We All Carry the Story of Displacement, Part I

This week, we mark World Refugee Day—a time to honor the resilience of people around the world who have been displaced by war, violence, climate catastrophe, and persecution. This is sacred, essential work. The Christian Reformed Church has long committed to walking alongside refugees, especially by equipping congregations in the Canada and the U.S. who offer welcome and support.

But I’ve noticed something: for many of us who grew up in North America—especially those of us who are white and middle-class—the reality of displacement can feel distant. Not always, of course; there are many exceptions. But for some of us, war and violence have thankfully always felt far away.

That doesn’t mean, however, that these global forces are absent from our stories.

I’m a white woman born in the Midwestern United States. I’ve lived here most of my life. But I’m also of Polish descent (yes, I know, not stereotypically Christian Reformed). Why does that matter? For much of its history, Poland wasn’t an independent country. It was partitioned and occupied by three empires: Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. My ancestors came from Galicia, in southern Poland, under Austrian rule. 

What did that mean for them? They lived under occupation. They spoke Polish, but had to navigate life in German. There were no Polish-language schools, no Polish passports. They survived through subsistence farming. Many were drafted as cannon fodder into foreign armies.

In 1915, my great-great-grandfather Jozef was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian military after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. But he didn’t want to fight for an empire that had taken his home. So he fled. He boarded a ship to Baltimore, and then a train to northern Michigan, where he worked as a farm laborer.

His wife, Aniela, remained in Poland with their three children—until the war reached their doorstep. When shelling hit their home, she gathered her kids, including one with polio, secured Austrian passports, and fled across what is now Germany to Bremen. From there, they sailed for Ellis Island.

They waited in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty for months. The U.S. wasn’t eager to welcome poor Polish Catholics—especially not desperate mothers with sick children. Somehow—no one in my family knows exactly how—Aniela got out of Ellis Island (notably, no one in my family has ever been able to locate documentation for her legal release into the United States). She ended up on the streets of New York with her three kids. A stranger who spoke German took her and the children in for a few days. Eventually, she found a way to reunite with Jozef in Michigan.

Pentecost and Displaced People

And as we reflect on World Refugee Day and Pentecost this June, I keep thinking about what it meant for the Spirit to speak in every language. Not just the polished tongues of the ruling empire, but the everyday languages of migrants and pilgrims, of scattered people longing for home.

Pentecost wasn’t just about words—it was about recognition. About a God who speaks into our own stories, in our own voices, especially when the world feels fractured. It was a moment when people from every corner of the known world heard, perhaps for the first time, that God sees them.

Poland in 1915 was not unlike places today—Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Sudan, Myanmar. Nations broken by empire, battered by war, divided by foreign interference and internal grief. And in every one of those places, there are people—mothers, children, neighbors—doing what they must to survive. Fleeing. Hoping. Waiting.

Moving Forward, Moving Onward

Aniela and Jozef lived the rest of their lives in a Polish-speaking community in rural northern Michigan as farm laborers. They never really learned to speak English; their kids went to a local Polish-language school where they picked up enough English to help their parents. 

 They always said they planned to return to Poland, but World War II flattened their village again, and money was always tight. It wasn’t until their grandchildren that anyone in my family made it back to the “ancestral homeland.” Still, I was always taught to feel a connection to that place and to honor the impossible bravery, faith, and compassion of a petite, impoverished, undocumented immigrant who found her way through an impossible situation with impossible bravery.

To read more about Aniela and Jozef's story and how it matters for our life and faith today, please continue reading Part II.