Seth Barnes - This Refugee Story Took 41 Years to Tell

This Refugee Story Took 41 Years to Tell

I had a remarkable conversation with our air conditioner repairman today. I asked him about himself. He said, "I'm Benjamin. I came here ...

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I had a remarkable conversation with our air conditioner repairman today. I asked him about himself.

He said, "I'm Benjamin. I came here from Laos."

I asked, "When did you come to America?"

He said, "I was a 15-year-old refugee at a Thai refugee camp in 1980."

I said, "What camp? I was there then!"

He said, "We were headed to Nong Kai camp when it burned down."

I said, "I was at that camp in 1980 when it burned down!"

I got out old pictures of myself playing with the kids at the camp. Benjamin was amazed! We sat on our porch as it rained and looked through my old scrapbooks and journals, transported to the same place on the other side of the world 41 years ago.

Today Benjamin returned to install a new A/C. We talked further about his journey and he invited me to dinner at his relative's nearby Thai restaurant to talk further. The story is still being written...

The message I took away is that we humans tend to live in the short-term, but God sees the totality of our lives. How many of our stories are still being written? In light of that, how should we then live?