Experiencing the Amsterdam Catholic Worker

As I begin to write this, it is 4:00 a.m. back home in Maryland and 1:36 a.m. on the west coast.


I will wait a bit before I share specific stories. (Perhaps a tad paranoid, but I do not want to put into jeopardy anyone who is seeking asylum. I am not in jeopardy as I do not break any laws, but given ability to hack online & search, I do not want to lead anyone to one of these people. They have been through enough.)


Suffice it to say at this point, that we who are safe, secure, and relatively healthy and peaceful do not realize on a gut level just how fortunate we are. Richard Engel, NBC Bureau Chief for the Middle East and only in his early 30's, reminds us how easy it is to become numbed to tragedy.

Sitting with one of the people seeking asylum and listening to their experience in whatever English they can manage can be heartbreaking.



Being hunted down in their own country (because their father was on the losing side, because they have the wrong religion, because they refuse to fight or to join the terrorists, etc.)



Then having to hide and try to escape,

having their parents pay large sums of money to "travel agents,"only to be left behind once abroad,

finding themselves alone in a foreign country, knowing no one, and not speaking the language,

• having to defend themselves from unscrupulous people, from the police
• often put into prison
• living in the street
• hoping against hope for some help
• people passing you by and looking the other way

But that is not the end of the story...

Perhaps you find a group of people to help you, to take you in. You then begin a long journey to prove you cannot possibly go back to oyur own country. (If you went back, you would face torture, waisting away in a small jail cell for years with 50 other people and little or no food, and finally possibly death)

So the journey in the new country involves:

• trying desperately to find some proof for asylum
• not being allowed to work or get career training or education
• learning the new language as best you can
• having no idea if your parent(s), siblings or alive.
• no one back home to contact

IMAGINE, my friends, living one month much less 10 years like that.

May I ask you to:

• stop and pray for them?
• think what else can you do today?
• get the word out?

Phil in Holland, for now.