Mike -4: reconnecting

A couple weeks ago, I called up Mike to find out where he was. Remember? At the start of the summer, he and his family were waiting to see if they would get a flat. It worked out, and they are still living nearby.

I dropped by to visit on Sunday afternoon. The government support is not enough to pay the rent, so they pool their money from various odd jobs (refugees are allowed to work 12 hrs a week). All of this together barely pays the rent and puts food on the table. The chocolate and nuts that he brought out to serve me must have been pure gold. Moving into a flat like this is one more huge step toward a new life. It’s a step of faith that one day the government will approve their application and grant them asylum. Our voices echoed as we talked about the place, “It would be nice to have a computer, a sofa, a bed and a wardrobe.”

“So how’s it going? Still waiting?”

For sure the hardest thing is to deal with the boredom. “My father sits around all day and does not have enough to do. This is really hard for him.” Mike told me about his boxing training that he does each day. He commented, “Refugees are fighters, whereas, Austrians are students in school forever.

It is hard to follow any one thread to our conversation. We discussed the genocide that his people have experienced -over a half million were killed in ethnic cleansing. We paused at that… We wandered onto belief questions. How did God make the world? Who made God? Where did God come from? I was waiting for the question about evil in the world, but it never came.

Mike’s peers think he is crazy for thinking about these subjects faith questions. It doesn’t bother me, and when I think about this, I can see some growing purpose behind our visits.