Friday, September 18, 2015

How to Treat Refugees


The world could take a lesson from Jordan when they deal with refugees.  From the very beginning of the current crisis, Jordan has welcomed their neighbors--people who are fleeing from wars and violence in their own lands.  We heard that one Jordan border guard was helping someone come across the border and remarked, "Welcome to Jordan.  You are safe now." That comment is so typical of the people we have met here.  Right now (this year) there are over 1 million refugees from Syria and Iraq over 2 million from Palestine living in Jordan.  They don't have the resources to do it, but they do the best they can.

How do you treat a refugee?  The same way the people of Zarahemla treated the people of Ammon who were escaping their native land for their lives, and the way the same people treated the Zoramite refugees who came later:

"....The people (of Ammon) did not cast them out, but they did receive all the poor of the Zoramites that came over unto them; and they did nourish them, and did clothe them, and did give unto them lands for their inheritance; and they did administer unto them according to their wants."  Alma 35:9

It breaks our hearts to think of people being driven out of their homes and being turned away by their neighbors.  We love the Jordanians (and the hundreds of NGO's) for what they are doing to help in this crisis.

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