The Impact of the world on me

Less than a week ago, I boarded a plane from Rwanda back to my home here in Canada. Beside me, coming out of Amsterdam, was a 75-year-old Nigerian grandmother. It was her first plane trip. With a welcoming smile and limited English, she let me know she was visiting her only child, a daughter in Vancouver. Half-way through the trip she looked at me with weary eyes and said, “Canada, far.” That one reality limits so many from reaching our shores. Canada is far… and expensive to get to.

While in Rwanda I was teaching Team Building to motivated leaders from sixteen different African countries. We talked about building trust, managing conflict, ensuring commitment, establishing accountability, and achieving results. Some of those leaders had taken 18-hour bus rides through numerous borders. Some had flown out of conflict zones to learn. They were bright and established leaders. Few of them will get to Canada. They are busy transforming the worlds around them.

I am humbled by how little I know of my world. With 7,000 languages in 195 countries the world is a far richer place than I can imagine. In the airports, I heard dozens of languages filling the space around me. Sounds filled with meaning stimulated laughter, concern, understanding between personalities and across generations.  The leaders I worked with knew six, seven, even 11 languages, including mine. I had little more than a few feeble greetings for most of them in their heart language. I can hardly imagine what it will be like when God’s dream of having every tribe, and tongue, and nation represented together in a unity of praise, gets realized. The passion of their prayers mingled together has to bring a smile to the heart of God. And few will do more than travel a short distance from home. Still, in desperation, some will fight like salmon heading upstream to land here.

Yehuda Mansell, a New Hope Community Services resident advisor, has been welcoming newcomers for years. Recently, he wrote of his encounter with two young girls arriving with their family into their new place of residence: “So, I lavished a warm greeting with plenty of eye contact and big smiles despite the language barrier. When they saw my smile, they mirrored that joy back to me. Then we trudged all their gear up the stairs into their new apartment. The two littlest ones were right on my heels, and they entered their suite with giggles and squeals, and they ran around touch the walls, feeling the space, running in circles, but it was their eyes that struck me.

“Their eyes were filled with such light and hope that I was taken aback. At one point, the littlest one, a bit overwhelmed with all that she was feeling, started to tear up a bit. Now, at this point, I don’t know this family’s story, but I do know that extremely hard circumstances forced them to flee their home country, and I do know that their first four weeks in Canada have been difficult, and their housing situation has been somewhere precarious. So, I can understand why when they entered this space knowing this was their new, safe and comfortable home, these little girls were infused with hope and joy, and a host of other emotions they probably didn’t understand quite yet. What I didn’t expect was as their little eyes flashed at me, I felt a wave of emotion in my own heart, and in the corner of my own eye, a happy tear began to form.”

That is the impact of the world on me. In one week, I can move freely from high-fiving a two-year-old Rwandan child in Africa to high-fiving a two-year old Nigerian in Canada. I can travel freely with minimal inconvenience or concern about my welcome. I realize that not all of Canada sees as I see. In his year-end report to parliament at the end of 2024 the Honorable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship wrote:

“As we emerged from the pandemic, Canada faced severe labour shortages. We took steps and adapted with new and temporary measures. These actions were necessary to support the urgent needs of businesses and our economy, to prevent a recession and to help us navigate that challenging period. Today, our economy has evolved, and the landscape is different.

Our immigration system has faced growing pressures both within and outside our borders. Multiple humanitarian crises, rising asylum claims and increased interest in Canada have bumped up against our own economic demands and community needs. These pressures have required us to adapt our immigration levels planning to the current climate. Our annual plans must take into account the capacity to settle, integrate and retain newcomers – which varies across the country – and monitor system-wide pressures in critical sectors such as housing and health care. At the same time, immigrants make significant contributions to the labour market and are part of the solution.

What we heard from Canadians is that they expect Canada to identify the right number of newcomers with the needed skills, and help set them up for success.” Not everyone is going to experience the joy and hope of those little girls I mentioned. Increasingly, the pressure of the world is going to look at those coming to see how they can help us, instead of how we can help them. For those who do navigate the stream effectively, there is a rich relationship waiting to give us a taste of heaven.

When you look into the eyes of newcomers, share your welcome and look for the hope and joy you will experience in few other places. As Jesus welcomed the little ones, so we stand in his place to welcome others who long for peace, acceptance, and love. Somewhere, down deep, we are all the same.