NEWS FEATURE: Churches refugee resettlement work `welcomes the stranger’

c. 1997 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Trish Martin didn’t plan on getting all that involved. She’d say hello, drop off a few bags of groceries, and more or less, she’d have done her part for St. Edward’s Episcopal Church of Wayzata, Minn., and their refugee resettlement project. But then, last February, she volunteered to […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Trish Martin didn’t plan on getting all that involved. She’d say hello, drop off a few bags of groceries, and more or less, she’d have done her part for St. Edward’s Episcopal Church of Wayzata, Minn., and their refugee resettlement project.

But then, last February, she volunteered to meet the congregation’s first refugee _ an Iraqi _ at the airport.”From the minute I met him, I knew I wanted to be more involved,”Martin said.”There’s something about someone who can’t speak English but wants to be part of the culture that just sort of draws you in.” Martin is typical of hundreds of other members of churches, synagogues and mosques who daily go about the unheralded work of refugee resettlement, welcoming strangers to America and giving them a hand in adjusting to their new country.


It’s also work that is going on in an increasingly hostile climate as the nation engages in a sometimes bitter debate over immigration and the costs and benefits of newcomers to American society.

On Friday (Aug. 29), the State Department released a report showing that the number of refugees admitted to the United States had dropped some 40 percent since 1992, when 132,000 refugees were admitted. Most were Russians, claiming religious persecution, or”boat people,”continuing the exodus from communist-dominated Vietnam.

Worldwide there are an estimated 14.6 million refugees who have fled their homeland fearing persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality or for their social or political opinions.

For some 99 percent of those refugees, resettlement occurs in neighboring countries; repatriation may even be possible after time passes. But for the remaining fraction, third country resettlement, such as in the United States, is the most viable option. In 1995, about 70,000 people sought refugee in one of the 10 nations that accept third country resettlement.

Among those 10, the United States ranks 5th in the per capita number of refugees it admits _ behind Sweden, Canada, Australia and Denmark. In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the number of refugees admitted to the United States will be 78,000 or less, the lowest number in a decade.

Many of those resettled in the United States receive substantial aid from religious groups like Church World Service, the aid agency of the National Council of Churches, which has settled some 400,000 refugees since 1946.

Those engaged in the resettlement work done by Church World Service and related agencies say that while they are motivated by their faith, proselytizing and conversion activities are not part of their purposes.”It’s based on the faith of the church community and the gospel call to welcome the stranger,”said the Rev. Jennifer Riggs, a member of the Disciples of Christ and chairwoman of the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program Committee (IRPCOM). The people of the Bible, she said, knew what it meant to be a”pilgrim people.” Welcoming”strangers”also helps those who work with refugees to expand their worldviews, Riggs said.”They learn that people are different around the world and that just understanding their own local community doesn’t mean that they understand the world. In some cases, working with someone at the poverty level helps them understand what it means for a poor person in their own community.” The Rev. Howard Schipper, a Reformed Church in America pastor and a member of the committee Riggs chairs, agrees that people of faith hold a unique responsibility to care for the displaced in their midst.”Christians need to take the leadership in demonstrating that we ought to be receptive to the strangers in our midst and the uprooted in our world,”Schipper said.”One of the things that you have to overcome is the enormity of the problem. Instead of feeling sorry for a million, help one.” But even helping a few refugee families is a tremendous responsibility, Martin said. It takes time and resources, so joining with neighboring religious communities makes the work more feasible.


For refugees, the road to resettlement can be long and bureaucratic. After approval by the government, refugees are usually settled by an agency, such as Church World Service or Catholic Relief Service, which moves the refugees through the bureaucratic system. Local congregations provide the physical and moral assistance in such areas as learning English, finding housing, getting jobs, rounding up furniture and clothing, and giving money for groceries or transportation during the months its takes to get a family on its feet.”Refugee services really get them moving through the system,”Martin said.”We provide them with the relief.” Piroska Lueck knows just how important that relief can be.

She arrived in the United States 34 years ago as a 14-year-old Hungarian refugee. She and her family first fled to Germany and then Austria, she said, before arriving here shortly before Christmas 1963. “It’s a long road,”she said.”Even years later, there are moments when nostalgia engulfs a person.” Now, she and other members of Belgrade Avenue United Methodist Church in North Mankato, Minn., along with Christ the King Lutheran Church and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, are helping to settle a Bosnian family _ the Hrnjez family _ who began their stay in the United States at Lueck’s home before moving on to the Saints Peter and Paul (Roman) Catholic Pastoral Center.

For Lueck and others working with the family, their first tasks were filling out job applications and beginning the task of learning English, aided by a Serbian-English dictionary and a children’s picture word-book.”They feel great, very relaxed,”their translator said.

Lueck said similar challenges of adjusting to language and culture existed when she came to the United States but current anti-immigrant feelings and racism make the transition more difficult now for newcomers.”It’s scary,”she said.”We told them (the Hrnjez family), `Culturally, we are friendly to you, but you will come across people who are not friendly to you. Even in our congregation there are people who are not in favor of resettling refugees.'” Jane Lowicki, public information officer for Church World Service, said her agency sees an increase in xenophobia and racism.”Part of the (resettlement) job is to establish a hospitable community and to help build a sense of community,”Lowicki said.”When you can have a church community involved, they (refugees) have a community of our support.” MJP END CAMPBELL

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