Every third Friday of the month, the Swan Parish Youth (SPY) holds their monthly gathering.
During Lent, the group decided to join with other groups in the Young Christian Students movement to spend time looking at a particular social justice issue, asylum seekers. They met weekly after church to share information and learn some of the facts about the issue to try and understand more about refugees and asylum seekers. This included reading some fascinating personal stories which left quite a few of us amazed by the hardships these people underwent. We learnt that most ‘queue jumpers’ arrive by plane and overstay their visas, and we were particularly surprised to learn that we already have many laws in Australia to protect genuine asylum seekers. At our last meeting for the term, we summarised all that we had learnt. We then broke into groups and compared the plight of refugees with some bible readings. We brought together what each small group came up with, and together formulated these five guidelines that reflect how we believe God would like us to treat refugees.
Here are our guidelines:
1. God wants us to treat people with respect and care, no matter who they are, where they come from or what they look like.
2. God wants us to speak up for people, especially those who can’t speak for themselves.
3. God wants us to let people into our home (country).
4. The way we treats others is the way we treat God.
5. One day, you might need strangers to help you too.
Overall, we now feel much more informed about asylum seekers, and hope that our experience will encourage you to learn more about them as well.
Francis Fenner (Youth member) and Laura D’Rozario (Adult Assistant).
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