Posts by worldrelief

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***
February 12, 2018
CONTACTS:
Jenny Yang 443.527.8363
Matthew Soerens 920.428.9534

Leading Evangelical Women Speak Up for Welcoming Immigrants
New Video Highlights Jesus’ Words, Urges Christians to Apply Biblical Principles

BALTIMORE — As the national political debate shifts to a focus on immigration, some of the most influential evangelical women in the country are featured in a new video designed to remind Christians that immigration is more than a political, cultural or economic issue: it is also an important biblical theme.

In a short video produced by World Relief, these leaders read the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 25:31-46, with an emphasis on Jesus’ words of identification with vulnerable foreigners: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” The primary goal of the video is to encourage viewers to think in biblically-informed ways about the controversial topic of immigration, including promotion of a new Bible study guide on the theme available at www.welcomingimmigrants.org.

The women featured in the video include several of the most prominent and respected evangelical voices in the country, including Beth Moore (popular Bible teacher and founder of Living Proof Ministries), Ann Voskamp (bestselling author and co-founder of We Welcome Refugees), Bianca Juarez Olthoff (founder of In the Name of Love), Kay Warren (co-founder of Saddleback Church in California), Nikki Toyama-Szeto (executive director of Evangelicals for Social Action), and Christine Caine (founder of the A21 Campaign).

Several female leaders within evangelical denominations are also featured in the video, including Carla Sunberg (General Superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene), Jo Anne Lyon (General Superintendent Emerita of The Wesleyan Church), and Trillia Newbell (Director of Community Outreach for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission).

“While many think of refugees and immigration primarily as political issues, we want to challenge women within the church to approach the topic first and foremost from the perspective of Scripture, which speaks clearly and repeatedly to these topics,” says Jenny Yang, Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Policy at World Relief and one of the participants in the video. “Our hope is that they ultimately will apply the words of Jesus as they serve, learn from, and advocate with the immigrants within their communities.“

The video will be released online at Facebook.com/WorldRelief at 9:00 PM EST on Monday, February 12, 2018, at which time an embeddable link will be available to press.

Jenny Yang is available for interview requests, as are World Relief president Scott Arbeiter and Katelyn Beaty, a former managing editor of Christianity Today magazine who helped create the Bible study guide that the video is promoting.

Download the PDF version of this press release.

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World Relief is a global humanitarian relief and development organization that stands with the vulnerable and partners with local churches to end the cycle of suffering, transform lives and build sustainable communities. With over 70 years of experience, World Relief works in 20 countries worldwide through disaster response, health and child development, economic development and peacebuilding and has offices in the United States that specialize in refugee and immigration services.

Website | worldrelief.org  Twitter | @WorldRelief

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***
February 7, 2018
CONTACT: 
The KAIROS Company for WORLD RELIEF
MediaInquiries@TheKCompany.co
424.341.1912

Capitol Hill Press Conference: World Relief, Sens. Lankford and King, and Evangelical Leaders Urge President, Congress to Protect Dreamers Now

WASHINGTON – Today, at 11:30 a.m. EST, global humanitarian aid and refugee resettlement organization, World Relief convened a bipartisan press conference on Capitol Hill featuring Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Angus King (I-ME), alongside a diverse coalition of evangelical leaders advocating on behalf of a permanent legislative solution for Dreamers and more welcoming policies toward persecuted refugees around the world.

The press conference was held in conjunction with a full-page letter co-signed by over 1,200 pastors and leaders representing all 50 states. In a show of consolidating evangelical support behind Dreamers, co-signers include some of the most recognizable names in the country such as Beth Moore and Jen Hatmaker, as well as pastors who are, as the Washington Post describes, “…of very large churches who don’t typically sign these kinds of statements, like Texas megachurch pastor Matt Chandler and Nevada megachurch pastor Jud Wilhite.” The letter reads in part:

“As Christian leaders, we have a commitment to caring for the vulnerable in our churches while also supporting just, compassionate and welcoming policies toward refugees and other immigrants. The Bible speaks clearly and repeatedly to God’s love and concern for the vulnerable, and also challenges us to think beyond our nationality, ethnicity or religion when loving our neighbor.”

Select Quotes From Today’s Press Conference:

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK):
“The Senate by nature always goes toward what’s easiest. Like water runs downhill, we go toward status quo. And my concern is if we just punt this for a year and come back, we’ll do that 20 more times, so I’d like to see us avoid that the first time… In American law, we don’t hold the child accountable for the actions of their parents. One of the favorite illustrations that I have on that is that if you pull someone over for speeding, you don’t hand the ticket to the 4-year old in the back seat.”

Sen. Angus King (I-ME):
“In Matthew 25, which for me summarizes my Christian faith, is the list of people who we are called upon to be responsible for, and I think the second person on that list is the stranger. ‘I was a stranger and you took me in,’ and that’s what we’re talking about here. I view this as a unique opportunity for us to carry out our moral and ethical and scriptural responsibilities at the same time we carry out our legal, social and political responsibilities.”

Scott Arbeiter, President, World Relief:
“We wrote this letter out of our Christian calling… but we also write it as citizens. We believe that our national well-being and compassion for the immigrant and the refugee are not mutually exclusive. So we are praying. We are very consistent in our prayers and dedicated to prayers for our leaders that they would find wisdom and compassion tethered together, and in that they would lead us into a just and a compassionate and a wise legislative answer. The time is now. And as Christians, as Evangelicals, we stand ready to continue and even increase our commitment to serving the vulnerable as these laws mature.”

Thabiti Anyabwil, Senior Pastor, Anacostia River Church, Washington, D.C.:
“As a pastor my mind is riveted to texts like Deuteronomy Chapter 10, where the Lord says, in verse 17 that he loves the sojourner, and then says therefore, you love them too. It’s incredibly informative that when God began to build a family for himself, he began with slaves and exiles, and refugees, people with no home, people fleeing persecution, and it’s among those that he says, ‘I will begin to build my family.’”

Jesse Rincones, Executive Director, Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas, Board Member, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC):
“Providing a permanent DACA solution is the most pro-family, pro-education, pro-economy and pro-faith step that Congress and the president can take on this issue. Their failure to do so has far reaching effects beyond just the estimated 120,000 DACA recipients in Texas. It will be our local churches, and our local communities that continue to deal with the repercussions of such a failure.”

Ruth Velasquez, Co-founder, Voices of Christian Dreamers, Wheaton, IL:
“This is the country that I love, this is the country where my Christian values and my identity were formed. This is the country where I was able to become the first person in my family to ever graduate from college and pursue a career. I’ve used my work permit authorization to work for World Relief… With DACA being canceled, I’m in constant fear of losing my job, losing access to health care, being separated from my family, and being deported. Immigration deals with dignity and family unity, therefore it’s a biblical matter, and should be of concern to the church.”

Eric Costanzo, Senior Pastor, South Tulsa Baptist Church, Tulsa, OK:
“We’re at a time right now where it probably seems like many evangelicals, and many evangelical churches, are trying to keep immigrants and refugees at an arm’s length. And I’m here to say that that’s not true for all evangelicals, and it’s certainly not true for all evangelical churches. It’s been a challenge to shepherd our congregation to do the work of Jesus Christ among the nations, especially in the last 18 months. As a church we are located in the most affluent part of our city. For the most part we are very homogenized in our whiteness, but we have since become home in the last few years to several international people – immigrants, refugees from all over the world. And as we’ve sought to open up doors to welcome and serve them, we now see people from over 30 different countries in our church building on a weekly basis.”

World Relief invites others to add their name to the letter here.
View World Relief’s Facebook Live stream video of today’s presentation.

Download the PDF version of this press release.

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World Relief is a global humanitarian relief and development organization that stands with the vulnerable and partners with local churches to end the cycle of suffering, transform lives and build sustainable communities. With over 70 years of experience, World Relief works in 20 countries worldwide through disaster response, health and child development, economic development and peacebuilding and has offices in the United States that specialize in refugee and immigration services.

Website | worldrelief.org  Twitter | @WorldRelief

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***
January 30, 2018
CONTACT: 
The KAIROS Company for WORLD RELIEF
MediaInquiries@TheKCompany.co
424.341.1912

World Relief Commends President’s Proposal to Protect Dreamers in State of the Union Address, Urges President to Change Course on Refugees

BALTIMORE, MD – In response to President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, World Relief issues the following remarks:

“We are heartened by the President’s promise to work with Congress in a bipartisan fashion on multiple initiatives. Likewise, we are convinced that our nation is poised to achieve a permanent legislative solution to protect 1.8 million Dreamers and provide for them a pathway to citizenship. While we celebrate this progress, we also pray this is just the beginning of a more compassionate posture toward immigrants who face various kinds of vulnerability.

While recent weeks have sparked hope that we are beginning to turn a corner and make progress on plan to protect Dreamers, we are still eager for the administration to commit to resettling 45,000 refugees this fiscal year and ensure that we remain a more welcoming country for the persecuted. We in particular are concerned about the 60% reduction in the resettlement of Christian refugees who remain in dangerous situations around the world. The United States must continue to be a beacon of hope and freedom for the world’s persecuted by being more welcoming of them to our shores.

We also remain concerned about the potential cuts to family-based immigration. God ordained the family as the cornerstone of society, and we believe that our country is stronger when our citizens can be quickly reunited with their close family members. For some U.S. citizens, the waiting period can be years or even decades. We urge Congress to facilitate the unity of immigrant families rather than make drastic cuts to our current family-based immigration avenues.

Our conviction remains unchanged, that immigrants and refugees are an asset, not a liability to America. Our policies should facilitate legal immigration so as to reunited families, spur economic growth, and restore our role as a beacon of safety for those fleeing persecution. This nation will not thrive in isolation, but it will thrive when it welcomes families, and the gifts and abilities they bring with them, from all walks of life and from every corner of the globe.”

To learn more about World Relief’s efforts to care for refugees already in the United States and in vulnerable communities around the world, visit: worldrelief.org/welcome.

Download the PDF version of this press release.

###

World Relief is a global humanitarian relief and development organization that stands with the vulnerable and partners with local churches to end the cycle of suffering, transform lives and build sustainable communities. With over 70 years of experience, World Relief works in 20 countries worldwide through disaster response, health and child development, economic development and peacebuilding and has offices in the United States that specialize in refugee and immigration services.

Website | worldrelief.org  Twitter | @WorldRelief

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***
January 29, 2018
CONTACT: 
The KAIROS Company for WORLD RELIEF
MediaInquiries@TheKCompany.co
424.341.1912

In New York Times Op-Ed World Relief’s Matthew Soerens Says Trump Travel Ban ‘Has Proved Disastrous’

BALTIMORE, MD – In a New York Times editorial piece reflecting on the one year anniversary of the Trump administration’s infamous Travel Ban, World Relief’s U.S. Director of Church Mobilization Matthew Soerens believes “the impact of the Trump policies has proved disastrous.”

The article points to the 29,725 refugees that have been admitted to the U.S. in the past year, a remarkably low number compared to the 99,183 admitted just one year earlier. Additionally, the U.S. is not on pace to even reach half of the historically low threshold of 45,000 refugees this fiscal year, a target set by the Trump administration. Soerens also highlights the fact that despite the president’s promise to prioritize persecuted Christians, 27,000 fewer were resettled this year compared to the previous year.  

World Relief, one of the largest refugee resettlement organizations in the country, works to empower the church to fulfill its mandate to care for the vulnerable and the stranger, calling upon Christians across the U.S. to welcome refugees from all walks of life with open arms. 

Last year, World Relief along with several other evangelical Christian leaders took out a one-page advertisement in the Washington Post and wrote a letter sharing its disappointment and opposition to the president’s policy towards refugees. 

In the op-ed, Soerens points out that the topic is personal to him, citing many refugees from his own neighborhood who still have family members in war-torn lands, and who are often times facing violent persecution. Soerens points out that many of these family members have been denied entry to the U.S. under the Trump administration.

The travel ban was touted as a way to prevent terrorist attacks on our shores, but Soerens references a Cato Institute report that proves refugees are not to blame for such attacks. In fact, he contends, an astounding 78% of all lives lost as a result of terrorist attacks in the U.S. dating back to 2002 “have been perpetrated by native-born Americans.”  Furthermore, Soerens concludes, “Refugees, who are subjected to a more thorough vetting process than that of any other visitors or immigrants, have not taken a single American life in a terrorist attack since the Refugee Act of 1980 was passed into law.”

Soerens urges the president to reverse his position, stating, “It’s not too late for our leaders to examine the facts, apply the values of the faith traditions that inspire many Americans’ concern for refugees, and change course.”

To learn more about World Relief’s efforts to care for refugees already in the United States and in vulnerable communities around the world, visit: worldrelief.org/welcome.

MEDIA NOTE: Matthew Soerens is available for further comment on the topics of immigration reform, DACA and DREAMers, and the Travel Ban. Please email mediainquiries@thekcompany.co or call (424) 341-1912.

Download the PDF version of this press release.

###

World Relief is a global humanitarian relief and development organization that stands with the vulnerable and partners with local churches to end the cycle of suffering, transform lives and build sustainable communities. With over 70 years of experience, World Relief works in 20 countries worldwide through disaster response, health and child development, economic development and peacebuilding and has offices in the United States that specialize in refugee and immigration services.

Website | worldrelief.org  Twitter | @WorldRelief

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***
January 25, 2018
CONTACT: 
MediaInquiries@TheKCompany.co
424.341.1912

World Relief Issues Official Statement on the One Year Anniversary of the Travel Ban

BALTIMORE, MD –  World Relief, one of the largest refugee resettlement organizations in the country, issues the following statement reminding Americans that this Saturday, Jan. 27, marks the one year anniversary of President Trump’s executive order (often referred to as a “travel ban”) limiting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States and its effects on families from war-torn regions around the world struggling to survive:

“It has now been one year since the Trump administration signed an executive order preventing families fleeing tragic situations throughout the world admission to the United States as refugees. Thousands of men, women and children from countries such as Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Myanmar, who in years past would have found America to be a place of refuge and hope, have sadly been denied the opportunity to seek shelter on our shores this past year.  

Over the course of the first year of the Trump Administration, just 29,725 refugees have been admitted to the U.S., compared to 99,183 the previous year. Even as President Trump set the refugee arrivals ceiling for this fiscal year at a historically low 45,000, we are only on track to resettle half that number.

In addition, about 27,000 fewer Christian refugees were admitted in the first year of the new administration than in the previous year, a decline of 63 percent, and about 80 percent fewer Muslim refugees were admitted during the same period. The combination of drastically reducing the refugee arrivals ceiling with the various executive orders affecting refugees over the past year have harmed persecuted Christians as well as those of other faiths.

Make no mistake, this has been a net loss for our country. For centuries, families from around the world have made America their home after escaping horrors similar to the ones in countries that have been affected by various incarnations of the travel ban. These families have become an intricate part of the fabric of our country—working here, paying taxes here, raising their children here and sharing with all of us the amazing testimony of overcoming adversity.

Refugee families don’t tear America apart, they make us stronger. They come to America, which President Reagan once described as a “shining city on a hill,” and they make our light shine brighter.  

We pray that President Trump and elected officials from each side of the aisle would ensure that we remain a beacon of hope to ALL people seeking a better a way of life.”

To learn more about World Relief’s efforts to care for refugees already in the United States and in vulnerable communities around the world, visit: worldrelief.org/welcome.

MEDIA NOTE: Scott Arbeiter, president of World Relief, Jenny Yang, vice president of Advocacy and Policy, and Matthew Soerens, U.S. director of Church Mobilization, are available for interview. To schedule interviews, please email MediaInquiries@TheKcompany.co or call (424) 341-1912.

Download the PDF version of this press release.

###

World Relief is a global humanitarian relief and development organization that stands with the vulnerable and partners with local churches to end the cycle of suffering, transform lives and build sustainable communities. With over 70 years of experience, World Relief works in 20 countries worldwide through disaster response, health and child development, economic development and peacebuilding and has offices in the United States that specialize in refugee and immigration services.

Website | worldrelief.org  Twitter | @WorldRelief