A lesson learned in waiting

Last week I felt frustrated that I had to join a long line to register for a German language course and felt dissatisfied with what I considered to be an inefficient system.

The first day we lined up to register, they ran out of numbered tickets for an appointment slot, despite the fact that we turned up an hour before the office opened. So the next day we arrived around 7.00am even though the office didn’t open until 2.30pm. However, everyone else had the same idea and we found ourselves joining the end of a line of people on the ground floor. The beginning of the line started two floors above us. How long would we wait? We were eventually allocated the last two tickets for that day and after a considerable wait, were able to register for the course.

However, later that week I felt humbled by two women I spoke with at the Oasis, who related their stories of “waiting” to me. What trivial complaints I have!

An Egyptian woman is waiting for her application for asylum to be processed. She fled her country due to persecution and described to me an example of what life was like there for her: One day she was stopped in the street by a man who questioned why she wasn’t wearing the correct covering. She explained to him that she wasn’t a Muslim, she was a Christian. His response was to pour acid over her, burning her body. She now bears the physical (and inner scars) of proclaiming faith in Christ. Now she waits for her interview to be scheduled here in Austria. She has no idea when this will happen or what the outcome will be. She longs for the day when she may see her family, who are living in America. She waits.

A Syrian mother has been granted asylum in Austria and has been living here with her husband and young children for about five years now. I see her looking stressed and distraught as she shows news footage depicting the horrors occurring in her homeland of Syria. Moving over to her she tells me, with tears streaming down her face, that she is still waiting to hear from her family back in Syria. All communication has been cut off and she has heard that they do not have food and water. I hug her. It has been too long since she has heard from them and she fears for their lives. She waits.