The Welcome Mat of Friendship

By Albert Janzen

Although peaceful coexistence between Canadians and newcomers to Canada is a wonderful thing, there is potential for much more than that to upgrade the welcome mat that Canada puts out to help newcomers become woven into our multicultural fabric. I am not just thinking of the most recent arrivals but also about cultural groups that have made Canada their home for at least a generation or longer who have added new colors to our multicultural social spectrum.

I grew up in a safe and secluded cultural cocoon of Canadian newcomers who tried hard to retain their old-world identity. This is probably the same as most other Canadian newcomers today who would try to protect their identity as they learn how to put down their roots into the rich soil of Canadian opportunity and diversity. In my early adult life, I had a few life-changing experiences that helped me to see the assimilation process for Canadian newcomers in a different way.

When I left my cocoon and travelled to Europe and North Africa and later lived for a year in Ethiopia, I experienced what it was like to have a linguistic handicap of not knowing the language which probably planted the seed of interest in me to be an ESL teacher, which I am today. I know what it is like for my students to not be fluent in the language that I am fluent in. You will only get that experience by living for a longer time where English is not the dominant language.

I also know what it is like to live for longer periods of time in another country with only a few suitcases, as for most of the Latino Temporary Foreign Workers many of whom I get to know in my local area. I have been in many of their residences and can relate to their lifestyle because I have also lived that way before and for more than just a few weeks.

In I Corinthians 9:19-23, Paul writes about how he had learned ‘to become all things to all people’ which was something he had not been before his conversion to faith in Christ. I thank God that He has helped me to adopt the same attitude toward the many Canadian newcomers who I see every day in my community, especially the farm workers from central America for whom God has placed a special love from Him into my heart. Because most of them are so much younger than me, I could be their father or grandfather, but I never call myself that and rather use the term, Tio Canadiense [Canadian uncle] which they understand and appreciate.

I have volunteered in the Friendship Ministry of a local church to these workers for over ten years and taught casual ESL conversation classes at regular friendship evening events. Here are some more things I have done with them:

• Before they go back home, I have taken some of them shopping for gifts for their family.
• I have taken them for scenic rides in the area where they could not go on their own.
• I have become the go-to person to help them with US visa applications—I never expected how many of them would come for help, and they still contact me. I have developed my own documents to do this as a ministry and if anyone else out there wants to do this too, ask me, and I will send you the information.
• One time I visited a residence and taught them how to make a potato salad as a variation from the usual ‘greasy spoon’ diet. Here is something I am sure a group of Christian ladies could do even better than me!
• Several years before Christmas I organized an event called Christmas Cheer to Latinos to visit them in their residences and bring them small gifts and sing Christmas carols (different than ours!) because I felt it was not fair that we were in celebration mode while they could not be home to do the same.

I still hope to organize a group of Christian men to go and visit these guys to do bicycle maintenance because that is how they get around in the warmer months and they do not have a garage full of tools like most of us do.

I pray that we Canadian Christians will allow the Lord to open the eyes of our hearts to not just wait for our multicultural neighbors to come to us, and rather for us to go out to them and simply be their friends, and that the Spirit will lead us and allow the Presence of the Lord to shine out from our lives, amen.