Christmas is a joyous time of celebration for us as Christians as we remember the momentous nature of God's gift to us in sending Jesus. But for many, Christmas brings it own stresses and pain with remembering those things that are absent in their lives.
Here is a story from a woman migrant I know and her struggle with being a migrant and what that means for her at Christmas time:
I came to Australia about 15 years ago with my husband who was sent here by his company.
I wasn't happy in Australia when we first arrived - I had left my home in a beautiful part of my country and cried at what I perceived as the ugliness of Kuringai National park when my husband took me there on my second day here. Actually, I probably cried at least once a day for the first two years and only survived by going back to visit my family as often as I could. I met a woman from my home through my church and would go to her house several times a week and cry into a cup of coffee and we would reminisce together about all that we missed about our homeland.
I struggled to make friends - even though I supposedly spoke the language of this new country where I lived, I couldn't understand them and they couldn't understand me. I asked women I met at school to my home for lunch and coffee but felt rejected when they didn't return my invitations. Was something wrong with me?
Worst of all were the "celebration days" - Christmas, Easter, Mother's day, Anzac Day etc. Kind people making conversation would ask "So what are you doing for Christmas - a family lunch?" I would go home and be depressed for the rest of the day, wishing we had some family to spend time with. Christmas is still such a difficult time for me because I cannot celebrate Christmas with all the traditional rituals from my home that "made" Christmas for me and my family.
I prayed in my despair and God spoke to me through the words of Philippians 3:19 "but our citizenship is in heaven" which gave me hope that my belonging was not dependent on where I lived, but in being a member of God's family.
Another migrant I met at Bible study told me - "I know how you're feeling. I found the first seven years the worst." Those words gave me hope - I was only 3 years in, so maybe in 4 years time I would begin to feel normal!
On the outside, I was an involved, active wife and mother, a carrier of an Australian passport, but struggling on the inside to work out my identity and my future.
Ann Bridge captures the migrant dilemma well in her novel "Peking Picnic"
"It isn't really homesickness; it's being one person in two lives. You see I go home fairly often....and I can't really settle to this life, though I love it in a way. And of course, I can't settle in the other because I live mostly in this one. So I am in two halves all the time. He replied "So the only unifying point in your two lives is yourself, and the more you can unify yourself, the nearer you bring your two lives together. But in any case, the point where the stresses of the contending forces meet will always be in yourself, like the point in a building where the opposite thrusts meet. And like a good architect, you must just make that point strong."
..No, it was too difficult, it was impossible. She could never make the two halves of her life fuse and fit properly.
So what does this mean for us as we minister to those migrants in our congregations who are experiencing this dilemma, valuing their lives in Australia, yet a part of themselves being forever caught in their home country being highlighted by the traditions and family time that are emphasised by the Christmas period?
