me with all this but I know He will in big ways. More to come on immigration in Europe.
