New Year reflection from a refugee to the country I now call home

Yuliia Bond

At the beginning of 2026, I’m writing as myself.

Not as a headline. Not as a statistic. But as a person who became displaced in 2022, when my life in Ukraine split into before and after.

I didn’t come to Wales chasing something better.

I came because safety for my children disappeared overnight. Because war does that – it shrinks your world down to one question: how do we survive?

That’s why the Christmas story doesn’t feel distant to me.

It feels painfully close.

We like to soften it – the carols, the candles, the calm.

But Christmas is not a comfortable story.

It is a refugee story.

A young family displaced by politics they did not control.

No room. No certainty.

Violence close enough to force them to run for their child’s life.

A dangerous journey into a foreign land, relying entirely on the kindness of strangers.

Mary. Joseph. Jesus.

They survived because someone opened a door.

Without that welcome, there would be no Christmas.

And yet today when more than 110 million people around the world are forcibly displaced, refugees are increasingly spoken about as problems, threats, costs. Even here in Wales, I feel the atmosphere changing. I hear it in conversations. I see it online. Far-right narratives are growing louder, and compassion is slowly being pushed aside by fear and hate.

That scares me, not only as a refugee, but as a human being.

Because Jesus never divided people by nationality.

He never asked where someone was from before he healed them.

He crossed borders – cultural, social, religious – constantly.

He welcomed the people others avoided.

The refugee child grew into a man whose entire life was about radical welcome.

Christmas is not just about generosity.

It is about incarnation, God choosing not to stay distant.

Not offering sympathy from afar.

But becoming human. Becoming vulnerable. Becoming with us.

And for me, this is where faith becomes real.

Being Christian today, truly, is not about politely tolerating injustice.

It is not about feeling sad while harmful systems remain untouched.

It is not about staying neutral when people’s dignity is stripped away.

To me, being Christian means not accepting injustice as normal.

It means caring and acting.

Standing alongside people who are silenced.

Fighting, gently but firmly, for a more just world.

Because praying for people is easier than standing with them.

Good intentions are easier than hard conversations.

But Jesus never chose the easy road.

And systems matter.

Restricted

In the UK today, asylum seekers are not allowed to work for the first 12 months of their claim, even if they desperately want to. Even after that, they are restricted to a narrow list of jobs that often ignores their real skills. Doctors. Nurses. Teachers. Journalists. Engineers. People ready to contribute, forced into waiting and dependency.

This helps no one.

In Wales, we struggle to staff the NHS, care homes, rural communities. The people so often described as a “burden” are very often the people who could strengthen our society, if we allowed them to belong.

I have seen another reality.

I have felt safety return because a stranger smiled at me.

I have seen community built through small acts, invitations, help with buses, shared meals, patient conversations.

At the beginning of 2026, I am asking for memory and courage.

Remember that Jesus was a refugee.

Remember that Christmas only exists because people chose welcome over fear and hate.

Remember that faith without justice is empty.

Looking ahead, this is the Wales I want to believe in.

A Wales that chooses dignity over division.

A Wales that refuses fear and hate as an identity.

This is the country I believe in.

Hope

And as I hold hope for this place that gave my kids safety, I also hold hope, fiercely, for my home country, Ukraine.

For peace.

For return.

For healing.

May the Christmas we recently celebrated remind us that love is not abstract.

Hope is not passive.

And welcome, real welcome, can change the course of a life.

Yuliia Bond has lived in Caerphilly since 2022 after fleeing Ukraine in the wake of Putin’s brutal invasion of her country