19 March 2008
In the hands of God
Posted by Rob under: Faith .
We are praying very hard for a young Nigerian guy in our church named Divine. He arrived in France as a refugee about 18 months or so ago. His father, a protestant pastor in Nigeria, was shot and killed before his eyes, and he fled the country for his life after being tortured at knife-point (the wounds aren’t pretty). He’s been applying for official papers to enable to stay in France (he fears for his life if he were to return to Nigeria, as many Christians are openly persecuted there), and at the end of January his application was rejected. He currently has an appeal in process, but…
He was picked up by the police the day before yesterday in a spot check. When they found he had no papers they took him to a detention centre pending a decision on whether to expel him from the country. He’s now been moved to a larger detention centre near Rouen, still awaiting a decision. He will be represented by an officially-appointed lawyer, but apparently the usual approach is for such lawyers to do very little to genuinely defend their “clients”. A decision could be made any time, and there is apparently nothing we can do apart from wait. No-one to lobby or try to pressure on, no letters to write,nothing…except pray.
Divine is not only a great guy with a sweet and gentle spirit; he has an incredible faith in his heavenly father. I was speaking to him on Sunday, and he was absolutely convinced that, despite the rejection of his application, God has already taken care of everything and it’s just a matter of time before his papers come through. I guess his faith is truly being put to the test.
I understand the political and economic reasons why a country can’t just let any and every immigrant stay. But if Divine is deported, I take this as proof that France will not see any humanitarian grounds as a basis for asylum. They are only interested in skilled migrants. If that wasn’t the case, I find it hard to see a more deserving case than Divine, who is genuinely under threat of physical danger and has the scars to prove it.
I guess God specialises in impossible situations. He brought the Israelites out of Egypt to a place where they had no escape routes and the most powerful army on earth bearing down on them - then simply opened up the sea so that they could cross on dry land and destroyed their enemies behind them by closing it again. It’s times like this - and in my experience there are actually few of them for us comfortable westerners - when there really is nothing we can do but pray, that we have the opportunity to see just how much we really trust.
One Comment so far...
Graysons In France » Update on Divine Says:
22 March 2008 at 5:50 pm.
[...] Nigerian guy in our church who had been taken into custody and was at risk of being deported. See here for the [...]
