Posts Tagged ‘welcome refugees’
A Spirit of Welcome: Volunteering at the Northwest Detention Center RV
Earlier this year, before COVID-19 transformed the ways in which we work and travel, I had the privilege of visiting World Relief’s office in Seattle. The energy in the Seattle office is incredible. English classes, job coaching, meetings with newly arrived families, immigration legal services — the list goes on.
One of the most meaningful parts of my trip was visiting the Northwest Detention Center. In an industrial area outside of downtown Tacoma sits a nondescript cinderblock building that houses thousands of detainees from countries around the world.
Recognizing the incredible stress and anxiety that detainees often experience, World Relief’s Detention Center ministry staff offers spiritual support to those who have been detained. And thankfully, World Relief’s support and care isn’t just limited to those inside the detention center.
In an RV parked outside the detention center gates, World Relief offers released detainees some much-needed hospitality through a Welcome Center run by our partner, AID Northwest. Last year, 274 men and women were welcomed and cared for in the RV Welcome Center by volunteers like Amanda Carlson.
I recently had the chance to talk with Amanda about her experience as an RV Welcome Center volunteer.
Hi, Amanda! How did you first hear about World Relief’s Detention Center ministry and how long have you been volunteering?
I’ve been volunteering for a year-and-a-half and I serve once a month. I had heard of World Relief, but decided to get more involved after learning about the new administration’s rules limiting immigration. I went to a meeting and heard Scott Arbeiter (World Relief’s President) speak and then, Stephanie (World Relief’s Post-Release Coordinator for the Detention Center) came and talked to my church, Urban Grace in downtown Tacoma, about the needs of detainees. It turned out that she had an office right here in our church building, so I signed up for the volunteer training.
Tell me a little bit more about what the Detention Center is and why we have an RV parked outside of it.
The Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma is one of the largest immigration detention centers in the nation. People are detained for a number of reasons — not having the right paperwork, illegally crossing the border, or legally claiming asylum and being detained while their court cases are processed. Some people are there for a short time and many are there for quite a long time.
When people are released, there is nothing there for them. It’s a long walk to the bus station or to get someplace where you could make a phone call or charge your phone. The RV is there to meet them as soon as they walk out of the detention center gates. We give newly released detainees a chance to catch their breath and figure out their next steps.
It’s always really fun to welcome people to the United States. We provide backpacks for everyone because most people come out with a hodgepodge of belongings and lots of paperwork. We offer them snacks and drinks, give them toiletries and have phones and iPads to help people contact relatives or make travel arrangements. There’s also a big collection of clothing that people can go through. Some people come out in the Detention Center uniform of gray sweatpants. Some people come out wearing what they were detained in, so if they were detained in the summer they might be wearing shorts but now it’s the dead of winter and they need warmer clothes. People are so happy to go pick out some new things for themselves. We want to do everything we can to try and facilitate a smooth transition for someone who has just been released.
How has volunteering at the RV shifted your perspective on immigration or impacted your faith?
I was so surprised at how many nationalities are represented in the Detention Center. I ignorantly thought that most people would be from Mexico or from Latin America, but there are literally people from all over the world. More importantly, I have never met people who seem so rootless. People seeking asylum often have no support and no connection. They either had everything taken from them because of violence and conflict in their home countries or they had to leave it all behind.
They’ve left their family, children, everything — in search of safety and a better life. All they have is this little stack of papers that they have been released with and then what we are providing them and that is it. I have so many roots here in the U.S.– family, a modest savings account, a home and citizenship in a powerful country that will protect me. I often take these things for granted, but these people have none of it at that moment. While they are incredibly independent people because they have gone through this huge thing on their own, they’re also incredibly dependent on the goodwill of others to help them rebuild their lives.
Are there any memorable stories that you would like to share?
The story that comes to mind is one of a young woman who was from Cameroon. She had been at the RV for a few hours and I ended up taking her to the airport. She shared that she was impatient to get on a plane. I learned that she was flying to reconnect with her husband and her one-year-old twin babies that she had been separated from for four months. She was heading to Denver, so I pulled up some pictures of Denver on my phone and showed them to her, and she just cried. She was so excited to get there and build a new life with her family.
How has COVID-19 impacted the RV welcome center?
Unfortunately, all visitation and church services inside the detention center have stopped. The RV is still functioning, but it’s all happening in a tarped tent outside the RV so we can maintain appropriate social distancing. Everything has been loaded into tubs that can be moved outside. Thankfully it isn’t winter anymore so it’s been okay so far.
What is something that you know now that you didn’t know before you started serving at the RV Welcome Center?
That God’s love is alive and well, functioning and serving outside of the traditional Christian box. World Relief is right in the middle of an issue that can be so politically controversial in the Christian community, but as I have expanded my faith and walked into different communities, I’ve loved discovering how vibrant God’s love is in communities that I was previously unaware of. And I’m very thankful that World Relief is willing to be a part of it. Maybe in the fringes where it’s messier and controversial is where God’s love is the most evident.
What would you say to someone who is wanting to get involved with World Relief or serve in some way but is maybe hesitant?
There are so many ways you can get involved. With my lifestyle and family, I can only volunteer one day a month. It’s so minimal but has impacted me so much. I’ve learned a ton, I talk to people about my experiences, I bring people with me to shadow. You can send letters to people in the Detention Center and when the virus calms down you can go visit. It is a real one-on-one, person-to-person way to serve a really vulnerable community. A lot of times with volunteering, you can’t actually get so close to the people you want to help. But the detention center ministry lets you get close so it’s a really amazing way to try to help a little bit.
As we celebrate Volunteer Appreciation Week, we are so thankful for amazing people like Amanda who partner with us to bring God’s love to vulnerable and marginalized people around the world.
When a Story Becomes a Person
[this blog post was written by Kelly Dolan, World Relief’s Content Strategy Manager.]
If you can’t remember anything about World Refugee Day 2015, you’re not alone. If you’re like me, you didn’t even know such a day existed. I mean, we knew (roughly) what a refugee was because we’d occasionally hear a story in the news about those who had been displaced. But that’s all the refugee crisis was for a while—a distant story.
But then one morning last September, our computer and TV screens were filled with the now tragically iconic picture of the lifeless body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, his body washed up on a Turkish beach. As we learned more about one refugee child, a story in the news suddenly became a person.
This happened before I came to work for World Relief, before I was learning and telling the stories of refugees on an almost daily basis. I’m honestly embarrassed I didn’t know more about the refugee crisis before the photo surfaced.
After all that’s happened this year, more of us are aware of World Refugee Day 2016. And many of us care about refugees in a new way. But now there’s a different kind of story that’s filling our computer and TV screens. It goes like this…
“Refugees are dangerous. They’re violent people. They’re a threat to whatever country takes them in. The only way we can truly protect our country from terrorism is to keep refugees out.”
I’m guessing you’ve heard that story at least once already today. But without being rooted in any facts or personal narrative, that’s all it is—another story. It’s a story based on fear. There are some who want to use recent tragic events to tell us a story that creates fear. It may be a convenient story for their agenda. But it doesn’t make it true.
So today, on World Refugee Day, we want to not only tell you a different story, but to introduce you to a person. Meet Samir, a young man from Syria who has experienced much pain and much suffering, but has also found much hope.
If you’ve been afraid of refugees resettling in your town, our hope is that by meeting Samir, you’ll see your new refugee neighbors a bit differently. We hope it inspires you to meet more refugees. Because when you meet a refugee, a story becomes a person. And it’s much harder to be afraid—and so much easier to extend a loving welcome—when it’s a real person, not just a story in the news.
Also, let’s use today as a reminder to do everything we can to make sure that our new refugee neighbors like Samir don’t see us as just a story. Today, let’s commit to extending ourselves to our refugee neighbors so that as they are in the process of adjusting to a new country, new culture, potentially a new language, and discovering their best contribution to a society far from the place they once called home, we become real people to them as well.
As a story becomes a person for each of us, may God bring hope, healing, and peace to us all.
Want to know exactly how you can help refugees? Here are 6 ways.
Want to support World Relief as we serve refugees? Commit $15/month through Unlock Hope.
Resettling Syrian and Iraqi Refugees – A Call To Do More
Jenny Yang is Vice President of Advocacy and Policy at World Relief. She was recently in Jordan with a delegation from Refugee Council USA to assess the situation facing Syrian and Iraqi refugees, and urges that we do more to help these refugees in their critical time of need. Three young girls were huddled under thick blankets in their makeshift, cement-walled house in a compound in Mafraq, Jordan, near the border with Syria. It was cold and rainy and they hadn’t left their compound in days. The three sisters, aged 3, 6, and 7, had fled Syria a couple years ago with their mother who feared for their safety. The father’s whereabouts are unknown. Their resilient mother dreams of returning to her homeland with her daughters, but doesn’t know when or if that would be possible.
At a time when many of us are enjoying the snow because it affords us a day off work or school, for the thousands of refugees in Jordan, it means cold, wet, and windy conditions in flimsy homes made out of plastic and metal. As a huge snow storm recently blanketed the Middle East, strong winds blew away the tents of 100 refugees in Zaatari refugee camp leaving them with no shelter in the cold rain. A recent UNHCR report found that almost half of refugee households have no source of heat and at least a quarter have unreliable electricity.
Jordan is hosting over 600,000 registered Syrian refugees, which represents approximately 10% of its population. Many fled starting in 2012 when the Syrian crisis began, and have experienced tremendous suffering, including torture, physical ailments, and the death of loved ones. The response of the Jordanian government has been generous, as many of the Syrian refugees have enjoyed free health care and education for their children.
But the refugees face new challenges as the Jordanian government is being stretched thin and recently announced they are cutting health care to the refugees as well as enforcing stricter guidelines about who crosses the border. Two-thirds of Syrian refugees across Jordan live below the national poverty line, and one in six lives in extreme poverty. While the international community has responded with robust humanitarian assistance, the situation is reaching a straining point.
Many parents are marrying off their daughters as young as 12 or 13 years old to much older men, believing such a relationship will offer some form of protection. Children are pulled from schools because they can work to provide for the immediate needs of their families. “What is the point of education,” one parent told me, “when there will be no opportunities for our children to use their education in the future?”
The violence in Syria is not expected to end in the next several years which means the refugees are faced with the ongoing dilemma of not being able to return home as well as facing real protection challenges while living in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and other host countries. The international community must do more to not just provide assistance but also burden share by resettling a larger number of Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
While the desire for many Syrians is to eventually return home, the reality is that they will not be able to in the near future, if ever. Their homes were destroyed and they face little hope of integrating in their host countries. Resettlement can be an extension of solidarity to host countries that are shouldering so much while offering hope to refugees so they can pursue the dignity of work and education for their families without the daily uncertainties and fears of having no home to live in or even being returned to Syria.
The United States has only resettled 148 Syrian refugees last year, and 32 the year before. In all, the United States resettles less than half of 1% of the world’s refugees. For countries like Lebanon, where refugees make up a quarter of their entire population, and Jordan, where the refugees make up a tenth of the population, the United States’ strong tradition of welcoming the persecuted from around the world must be expanded to receive the victims of this recent conflict, the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II. Resettlement won’t solve the region’s problems, but acting sooner rather than later will alleviate the burden on Jordan and other host countries, and it will ensure a better chance for long-term stability for the refugees caught in the middle.
To learn more about how you can join us in responding to this crisis now, visit https://worldrelief.org/iraq-syria.
A Warm Welcome for Refugees This Christmas | We Welcome Refugees
Christmas, it’s one of the most celebrated times of year in the US. With millions of people traveling to visit family, trees on display, and gift exchanges with loved ones, churches across the country will overflow with visitors as they remember the glorious and scandalous birth of Jesus Christ. But many of our neighbors have significant needs this Christmas season, making the most wonderful time of the year, as the song goes, a bit daunting.
Through partnering with churches and volunteers, World Relief helped 7,948 refugees resettle in the US this year. Having fled their country from war, persecution, or natural disaster, World Relief comes alongside these new neighbors to make sure the first few months of transitioning to this new culture are as seamless as possible. In light of this and the truth of Jesus Christ’s gospel message, Christians around the country have responded to the call to welcome the stranger (Matthew 25:35).
In Fort Worth, Texas, more than 25 volunteers recently hosted a Coats & Cocoa event that provided winter items to over 350 refugees. After distributing the coats, volunteers got to visit the refugee families to share hot cocoa and sing Christmas carols – sharing some of the cheerful American traditions with their new neighbors who might have never experienced these before. One refugee kept saying, “Praise God! Praise God!” when coats were given to her family.
With an overabundance of winter gear donations for the event, Fort Worth will be able to provide for the needs of refugees that will be resettled in the coming months as well. This is another great example of the local church doing what Jesus did – sharing God’s love through tangible provision, relationship and compassion.
Join us as we continue to welcome families from all over the world to celebrate this cherished and treasured season.
For more information on how you can get involved in welcoming refugees, please contact your local World Relief office. Visit https://worldrelief.org/us-offices.