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I have lived a life my grandfathers would not have believed. They left school at 10 years old because they had to go to work. I, on the other hand, have been able to study through university to graduate school and finally obtain a PhD. I have lived on two continents and in several different countries.
I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and attended the Penn State University where I studied Russian language and Russian area studies. Then I attended graduate school near Chicago. While in Chicago, I used my Russian to work with Russian Jewish immigrants who came to America looking for freedom and a better life.
Our life has been full of travel. After graduate school my wife and I went to Yugoslavia, which was a Communist country in Eastern Europe, with our two children - aged one and a half and six months old. During that time, we lived in Yugoslavia’s capital, Belgrade, and learned the Serbo-Croatian language. We used that language to teach future pastors and Christian workers in Vienna, Austria.
During the time of the Bosnian War, we moved back to Serbia from Vienna and continued to teach in the city of Novi Sad for two years. After that came a big change as we moved to Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, where I studied for my masters and my doctorate. We learned Dutch and met many more international people from around the world. Then, we moved again to the Netherlands where we have been teaching for the past 20 years at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Amsterdam. Our students have been European, North American, South American, African, and Asian.
So you can see that our lives have been, our lives would’ve been, unbelievable to our grandfathers. Two of our grandfathers were steel workers. My mother‘s father was an electrical lineman. Traveling and living around the world would’ve been unthinkable, unimaginable.
Through all of these times we have come to meet people who were displaced because of war. We have known displaced people in the US, in former Yugoslavia, in Serbia, in Belgium, and in the Netherlands.
War displaces people. War harms people. Were scars people. No matter where we have seen these dispossessed people, we have seen pain. Through no fault of their own, many people have been forced from their homes. They have lost all that they worked for. They have found themselves dispossessed.
Because of our experiences, we have gained a heart of compassion for displaced people and immigrants. Most immigrants and displaced people have nowhere to return to. They have been driven from their homes. They have been driven from their countries by violent actions. They have had insult added injury when those who supposedly were defending them stole from them. These so-called defenders stole what little these people could carry with them as they fled the war zone.
For example, when we lived in Novi Sad during the Bosnian War, we saw thousands, tens of thousands of refugees fleeng fighting. It is estimated that Serbian refugees fleeing Bosnia and Croatia in the mid ‘90s numbered up to 500,000 people, a half a million.
At this point in time there’s an estimated 79 1/2 million people who have been displaced by war. Many of these people, perhaps the majority, have nowhere to return to. Their cities have been bombed to destruction, complete destruction like the city of Aleppo in Syria.
However, often these potential immigrants are feared. They are feared because they are considered to be Muslims and of course all Muslims are dangerous. We must give up our preconceptions. We must gain the heart of compassion. I hope that you will find my book helpful. My goals are to help you understand the situation and to help you gain a heart of compassion so that you will act to help these people who are in desperate need.
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