World Refugee Day: How Should the Church Respond?

The United Nations has designated June 20th to be World Refugee Day. Nearly 80 million people from diverse regions around the globe fall into that unfortunate category.

The numbers are staggering, but more so the suffering entailed when so many are driven from their homes and livelihoods by war, persecution, famine, and climatic upheaval.

The mounting masses are made up of individuals and families with hopes and dreams just like the rest of us. They walk in the footsteps of the family that took their first-born son to Egypt to escape the murderous campaign of Herod.

Fortunately for them (and us), Egypt offered safe refuge until the relatively short-lived threat passed. By contrast, the average refugee is displaced from 10 to 26 years!

Refugees and internally displaced people are perhaps the world’s most vulnerable groups. Fleeing natural and man-made disasters, the UN defines them as those forced from home and country due to “a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

Wars top the list of refugee-makers, creating so much hardship and insecurity that the threats and uncertainties of homelessness are preferable to the dangers of staying put.

Sudan

One such family displaced by conflict is that of a young South Sudanese pastor, John Bosco. Accompanied by his wife and extended family, three years ago he walked to the Impevi refugee camp just inside the Ugandan border. They have been there ever since, living on rations of maize meal and pulses while celebrating the birth of their first child.

Pastor Bosco says COVID-19 has added a tremendous burden to everyone in the camps, especially since the Word Food Program reduced rations by some 30–40%. The reduction was necessary because donor nations have failed to follow through on commitments and travel restrictions between nations have hampered transport of food.

The pastor’s church of over 100 congregants is not currently able to meet due to the lockdown, which also keeps refugees from growing their own crops on adjacent lands and earning money by carrying water or collecting firewood.

Bosco says, “2020 [is a] year of humbleness [for us all to learn that] no country is better than the other…let’s repent and turn back to God cause only Jesus can help in this situation.”

When asked what message he wanted to send to churches in the West, he replied, “I want the church in the U.S. and Europe to pray for us for God intervention of provision to the hungry and pray for the church leaders and pray for S. Sudan, and also pray for the orphan and single mother” (sic).

Christian Aid

A South Sudanese refugee himself, Lotet Julius determined to do something significant about the dire situation.

After receiving graduate education in Great Britain, Mr. Julius formed a non-profit to target the historic animosity that in 2013 caused the violent fracture of the newly formed South Sudanese nation — a mere two years after its independence from the Muslim-controlled north of Sudan.

A devout Christian, Mr. Julius formed the Reconciliation Gate Foundation (RGF) to bring biblically-based peace and reconciliation between differing tribal factions. His vision is to facilitate a grassroots movement in all the South Sudanese refugee camps that will spread and eventually impact the nation as a whole. With an end to hostilities, repatriation can begin and the need for refugee camps cease.

Mr. Julius began partnering with Youth With A Mission in northern Uganda, where he is the staff coordinator for refugee affairs. He helped launch a program to train pastors and other refugee leaders at the YWAM Arua discipleship school.

But COVID-19 has halted it and so many other important interventions, and now conflict is breaking out in the camps. With a proven track record, Mr. Julius was invited by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and Ugandan government representatives to actively defuse the volatile situation.

He and his staff are anxious to do so but like so many indigenous ministries today, RGF has little funding to implement its critical work. Lately, all available resources have gone toward emergency food aid to compensate for UN shortfalls. According to Mr. Julius, the worst affected are orphans, unaccompanied minors, the sick and elderly, single mothers and widows.

His appeal for help is not for himself and his own needs among his family of 13 (6 adopted refugee children and 1 foster child) but for the thousands in the camps who face starvation.

His message is humble but clear: “Joining our hearts and our hands and resources together we can experience far-reaching impact in the service of the Kingdom of God, brothers and sisters. Consider praying with us in this and when God provides consider giving. Whatever you give will touch lives among the persons of concern and God will be glorified through your generosity.”

Will the Western Church Respond?

The sheer numbers and complexity of problems causing death and desperation among South Sudanese refugees and other displaced people the world over can discourage even the most caring and compassionate among us. After all, we have our own problems, right?

Perhaps the proper biblical response should be based on the life of Jesus. He often focused his attention on the person(s) in front of him, while calmly discerning the voice and direction of God’s Spirit for each situation.

Jesus never doubted that each circumstance and each individual he encountered was part of God’s omnipotent purposes, and he sought to glorify the Father through them all. Jesus’ responses were all individualized to the situation and person at hand.

To personalize an issue like the refugee crisis, we should look for concrete and effective ways to address it, trusting God to provide the appropriate channel to do so. It may be prayer or educating ourselves and others about the issues. Or it may be the gift of our “mite.” Whatever our response, if we seek to honor the One who made us one and all, he will make effective whatever we do in his name. Quality, not quantity, is the measure of God’s economy; faithfulness, not fear or compulsion, the divine currency.

Perhaps the only questionable response is indifference — a condition ultimately rooted in self-absorption. Because God is deeply and personally involved in all human affairs — especially among the poor and most vulnerable — his church should do no less.

South Sudanese refugee pastors at the Arua YWAM Discipleship Training School

https://www.worldvision.org/our-work/refugees-fragile-states https://worldrelief.org/ https://www.mercycorps.org/

Jim Rotholz, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropologist, former missionary and aid worker to Nepal and East Africa, and board chair for two non-profits. He has written three books on the convergence of faith and culture, including “Gospel Without Borders: Separating Christianity from Culture in America.” With his wife of forty years, he lives in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. For more information, visit: https://jmrotholz.wixsite.com/apilgrimsjournal and https://www.jesserotholzfoundation.org/