“The hardest thing… the best thing”

Dear friends,

This month, we commemorated World Refugee Day. World Refugee Day is a mix of celebration, because refugees are resilient people made in God’s image who have overcome incredible persecution and hardship, and lament, because that 120 million people around our world have been forced to flee their homes is a heartbreaking reality of a deeply broken world.

More than 37 million of those forcibly displaced people are refugees, individuals who have left not just their homes but their countries because of a well-founded fear of persecution. When I started working with refugees in 2006, there were fewer than 10 million refugees globally. The numbers have roughly-quadrupled in less than two decades.

As the number of refugees globally has increased dramatically, I’m grateful to see the U.S. government stepping up to resettle more refugees. This year, the U.S. is on track to resettle roughly 100,000 refugees. While that’s only about one-quarter of one-percent of the global total, but it’s also the largest number in roughly three decades.

One innovative way that the U.S. has increased the number of refugees it is able to welcome is by expanding opportunities for churches and other small groups of Americans to be directly involved in sponsoring refugees – and that process means that it’s now possible for a church anywhere in the country, not just in close proximity to an existing refugee resettlement program, to welcome a family.

My friend Bri Stensrud, who leads the Women of Welcome project, has worked with her church small group to welcome a family to Colorado. I asked her to reflect on the experience:

Our Bible study group had never done anything like this before and we were all nervous as we drove our families, babies and all, to the airport to welcome a family we’d never met into our lives and community. We had sat in our living rooms for months, deliberating, praying, and ideating about what this family would need from us when they arrived. We had no idea where they’d come from, why they’d fled their home, and what they had endured to finally be resettled in the U.S. Holding “welcome” signs in Arabic, we nervously waited for them to walk into the airport lobby. And then, they were here. Suddenly a refugee family who had fled immense suffering on the other side of the world was now safe in our families’ tight grip. Before any words were spoken, hugs and laughter filled the lobby. We had done something outside of our experience or personal margin. We had brought a family to a place of new beginnings.

It’s been two months now, and the work to resettle this family has been extensive. It’s taken more hours and more emotional investment than we all could have anticipated. And yet, as one of our small group members said, “This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s the best thing we’ve ever done as a family. Thank you for inviting us into this work.”

With an estimated 37 million refugees displaced from their homes, awaiting welcome anywhere else in the world that is willing to have them, now is the most poignant time in history to challenge the Church to rise up and meet this global mission field. People are hungry to change the world, so let’s not grow weary of inviting people into this kind of work. Our compassion in this space isn’t political, it’s meant to be prophetic.  So, let’s do this together. This is worthy Kingdom work.

As we close off the month of June, I’d ask you to join Bri and me as we pray for refugees and others who’ve been forced from their homes:

• For each refugee, that they would be protected from persecution, find a place of belonging and know the love of their Creator
• For more and more teams from local churches to step up to welcome refugees, here in the United States and around the world
• For the president, who will reset the annual “ceiling” on refugee admissions sometime in the next several months, and for all candidates for the presidency, that both the rhetoric of the campaign season and the eventual policies that they pursue would affirm the dignity and value of refugees
• For peace in the midst of conflicts fueling refugees’ departures from countries like Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, Burma and many others

In Christ,

Matthew Soerens
National Coordinator, Evangelical Immigration Table

Bri Stensrud
Director, Women of Welcome

P.S. Bri’s new book, Start with Welcome, is a great resource for individuals seeking a biblical understanding of this complex issue of displacement and migration.