The Immigrant's Psalm

The Habteab family left Eritrea with two suitcases and a Bible. The suitcases were practical — a few changes of clothes, documents wrapped in plastic, photographs of the people they were leaving behind. The Bible was Miriam's. She had carried it since she was sixteen, and it bore the marks of a faith tested by things most people will never face.

The journey to the refugee camp in Ethiopia took eleven days on foot. Miriam's husband, Solomon, carried their youngest on his back. Their older daughter, Ruth, walked on blistered feet without complaint. They arrived at the camp dehydrated, disoriented, and grateful to be alive.

The camp was not what anyone would call home. Rows of tents stretched to the horizon. The food was rationed. The future was invisible. Solomon, who had been an engineer in Asmara, spent his days standing in lines — for water, for food, for paperwork that might or might not lead somewhere.

Miriam opened her Bible every morning in the tent. The pages were soft from years of handling. She read in Tigrinya, the language of her heart. And in the camp, where everything was uncertain, the words became the only solid ground her family had.

The psalm she returned to most often was Psalm 46.

"Our earth had given way," Miriam says. "We lost our home, our country, our safety. The mountains of our life had fallen. But the psalm said 'therefore we will not fear.' Not because the mountains did not fall — they did. Because God is our refuge even when everything else collapses."

A church volunteer at the camp introduced Miriam to FaithMentor. When Miriam saw that it was available in multiple languages, she wept. She set it to Tigrinya was not available, so she used English — the language she was learning — and the verses arrived each morning like fresh manna.

The day the resettlement letter arrived — the letter that said the family had been approved for relocation to Minnesota — FaithMentor gave Miriam Isaiah 41:10.

"I am with you." Three words that covered the distance between Eritrea and Minnesota. Between the known and the unknown. Between the country where her Bible was first opened and the country where it would be read in a new language.

The Habteab family has been in Minnesota for two years. Solomon works at a manufacturing plant. Ruth is in high school and translates for her parents at the grocery store. The youngest, now five, speaks English better than Tigrinya — which makes Miriam both proud and a little sad.

Every morning, Miriam opens FaithMentor. The verses arrive in English now — a language that is slowly becoming hers. But Psalm 46 she still reads in Tigrinya. Some truths need to be spoken in the language of the heart.

"We came to this country with two suitcases and a Bible," Miriam says. "The suitcases are long gone. The Bible is still here. And the God who was our refuge in Eritrea, in the camp, and on the road — he is our refuge in Minnesota too. He did not stay behind. He came with us. Psalm 46 promised he would. And he did."