St. Dunstan’s refugees celebrating a shared birthday.

Answering Jesus’ call to “take care of the stranger” gained new urgency recently after the Jan. 20 suspension of federal support for refugees. In Atlanta, a longtime refugee resettlement area where 225 newly arrived families were stranded, Episcopalians mobilized with remarkable speed and results. Now, what’s needed immediately are volunteers to help refugee families adjust.

Adults who can give at least two hours a month for three months are needed, regardless of religious affiliation. Email Louisa Merchant to join a team of 10 to 15 volunteers.

“If we could get 60 new volunteers in the next six weeks, we can help five refugee families,” said Louisa Merchant, director of refugee services at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta. “There are 1100 people who arrived in Georgia in December and January who are most affected … and everything about our ministry is to guide people to self-sufficiency. Beyond money, relationships with Americans offer refugees the opportunity to make it in the United States.”

Refugees are authorized to work and urgently need full-time jobs with benefits, especially near the airport (Email Suzanne Johnson for more information). Donations of cars are also needed.

“A personal contact literally makes all the difference,” said Suzanne Johnson, vestry member at St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church, which is supporting a family of 12 refugees from Cameroon who need to be financially self-sufficient by July. “Any contacts at the airport, at hotel chains or fast-food chains, construction, hospitality, health care, security, cleaning. This is by far the biggest need.”

Sudden End to Promised Aid

Since 1980, newly arrived refugees have received about six months of rent support and other services funded through bipartisan Congressional support, Merchant said. “No matter how successful churches—or even multiple churches—are, there is no way we can replicate the kind of services that are offered by the government,” she added.

Episcopalians reacted quickly to the presidential executive order on Jan. 20, suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) as “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” When the president attended a prayer service at the National Cathedral the next day, Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde implored him from the pulpit to “help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

Nonprofits were immediately affected, including Episcopal Migration Ministries, which laid off 22 of its 33 employees in January. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said The Episcopal Church remains committed “to stand with migrants and with our congregations who serve vulnerable immigrants and refugees. As Christians, our faith is shaped by the biblical story of people whom God led into foreign countries to escape oppression, and no change in political fortunes can dissuade us from answering God’s call to welcome the stranger.”

In Atlanta, “We expected them to stop new arrivals,” Merchant said. “But to actually cut off the funding and abandon these families that have waited usually about 15 years to get permission to come to the United States is truly horrifying.”

There had been a push to get more refugees into the country before Jan. 20. On Jan. 14, volunteers at St. Dunstan’s learned that their refugee family from Cameroon would be arriving on Jan. 16. Could the 150-member church take another family? They immediately said yes.

“It turns out that the two families are really one extended family with 11 people,” said the Rev. Tricia Templeton, rector of St. Dunstan’s. A newborn in March expanded the family to 12.

“We have furnished two townhouses, helped people find jobs, taught ESL, and many other things. Ordinarily, each refugee receives $1025 to help them resettle, plus housing assistance, food stamps, and Medicare for six months. So, we committed to providing for them what the government has failed to do.”

We Can Do Something About This

The crisis shocked All Saints’, a 2,500-member parish that has ministered to refugees for 30 years. Rector Simon Mainwaring, who grew up in England, told Merchant, “We can do something about this,” and on Feb. 14 announced to the parish a celebration, five weeks away, of whatever funds could be raised for six families matched with volunteer resettlement teams.

A goal of $75,000 represented six months of funding for these families, and “we would then count it a wonderful blessing to be able to support an additional family with each $12,500 we raised,” Mainwaring said. He thought maybe 20 families could be helped.

Without a formal fundraising effort, parishioners and others responded. Some shared experiences of volunteering with refugee ministries on a Sunday morning. Two non-members curated the 10 chefs for Hallelujah Anyhow, the March 29 event that raised $470,000. With enough volunteers, that funding is enough to support 32 more families for a total of 38.

“I am rarely lost for words. Today I am,” Mainwaring said in a message emailed to his parish. “Thanks be to God for this remarkable and abundant act of giving.”

St. Dunstan’s launched a campaign during Lent to raise $20,000, seeded by a $5,000 gift from St. Anne’s Episcopal Church. They raised $40,000 — “on top or the many thousands of dollars and new and used goods donated before Lent,” Johnson added.

Your “Most Concrete Act of Faith Formation”

At All Saints’, each volunteer completes a 90-minute in-person meeting, followed by a two-hour monthly act of service involving transportation. This two-hour commitment is for three months.

As teams of 10 to 15 volunteers form, they will match with refugee families who “have literally been dropped here,” Merchant said. “They have landed in a material and spiritual wilderness.”

For example, one family had been in a Bangladesh refugee camp for 19 years. Another man from Afghanistan didn’t comprehend that he was in the United States. “Some families are not going to understand how to shop at Kroger without help,” she said.

Merchant has observed for 16 years how this type of service deeply affects both the giver and the refugee. She calls it “the most concrete act of faith formation that someone can experience.”

“The impact you can have through an offer of welcome is truly breathtaking,” she explained. “These are humans who are here because someone tried to kill them and have learned human relationship is dangerous.

“To affirm that human relationship can be safe is the most important thing that can happen to people, and that then that healing comes back on the volunteers because Americans also have learned that human relationships are unsafe in a very different way. Safety, concern and care reaffirm that the human relationship is really the most important part of living, and that it can be safe for all of us, and we can all grow from being in relationship to each other.”

A team from All Saints’ welcoming refugees at the airport.

“Outlet For Our Rage and Shame”

At St. Dunstan’s, volunteers are motivated. “In the midst of the cruelty toward and dehumanization of refugees and immigrants (and others on the margins), the opportunity to love and serve this family and help them toward self-sufficiency is a constructive outlet for our rage and shame,” Johnson said of St. Dunstan’s efforts. “We cannot (yet) stop what is being done by our government, but we can radically change the life chances of the people in our family from Cameroon.”

The parish supported a Syrian Muslim family in 2017 after a presidential ban on Muslim entry.

“Our decision was in response to that,” Templeton said. “The family now lives in Pittsburgh, and all have become American citizens. They keep in touch. The second refugee family that we supported was a couple from Myanmar. We do have people who have stayed connected to them, too.”

Eight parishioners serve on the core support team for the Cameroon family, with another 10 who actively serve as well. Several St. Anne’s parishioners have joined them.

After furnishing and subsidizing the rent for two three-bedroom townhouses, the team’s priorities have been helping the refugees learn English, to help them find employment (three of the six adults in the family are now employed), and get the five children enrolled in school.

One parishioner teaches English 21 hours a week online and in person, plus preparation time. Others help them learn basic financial skills such as shopping for groceries, managing bank accounts, and budgeting. “We also provide social connection,” Johnson said. “Our team averages 40+ hours of interaction with the family each week. We have a strong sense that the Spirit is in the midst of these relationships.”