The other day I was waiting to catch a bus to work at the intersection of Devon and Broadway. I looked down the street just as my bus was arriving and saw a familiar face. It was Krishna! The father from our family was all bundled up and looking to find his way home. We held up the bus for a minute while we tried to assist Krishna in getting home. It took a lot of pointing and “that way”s but eventually he must have gotten home safely. This encounter just makes me think about how many refugees there are out there stranded in the city, needing help, needing a friend, and that don’t have any of those things. The only reason Krishna got help was because of a random encounter that may never have happened if the bus had come 5 seconds earlier or Krishna had walked by 5 seconds later. If anyone still doesn’t know that there are refugees in our community then it is time to realize that everyday we walk by them, we sit next to them on the bus, we see them in the grocery aisle, and see them in all sorts of other places in the city. I sometimes forget how many refugees there are in our neighborhood, but encounters like this remind me that they are everywhere and they are a part of our community. We were able to help Krishna, but what about the hundreds of other refugees who I don’t know, and can’t help? Hopefully just being aware of the fact that there are refugees in our community and doing what I can to help those refugees will be enough to change the ignorance in our neighborhood.