This unlikely story starts at a Twin City Peace Rally. Two men from very different cultures attend the rally. The following day the same two men are at the same Starbuck’s and one decides to speak to the other. Parishioner Paul Miller who started the conversation, had no idea their futures would be entwined and that from this encounter, a whole new partnership would be created between the leaders of the Somali community and parishioners of St. Joan of Arc. This is a story of irony and hope and it is so much a story of the community of St. Joan of Arc.
The man Paul spoke to was Omar Abdi Jamal(right, suit/tie), one of the spokespersons for the Somali community. The men from two very different cultures started to have coffee together and the coffee led to a friendship and a growing knowledge on the part of Paul Miller(right, facing camera) that he was being invited into a large community of people, some 50,000 in Minnesota who were having the great survival struggle in a land half way around the world from their East African homeland.
Omar Jamal is a soft-spoken man who tells a mind-boggling story of a modern Diaspora, a term once used to describe the scattering of the tribes of Israel by the Romans. His homeland of Somalia has some 12 million people, 60% are nomadic or semi-nomadic, 25% are farmers, and rest live in urban areas. It is one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries with few natural resources. It has been in and out of civil war since Great Britain granted the small nation its independence in 1960. It is a land of clans with six major ones and many smaller ones. The inability to create a stable government is a complex one but the bloodshed over power and territory caused many Somali to flee for their lives. In addition, between 1991 and 1992, an estimated 300,000 died of famine and starvation in Somalia. In 1992 it was estimated that 25% of Somali children starved to death. They filled up the refuge camps in Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Djibouti. The country was in ruins with no political stability. In time various nations agreed to grant them asylum. Denmark, Sweden, Norway took them in and so did the United States. In America they settled in California and Minnesota but in time Minnesota has become the epicenter with the largest Somali population outside of Somalia.
SOMALIA 101:
Many of our own ancestors could tell hair-raising stories about their particular journeys of immigration to America. For some it was the horrors of the slums of New York or the killing winds of the Minnesota-Dakota prairies. Attempting to adjust to a highly sophisticated society has overwhelmed newer waves of those coming to Minnesota. The Sunni Muslims have had their own unique issues. The churches and synagogues have not embraced them because Muslims have no intention of abandoning their Islamic beliefs. The event of 9/11 raised the levels of suspicion about these Arabic peoples who some thought could be linked to terrorists. They, like other immigrants, had the language issue to face and many were unschooled and they have battled to keep their families together in affordable housing spaces. Omar and other spokesmen have seen that to survive in America they will have to build bridges and create partnerships with the culture here.
SO WHY ST. JOAN OF ARC?
All of the Somali community are victims of a savage war, they want peace and non-violence. This primary goal is what brought Paul and Omar together. St. Joan of Arc has a habit of getting involved. Somali’s are not Christian, they are not Jewish, they are Moslem and they have complex cultural rules that make it difficult to understand them. They are outsiders and they are the minority group in our society. Well, sometimes people define St. Joan of Arc as outsiders and a minority community in the larger society. We have been known to open wide the doors to those in recovery, the divorced, the gay, the alienated, and those that seek non-violence. Why could we not become an even wider community and create a partnership, a bond with a people in Diaspora who have lost their homeland and who call God by a different name. We have no need to convert only to follow the ancient mandate of the Bible and the Koran, you shall welcome the stranger in your home.
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Paul Miller took this wonderful picture to confirm our promise to each other, and to build a friendship that will follow the dictates of the Old Testament and the Koran; we will welcome the strangers in our land and will share with them. |
BUILDING THE PARTNERSHIP
On Friday, April 15th, in Hospitality Hall of St. Joan of Arc, a new beginning was declared. We came together, we talked, we shared, and we broke bread together. We had a wonderful time and we said we will find a way to build a partnership between St. Joan of Arc and the very large Somali Community The Somali community is in immediate need of getting help to their people who have suffered from yet another tragedy, this time, the December Tsunami. The American government will not release funds for the Somali people because there is no government in place in Somali. The transitional government is still in Kenya. Their second major issue is their attempts at helping their fellow countryman build a stable government that other nations will recognize. Their third major and on-going issue is to give assistance to this large population of displaced people in a strange land.
JOIN US IN A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS
At the first gathering; the parishioners from St. Joan of Arc who met with Omar and his friends came up with some guidelines or goals:
- To reach out the Somali Community to bridge the religious, cultural, economic and citizenship status differences that have created the barriers that keep Somalis isolated and fearful of venturing out of their circle of friends.
- To develop a partnership that provides a model of tolerance, acceptance and welcoming to the rest of Minnesota and for our nation that is the mantra of the St. Joan of Arc Community.
- To find ways bring us together in a common purpose of improving our community, our nation and ourselves.
- To work together to respond to the challenge of providing tsunami relief assistance and ongoing economic and development assistance to Somali community in this country.
- To see to understand and respect our differences by gaining a greater understanding of the Christian and Islamic faiths through study, sharing and prayer.
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| Chuck MacDonald is member of St. Joan of Arc. He is on the Leadership Team of the Legacy Project, volunteers on South African projects, and is currently working to strengthen the International Ministries of SJA. He is also going to school part-time to re-vitalize his
painting skills. |
We are very much interested in expanding the number of St. Joan of Arc Community members who would like to join us in this new ministry. For more information please contact Julie Madden at 612.823.8205
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