He is My Deliverer
SowH Training with Pakistani Asylum Seekers in Thailand
“Amin” (not his real name) is one of Thailand's thou-sands of asylum seekers. He is married with three children. He and his family arrived in Thailand in 2014.
Born in Lahore, Pakistan in March 1977, Amin grew up in a Sikh community as a fifth- generation Chris-tian. From an early age, Amin has experienced reli-gious discrimination from Muslims.
Before coming to Thailand, Amin held a well-paid job as a garment factory supervisor, overseeing around three hundred employees, most of whom were Chris-tians. However, the Muslim workers resented the Christians rising to good positions. On one occasion, a mechanic, who was a Muslim, insulted him with the term "Chura," a derogatory caste description used for road and gutter sweepers. Amin retaliated and the situation escalated, resulting in an attack where Amin narrowly escaped serious harm. Later he testified that he only survived because God saved him.
Amin became an asylum seeker after an incident in which one of his cousins was promoted at work, re-sulting in displeasure from the Muslim community. They filed a blasphemy case against his cousins. Amin became involved when these fundamentalists discov-ered that he had sheltered his cousins for ten months. As a result, his name was added to a blacklist. To force his cousins out of hiding, the fundamentalists targeted Amin’s family. They attacked Amin’s brother, vandalized his brother’s shop, and assaulted his mother at his parents' house. Following this incident, Amin’s mother urged him not to return home.
Amin left his home in September 2014, when the situ-ation became increasingly dangerous. He stayed in various places for two months, sold his property, and paid an agency to arrange passports and visas for his family to seek asylum in Thailand, where they arrived in November 2014. The day after their departure, Amin's cousins were arrested and later, in 2018, they were sentenced to death. They remain in prison to this day. Due to the life-threatening situation, Amin's parents and the rest of his family fled to Thailand, ex-cept for one sibling who lived far from Lahore.
In 2018, Amin applied for asylum in a first-world country through the United Nations High Commis-sioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but his case was reject-ed due to translation issues. The Muslim translator did not translate his statements accurately, leading the UNHCR to state that they did not understand his case, which was subsequently closed. Before his case was rejected, Amin’s family received help from social ser-vices, particularly for his children’s education. After the rejection, his children stopped attending school. Amin cannot reapply to the UNHCR. The family’s hope for asylum rests with a non-governmental organization that can sponsor their travel, pay overstay penalty fees, and cover overhead expenses until the family is settled in a new country.
Despite all these challenges, Amin has never doubted the Lord or his faith. He remains proud to be a Christian, say-ing, "What I learned from my childhood has strengthened me and my walk with Christ. So, I am still proud to be a Christian even after every-thing.”
“I will say of the LORD, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.’”
