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April 11, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 7Oakland,
CA
Lay missioners aid desperate refugees in Thailand
Five years ago, they were the self-described new kids
on the block. Today, Nancy and Bob McFarland of Petaluma are seasoned
Maryknoll Affiliates.
As retirees, both have used the career skills from their previous lives
– Nancy as a hospice/ hospital social worker, and Bob as an insurance
administrator — in Thailand as advocates for “the most desperate
of the desperate—refugees seeking asylum, people very much on the
edge, people who had been victims of torture, rape, forced labor,”
said Nancy McFarland.
The couple, active in social justice and human rights causes at St. James
Parish in Petaluma for many years, decided in 2000 to commit themselves
more fully to this work. They envisioned a kind of religious vocation
that could be pursued during brief spans each year to compliment their
lives as lay people.
Maryknoll Affiliates is exactly the venue they were looking for, said
Nancy. Affiliates meet monthly for prayer, discussion, discernment and
updates on world events. Unlike the Maryknoll priests, Brothers, Sisters,
and volunteers, however, affiliates spend only three months each year
at their assignments.
The McFarlands will speak about their work as affiliates tomorrow, April
12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Maryknoll Center, 16300 Foothill Blvd. in San
Leandro.
The McFarland’s’ first appointment in Bangkok quickly plunged
them “into the middle of intensely emotional, transformative work,”
Nancy said.
The couple was assigned to a shelter for 15-20 asylum seekers awaiting
transfer by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees to permanent
homes in safe countries. Until January, the Maryknoll Missionary Order
sponsored the shelter, the only one of its kind in Bangkok. Now it is
under the auspices of the Thai Catholic Church.
Its purpose, however, remains the same:
protecting refugees from Iraq, North Korea, African nations and other
countries who are seeking asylum. Many arrive at the shelter with fake
passports, purchased with their life’s savings. The McFarlands did
intake interviews, helped the refugees with paperwork and coached them
on how to conduct themselves during interviews with local UN officials.
Nancy said many of the refugees suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome
and do not remember some specifics, such as dates, leading up to their
escapes so they need help in framing
the details of their terrible predicaments.
“Their stories and their lives broke our hearts,” she said.
She especially remembers one Iraqi family who had fled Baghdad to escape
from Saddam Hussein. Mohammed Al-Moosawi, a freedom fighter, had spent
nine years in prison for working against the dictator’s government.
While imprisoned, he was shot in the knee and had an eye ripped out, said
McFarland.
Al-Moosawi, his wife, Amira, and their 12-year-old daughter, Naba, remained
for many months at the Bangkok shelter before the UN granted them asylum
with family members living in Denmark.
“They were so happy,” said Nancy. “Before they left,
they invited us to their little hotel room for a Middle Eastern feast.
They wanted to give something back to the people who had helped them.”
Working as a lay missioner has been an exercise in flexibility, she said,
remembering when she was asked to start a Buddhist meditation group at
a prison hospice for AIDS patients. She took a deep breath and agreed,
wondering where she would find a practicing Buddhist willing to help her
out. Fortunately, after asking around, she discovered that one of the
nurses working there was a master meditator.
One of Nancy McFarland’s most profound lessons in the flexibility
needed for missionary work occurred during her most recent visit.
She was asked to work with a 16-year-old Burmese refugee who had been
raped by her employer, the owner of a construction site where she was
working. She escaped from the site, but was brought back by Thai police,
who also raped her. When she escaped once more and made her way to the
shelter, the teenager was literally speechless.
The traumatized girl would sit and stare into space. But she would allow
a 12-year-old friend to bring her to meals. The younger girl loved to
dance the native dances of the Burmese culture. One day, eager to find
a way to get through to the 16-year-old, Nancy asked, “Can you dance?”
The girl visibly brightened, so Nancy asked the girl’s young friend
to begin teaching her the Balinese mudras and feet positions. Although
the older girl seemed to come out of her shell a bit, she still hadn’t
spoken by the time the McFarlands were ready to return to California.
But shortly before their departure, the teenager drew a heart on a piece
of paper and gave it to Nancy McFarland.
In addition to her counseling work, Nancy spent a brief time in southern
Thailand after a devastating tsunami hit the area on Dec. 26. She flew
to Phuket to assess the needs of 2,000 Burmese refugees, migrants and
fisher folk who lived and worked there, most of them illegally.
They were found hiding in the forest, too afraid to seek medical attention
or food from the Thai Red Cross because of worries that they would be
arrested and sent back to Burma, where human rights abuses abound.
Indeed, one group of Burmese refugees had been rounded up by locals and
put into cages, said Nancy, and a local priest advocating on their behalf
was fined.
The McFarlands are eager to get the word out to other Americans about
Maryknoll Affiliates because there is plenty of room for lay people to
become involved in serious ministry abroad. “It will be the lay
people who carry the Maryknoll legacy forward,” she said.
McFarland says her involvement with Maryknoll has changed the way she
looks at her ministry.
“In the beginning, it was not very difficult separating myself from
the suffering of the people with whom I was in mission, and it continued
to be life-giving. But today, I now look at mission as a way of being
at every moment. The gifts I have received continue to strengthen and
renew me, and hopefully are shared in my ministry at home as well as in
my life.”
(Further information about Maryknoll Affiliates is available by calling
Deacon Matt Dulka at the Maryknoll Center, 510-276-5021 or visiting www.maryknoll.us.)
Nancy and Bob McFarland sit with 12-year-old Naba (left) and her mother Amira (right) for a celebratory meal after the Iraqi refugee family was granted asylum in Denmark. The McFarlands worked with the family who were political refugees in Bangkok and stayed for a time in the Maryknoll shelter there.
MOHAMMED AL-MOOSAWI PHOTO
These are some of the children of asylum seekers living at the Maryknoll (now Thailand Catholic Church) Shelter in Bangkok.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NANCY MCFARLAND
