Hi there from The Netherlands! Maybe you guys have read one of these stories:
New York Times (1)
CNN
New York Times (2)
Washington Post
As one of the pastors of the parish where this church asylum is being organized (but, full disclosure: not one of the organizers thereof), let me tell you how this all started:
The Tamrazyan family, parents with three children now aged 14 to 21, fled political persecution in Armenia and arrived in The Netherlands in 2010, where their asylum procedure took a total of more than eight years, also because the Dutch government appealed two court decisions which allowed them to stay here. Finally, the highest court ruled that the government could deport them and their appeal to the Child Amnesty Regulation got rejected. That’s why at the beginning of October this year they took shelter in the church of their parish in Katwijk, not far from The Hague. I only knew their story because I’d read a couple of stories in the local paper about it.
That changed late in the evening on October 24th. I actually had a week off and for the first time in five years, we stayed at home during our holiday. Only because of that and because of the fact that I’d forgotten to put my work-phone to silent-mode, I heard it ring after 11p.m. Taking a look at the display, I noticed that someone was calling who usually only calls me in urgent situations, so grudgingly, I decided to take the call. The person calling me told me that he was volunteering to help the Tamrazyan family in Katwijk and that they expected them to be taken out of the church by the Dutch authorities that same night to be deported. He knew that in one of the church-buildings of the parish, I work for, we had an uninhibited flat and asked me point-blank: Can they move there tonight?
That call prompted a series of hectic phone calls with colleagues, some of which on holidays abroad. Luckily, I quickly got another call with the information that their rounding-up had been postponed, so the next day, church officials of The Protestant Church Of The Hague could gather in secrecy and after a lot of deliberations, they decided to indeed do this, to grant a church asylum to this family. Mainly, because already for a long time, our “mother-church”, The Protestant Church Of The Netherlands, had protested how the Dutch Child Amnesty Regulation was being implemented.
Agreed to in 2013, the Child Amnesty Regulation addressed the fate of about 1.300 migrant families whose asylum procedure in The Netherlands took so long that in the meantime, their children developed and grew up completely integrated in Dutch society and Dutch culture. It would be cruel, its defendants argued, to send those children back to countries they, in a lot of cases, had never seen before. Repeatedly, different researchers and child psychologists have confirmed that view, finding that deporting these children will severely harm their development and traumatize them for life.
Nevertheless, since this Amnesty Regulation has been law here, more than 94% of the families applying for it were rejected and deported, because of the rules surrounding it. For instance, somewhat paradoxically, families can only qualify for amnesty if they had been willing to cooperate with official efforts to deport them from the country. This practically means that families only qualify, once they have been deported – only that deportation also negates their right to the same amnesty. For that reason, immigration lawyers have even stopped applying for amnesty for their clients, because it will get rejected anyway.
So, to take a stand against this inhumane practice, to create safety and a time of rest for this family and to enter into a dialogue with the government about their fate and about the fate of the approximately 400 remaining children of asylum-seekers who technically qualify for the Child
Amnesty Regulation, on October 26th at 1.30p.m., the Tamrazyan family entered our Community Center Bethel in a sleepy residential area here in The Hague and immediately, the church service started. It has gone on 24/7 since then.
This has to do with how the Dutch separation between church and state is being regulated. According to Dutch law, the authorities are not allowed to enter a church building while a religious service is ongoing. So, to protect the Tamrazyan family from deportation, we pastors and Christians do what we do best: praying, singing, holding and listening to sermons and worshiping – as I write this, already for 1.325 hours non-stop.
To be honest, I had never believed that this would go on that long. When the welcome-service started (see the picture at the top with Theo Hettema, the spokesman of this church asylum at the pulpit and me sitting to the right), I hoped that maybe, we’ll manage for a whole week or so. But luckily, The Protestant Church Of The Hague, with the help of a lot of volunteers, set up a brilliantly run organization: after the welcome-service, I took over together with a couple of parish members. Beforehand, I had copied & pasted the order of about 500 of the weekly evening-prayers with songs from Taizé we have held at Bethel for the last ten years into one huge file and we just started off meditatively with that. During these first six hours, volunteers put out the word to colleagues and church parishes in the whole of The Netherlands and almost immediately, the rotation filled more and more. Within 48 hours we gained support of our “mother church” and of several other denominations after that. Still, I would have never thought that eight weeks later, this is still ongoing and that during this time, this little chapel and this church asylum would catch the world’s attention and inspire so many people worldwide. As it stands now, more than 650 pastors, priests, elders, deacons and students, some of which even from abroad, from more than 20 different Christian denominations have led an hour or more of this ongoing service and more than 6.000 people have visited to worship themselves and to show their support. You can find a lot of pictures and short films of the service posted to my Twitter-feed @elziax, the Twitter-feed of Bethel @BethelDenHaag and under the hashtags #kerkasielBethel and the less-used #churchasylumBethel.
Meanwhile, behind the curtains, talks with the Dutch government are ongoing. We still pray and hope for a Christmas miracle for the Tamrazyan family and the other 400 children growing up under the same uncertainty as their three kids.
If you would like to show your support, but are too far away to visit yourself, we appreciate every prayer for the Tamrazyans and this church asylum. Apart from that, a donation would be very welcome, also financially, this church asylum has grown quite out of proportion for the relatively small protestant church of The Hague. You can find several different possibilities to help in English and also the financial details of this church asylum here , although the most easy way to donate surely is via Paypal to fa@stekdenhaag.nl. Thank you so much for your attention and your support!
