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Christianity Reaps "unimaginable Dividends" for Bantu Immigrants

Thread ID: 18196 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2005-05-11

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Stigmata [OP]

2005-05-11 12:48 | User Profile

**Unimaginable dividends: United Methodists in ministry to refugees and immigrants **

June 23, 2004 By Thomas Abraham

If it takes a village to raise a child, United Methodists are finding that it can take several churches to co-sponsor a refugee family.

Hundreds of volunteers from more than 30 churches of the Central Texas Conference helped in the resettlement of the Mudeys, a Somali Bantu family that arrived in Fort Worth last year.

The volunteers furnished an East District house, filled the fridge with food, the closets with clothing, and the cabinets with kitchenware and toiletries. A stroller stood ready for Abdullahi, the youngest child. Stuffed animals awaited hugs from Ismahan, Omar, Aisha and Mohammed, the other four Mudey children.

The Mudeys left one extended family — other Somali Bantu with whom they escaped the civil war in Somalia over 12 years ago — and found another in the UMC volunteers who co-sponsored them.

In the months that followed the family’s arrival in the US, churches near the Mudeys’ new home provided transportation, clothing, regular deliveries of groceries, and guidance adapting to a new culture. Women from churches further away sewed traditional African dresses—otherwise not readily available for the mother and daughters.

The 30-plus churches had a lot to offer. Retirees drove the Mudeys to medical appointments and read to the children. Farmers provided fresh produce. Children offered peer interaction and hand-me-down toys. Youth helped with homework assignments. Young parents shared parenting insights and self-sufficiency skills. Other adults gave driving lessons and tips on budgeting.

The wide-ranging co-sponsorship effort was pulled together by Gloria Reeves, refugee coordinator for the Central Texas Conference.

“Coordinators are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the staff of the local affiliate of Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program,” says Susan Wersan of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). “Many serve on the board or advisory committee of the affiliate.”

Backed up by the denomination’s Book of Discipline, Wersan, Program Coordinator and Sponsorship Developer Nancy Delaney and Administrative Secretary Carmen Hernandez promote these appointments in the 31 United Methodist Annual Conferences where CWS-IRP affiliates are located. Refugee coordinators like Reeves are often on the mission committee of their Conference.

When Reeves was appointed, she visited with staff of Refugee Services of Texas to learn about the program.

“She felt that many small churches that balked at taking on the full responsibility of co-sponsorship would find the ministry rewarding if they joined together,” said Wersan.

There are many ways to start, even if the project seems overwhelming and resources scarce. A church can make a donation or volunteer time.

“It’s crucial for some members of the congregation to meet with the refugees themselves,” says Wersan, who has worked with UMCOR’s Refugee Program for more than 20 years. “It’s one thing for a church to say to the refugee: ‘here’s some furniture; come pick it up.’ It’s far better for some members of the church to deliver the furniture and meet the family. Real ministry takes place face to face.”

For refugees who feel they exist in little more than a name, and have lost “everything except the air we breathe,” as one Liberian refugee put it, co-sponsorship can be the key to successful resettlement.

But it can also have unimaginable dividends for local congregations, according to Wersan.

“When a church has co-sponsored, it comes to appreciate that the transaction is not one between a giver and a receiver,” she says. “The ministry brings to life the promise that in the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned and the stranger we come face to face with Christ himself.”

Last year, over 150 local churches took part in resettlement, either as co-sponsors, or through participation in church clusters and by donations of goods and services.

Wersan became Executive Secretary of the UMCOR Refugee Program a year ago. Following the September 11 attacks, beefed up security measures let only a trickle of refugees into the country. One of her first tasks was to prepare for the United Methodist response to the Patriot Act and other measures by the government limiting the rights of immigrants and refugees.

Resolutions advocating the restoration of these rights and protesting the discriminatory treatment of Haitian refugees were tabled at the denomination’s General Conference this year.

Over a thousand asylum seekers, and documented and undocumented immigrants have received free counseling on adjusting their status at monthly clinics in 16 churches through Justice For Our Neighbors. In its fifth year now, the program provides housing and a modest salary for staff, who are supervised by an attorney, while volunteers welcome clients, schedule appointments and spread the word.

A priority for UMCOR’s Refugee Program this year is to facilitate links between local churches in the US and United Methodist congregations worldwide whose members include refugees and internally displaced persons.

“There’s a new desire for direct involvement,” said Wersan, who traveled to South Africa, Congo and Tanzania to visit such churches and related projects earlier this year.

In Capetown, the UMCOR-supported Shade project helps Congolese refugees with education, loans and training in business skills.

Churches in the South Katanga Conference of Lubumbashi, Congo, bring food and spiritual support to the Katuba and Elakat camps for internally displaced Congolese.

Almost three-quarters of the members of new United Methodist congregations in western Tanzania’s Kigoma district are made up of Congolese refugees. With small grants from UMCOR, one congregation developed sewing and soap-making projects that teach skills and provide a limited income for participants.

Leaders of some of these new churches are also trying to reach out to Burundian refugees in the area.

“The parameters for the partnership between US and African congregations will be set up in the coming months,” said Wersan.

Meanwhile, in Fort Worth, TX, the Mudeys are moving on from the first thrill of ice cream, the chill of Halloween decorations and the marvels of the supermarket. Thanks to the networks nurtured by UMCOR’s Refugee Program, Ali the father works at a local country club and Deinabo the mother maintains the family home. The family learns English from Barney, television’s purple dinosaur.

“They have gone from being terrified of accepting a glass of water from us,” said Ann Smith of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Haltom City, TX.

“I went into co-sponsorship to offer God to them and they have given God back to me,” Smith said at a CWS Immigration and Refugee Program conference last year.

[url="http://www.churchworldservice.org/Immigration/archives/2004/06/51.html"]http://www.churchworldservice.org/Immigration/archives/2004/06/51.html[/url]

Petr

2005-05-11 12:56 | User Profile

If these people will not even try to convert these Bantus away from Islam, I will not consider them as real Christians.

Hey Stigmata, you might want to check out this Jack Chick tract: an uncompromising treatment of such PC "do-gooder" missionaries!

[SIZE=5]"Flight 144"[/SIZE]

[url]http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0041/0041_01.asp[/url]

Petr

Angler

2005-05-11 13:05 | User Profile

Jack Chick. Good grief, Petr. Please tell me you're not a fan of that idiot.

My favorite tract of Jack-Me-Off Chick:

[url=http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1000/1000_01.asp]Love the Jewish People[/url]

Petr

2005-05-11 13:07 | User Profile

I found that particular tract quite hard-hitting, even if Chick might make mistakes elsewhere.

Petr

Robbie

2005-05-11 13:07 | User Profile

Stig, nice to see you're finally embracing diversity! For the longest time you were so Cathol-centric I was going to report you to the EEOC.

Pennsylvania_Dutch

2005-05-12 22:05 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Petr]If these people will not even try to convert these Bantus away from Islam, I will not consider them as real Christians.

Hey Stigmata, you might want to check out this Jack Chick tract: an uncompromising treatment of such PC "do-gooder" missionaries!

[size=5]"Flight 144"[/size]

[url="http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0041/0041_01.asp"]http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0041/0041_01.asp[/url]

Petr[/QUOTE] That's pretty funny...wait until these southern methodists find out that their Bantu friends turn out to be radical moslems...:smartass: Or, maybe animists with pots.

Back in the way back I used to get a kick out of giving radical jew commie types the "Poor Revolutionary". There were a couple of other funny ones like that too...the commies all looked like jews in the Chick tracts...