By Karen Lovitt, Feb 1, 2010

Immigrants waiting at the airport.

he small domestic airport just inside the Nepal border was swarming with people. Within minutes of arrival, I realized we were clearly in the minority, though not for the reasons you might think.

We had arrived early for a flight to Kathmandu and had lots of time to watch what was going on around us. The terminal was one large open room, so we could see hundreds of people in various stages of checking luggage, waiting for their flights and queuing up to pass through security checks.

As I said, we were in the minority. Looking around, I realized that nearly everyone else in the terminal was wearing ID tags around their necks with their name, the name of an organization and their flight number. The tags were color coded by flight. As the first flight was announced, the passengers queued up in orderly fashion to board the plane. But they didn’t wear the looks of people on holiday. There were few smiles. Most looked preoccupied, anxious. Soon, we realized the people were refugees, and the tags they wore showed the organization that was helping them.

For many of the young people in the airport, a refugee camp in southeastern Nepal was the only home they have ever known. Driven from their homes nearly 20 years ago, thousands of people had lived in refugee camps ever since. Beginning in 2007, several countries, including the U.S., agreed to accept some refugees and help them get out of this long-standing situation.

I leaned over to a twentyish-looking young man with an ID tag sitting quietly nearby. “Bhai (younger brother), where are you going?”

“Today to Kathmandu, then two days from now to the U.S.”

“Is everyone going to the U.S.?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “but not everyone is going to the same place.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Louisville, Ken-tucky,” he pronounced the name uncertainly.

“Do you know anyone there? Is anyone going with you?”

“I don’t know anyone. I’m going alone.”

As he answered me, his flight was called, and abruptly he was gone. My heart went out to him as I considered the isolation he is bound to face alone in a new, foreign place.

I went over and sat beside a teenage girl and her family. She and her sister were anxious to chat and introduced me to their parents. Their whole family of five was headed to Denver, Colorado, where they would meet a relative. They were happy to learn I was American. They wanted my assurance that they were welcome in my country. I gave it while fighting back tears—tears I could not attempt to explain. My heart ached for them, knowing that, though the life they are leaving was not great, the challenges they will face in America were incomprehensible to them. Not only do I understand this from personal experience, I understand enough of their culture to know that it is harder to go from East to West than vice versa. Likely the most significant challenge will be the differences between the community-based society they are accustomed to and the society of individuals they are joining. Strange food and different clothes pale into insignificance beside this fundamental difference.

My heart goes out to these refugees, and my prayers attend them. I hope they meet with kindness. I hope they meet people who are willing to just sit and talk with them, people who will give them some of the precious commodity of time. I hope they get to eat daal-bhaat (rice and lentils) regularly. Comfort foods make everything a little easier. I hope they meet people who can tell them a world is coming that all of us can call home, with a King anxious to welcome them into a place prepared just for them.