(I wrote this story at an Accenture Federal Services writing workshop at our day of service Monday. The opinions are mine and not that of my employer.)
I grew up in a Norman Rockwell painting, a North Carolinian by birth with ancestry that has called the Tarheel State home since the Revolutionary War. I grew up in a small town where smiles abounded as people passed each other on Main Street on a crisp Spring afternoon, a place where there were no strangers, and everyone knew your name. A place where football, BBQ, and Jesus were woven together in a community of love, warmth and a bit of wonderful quirkiness. A place where neighbors would do more than let you borrow a cup of sugar for your peach cobbler before company came over. Neighbors would stop what they were doing to help you rebuild after your home burned down. They would help mow your grass when someone’s father was deployed overseas in the military. Serving and loving others was just what we did for each other.
North Carolinians are no strangers to helping the least of these. To be welcoming of new people is what our mammas and grandmammas taught us was the right thing to do. We deep down are kind-hearted folk though perhaps a bit sassy, especially if you start messing with our aunt’s deviled egg recipe. Of the roughly 22,000 people granted refugee status in 2018, 937 came to the Tarheel State. Their culture, food and language may be unfamiliar or even seem a little out of place in our Norman Rockwell painting at first. But they can become strong threads woven into the fabric of us.
During the time it took you to read that, 40 people were forced to flee their homes due to war, persecution or natural disasters. More than 65 million refugees have left their homes, families and communities because home was no longer safe for them not because they wanted to. Half of all refugees are children (Source: National Immigration Forum). They are called refugees and they are our neighbors. What if your life was in danger and you had to leave the Old North State, the place we call home? If you had to leave everything you knew, wouldn’t you too also yearn for a community that makes North Carolina so amazing?
I ask you to welcome these and other refugees to our community. To understand the difference between a refugee who’s forced to leave and an immigrant who chooses to leave. To be open to the possibility that refugees and their families make our communities stronger. Try to put yourself in a mother or father’s shoes and walk a mile with them. Walk with them as they journey to fight for their lives and for the lives of their children. And then commit to starting a conversation with others about how our communities thrive with refugees. To love and serve refugees from far off places like Burma and Ukraine. Because that’s the Carolina I love going to in my mind. That’s the North Carolina that I call home.
