Common Barriers-Veteran Immigrants

There are two types of veteran immigrants: those that have lived here many years, yet still live in a miniature model of their home country in a European context, and those that have lived here many years, yet have mixed European traditions with those of their own.

The first group reminds me of the movie Spanglish. A mother and daughter travel from Mexico to LA and find themselves in a world not too different than their own. They are able to shop at Mexican grocery stores, and attend Catholic Spanish Mass. This is what some immigrant neighborhoods look like in Europe. You will find Arabic written on store fronts, and men and women carry out their lives just as if they were actually living in their own culture. The barrier to reaching this group is that it can be hard to get into their oikos. They have a tight group of like minded friends and family and although an unbelieving Westerner may be welcomed into a surface level friendship, it is hard to become a true friend. At times, they can become suspicious of the Westerner because they wonder why this person is shopping in the Moroccan, Turkish or Pakistani markets. If you hope to reach these immigrants, you will need lots of patience, and lots of time. These relationships will need to be dealt with delicately and you must be a disciplined learner of your new acquaintance’s culture.

The second group of immigrants are those that have lived here for years, very likely speak the language very well, and have embraced many European customs. For women, they often are no longer covered, but they may still have many Muslim girlfriends. These women are also more likely to be single or widowed. When one worker met an immigrant at a evangelical church service, she asked the woman if she was a follower of Christ. The Muslim woman responded by saying that she came to the church because she enjoys learning about other religions, and her own religion of Islam is very accepting of other faiths. These immigrants probably have some of the least amount of barriers. They are much more willing to learn about your faith, and hear what God has done in your life. However, they are still very Muslim in their mentality, and it is quite a stretch for them to accept the Bible says as true. They will enjoy learning about your religion, but accepting it is still very difficult. Also, if these people still have close friends who are more devout, they may feel the pressure to appear more devout around them, and therefore to give up Islam, is a big decision.