The Austin Stone loves serving refugees in our city. A number of our missional communities have "adopted" refugee families. If you are interested in serving in the refugee ministry of the Austin Stone, check out our blog series.
There is currently a refugee family from the Middle East now living in Austin with dire, immediate needs. You can serve this family in the following ways:
Take the refugee kids to school and pick up them afterwards
Help run errands (such as to the grocery store, etc.)
Help watch the kids on the weekend.
Spending time with the mother as she stays at home during the days.
Providing meals for the family.
If you would like to help out in any of these ways, please email Matt Kirk. Matt is having a volunteer orientation meeting at his house on Monday, Feb. 15 at 7pm. Email Matt to RSVP.
- French (only for Thursday)
- Burmese (both days)
- Vietnamese (both days)
- Spanish (Wed. only)
There are two major ways in which the Austin Stone serves refugees. The first is Missional Community Refugee Family Adoption. Most refugees arriving here are without sponsorship or people personally investing in their lives.
- Missional Communities can "adopt" refugee families when they arrive to America.
- When a missional community takes in a newly arrived refugee family, they help in the following ways:
- Furnish the newly arriving refugee's apartment
- Buy the first two weeks of groceries
- Prepare meals with them
- Teach them how to go grocery shopping
- Have a picnic at the park with them
- Model how to navigate the city (riding the bus, getting their kids to school, etc.)
- Help them apply for city/state/federal social services (medicareMedicare, food stamps, social security, etc.)
- Teach them to budget and pay bills
- Help search for and apply for jobs
- Help them learn conversational English
- This "adoption" commitment is for 6 months.
- The goal of these six month commitments for missional communities are to invest in one particular refugee family, building meaningful relationships and moving them closer to self-sufficiency.
- Currently, 4 missional communities have refugee families they've adopted and are at various places along the six month timeline. 2 other missional communities are in the process of adopting and are preparing to receive their family.
The city of Austin alone receives 800 to 1000 refugees each year from countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, Somalia, Burundi, Burma, and Nepal. A large majority of these refugees have no hope of returning to their homeland. Thus, they see living in Austin as a chance to restart their lives in a country touted as the land of opportunity.
In 2007, leaders from The Austin Stone became aware of the growing population of refugees in Austin. We knew that we had to serve our city by serving refugees in our city. So we decided to act.
The Austin Stone is a church for the city. As a church for the city, we seek the social, economic, political, relational and spiritual welfare of the city and its residents. Refugees are part of the city of Austin. Therefore, being for Austin means that we are for refugees. Our role is not necessarily to give them everything they need, but rather to partner with them in order to help them succeed on their own. We work to come alongside refugees to provide "hand ups" rather than just "hand outs".
Over the next few posts, we will describe the ministry of The Austin Stone towards refugees in Austin.
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If you are interested in easy opportunities to serve refugees in Austin, you can sign up here!
Image: Girls from Burundi at the Village apartments during a 2009 July 4th Party; East Asian children at a 2009 Halloween party.
"When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 19:33-34)
"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." (Ephesians 2:19)
Many of the main characters in the Bible were foreigners in a new land. Abraham and his family left their homeland in Harran to follow God's call into Canaan. The Israelites were displaced and lived in Egypt until God brought them into the Promise Land. David lived as a refugee for fear of returning home to be killed by Saul. The Israelites were again foreigners when they lived as exiles in Babylon. Mary and Joseph with their newborn Jesus fled to Egypt from the persecution of King Herod. Jesus Himself was a sojourner on earth away from His home in heaven.
God cares for the sojourner and the refugee. God uses us to provide support and advocacy, guidance and direction, and most importantly, friendship and love. We are placed in a unique situation where the nations are actually coming to us. God has brought the nations to our doorstep so that we can serve cross-culturally, reach the unreached, feed the hungry, and look after the orphan, widow and sojourner without even leaving our city.
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If you are interested [KEEP READING]
According to the United Nations, a refugee is any person who because of "a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." Of the 15.2 million refugees worldwide, 10.5 million are receiving protection or assistance from the United Nations.
To put those numbers in perspective, Austin is home to 1.7 million people. That means that around the world there are enough refugees to fill nine cities the size of Austin. As of 2008, there were about 270,000 refugees living in the United States.
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If you are interested in easy opportunities to serve refugees in Austin, you can sign up here!
Image: Wikipedia
