Not Home. Come Home.

2025 Lenten Reflections

LEAN IN & LEARN

Refugee Care

‘I was a stranger and you invited me in.’

Matthew 25:35b

Illustration by Eunice Sunmie Derksen

LEAN IN & LEARN

Today, we will lean in and learn more about immigrants and refugees in North America. This is a complicated topic and the landscape is changing quickly, so we will examine this issue in broad strokes.

Let’s Start with Definitions

An "immigrant" is a person who comes to a different country to live there permanently. There are many reasons why someone might become an immigrant, but today we will focus on those who come to a different country as "refugees" and "asylum seekers." 

Some immigrants come by choice, but refugees and asylum-seekers come because they are forced to flee their home country – they have little to no choice.

What is the difference between a refugee and an asylum-seeker? Are they coming through legal means?

  • A refugee is a person fleeing persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a social group, to resettle elsewhere. Refugees apply to come while they are still outside the country and are already approved when they arrive. Many are in refugee camps suffering under terrible conditions, hopeful for anything better than a refugee camp. Most arrive by plane.

  • An asylum-seeker is someone who has left their home country and fears persecution if they return. An asylee is a person who meets the definition of refugee and is seeking admission at a port of entry or might already be present in the country. They are typically permitted to remain in country while their legal application is in process. The asylum-seeking process is a legal process in the US, Canada, or Mexico.



    "No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land."

  • Warsan Shire, British poet born to Somali parents in Kenya

A Look at the Numbers

Before we begin, it is important to recognize that most people who are forcibly displaced desperately want to go home and try to stay as close to home as possible until their circumstances force them to move again. Consider these numbers through a missional lens of evangelism and how caring for resettled refugees is a field ripe for harvest.

  • In 2022, the U.S. resettled 25,000 refugees, a small fraction of the global need.

  • Less than 1% of the world's 43 million refugees are ever resettled (defined as being meaningfully welcomed into a new life).

  • According to UNHCR, there are 120 million Internally Displaced Peoples, Asylum Seekers, Refugees.

  • The global refugee population is over 43 million people worldwide, with the majority hosted by developing countries.

  • While countries like the U.S., Canada, and Australia focus on resettling refugees (a smaller, organized process that involves moving refugees from host countries to new homes), developing nations are the first responders—offering asylum and shelter directly to massive numbers of refugees. Some of the poorest countries in the world — Chad, Colombia, Iran, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey, and Uganda — host the majority of refugees. 

  • Over the past year (2024), the three countries that generated the most refugees were Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Syria.

  • Over 10 million children were uprooted from their homes last year, according to a new analysis by Save the Children. This surge has likely driven the total number of displaced children worldwide to over 50 million. Vulnerability compounds upon vulnerability. 

  • The largest refugee camp in the world called Kutupalong in Bangladesh hosts approximately 931,000 refugees, many of whom live in polytarp and bamboo shelters, which are useless against floods, landslides, fires. This version of "home" offers very little in regards to food, safety, medical care, or education.

  • 47% of the world's migrants are Christians, according to the latest data collected in 2020. That means almost half of those displaced are our brothers and sisters in Christ. The other half need to see God's love through Christians who show love.

Important Note: While Christians may differ on the specifics of just and merciful immigration policy—such as how many immigrants to admit and from where—the roles of government and the church, though sometimes overlapping, remain distinct. The government is responsible for safety, order, and secure borders, while the church's mandate is clear: Scripture does not permit us to close our hearts to migrants and those fleeing their homelands (see yesterday’s reflection).

The church also has a role in advocating for just and compassionate policies that uphold human dignity and contribute to a good civil society. As God's people, we must be rooted in Scripture and His heart for "the outsider." Regardless of our stance on public policy, our Christian calling remains unchanged: to welcome the stranger, and in doing so, to welcome Jesus Himself.

"They are us, and we are them. The difference is a moment,
a border, a war, or a storm." 
Unknown

Reflect

Pause for a moment and consider that as God’s people, we are a migrant people. Take each of these stories as an example, and as you read through it, fill your imagination with what might have been the geographic change, the journey itself, trying to find a place, the quality of home, the linguistic gaps, strange foods and ways of making food, the cultural habits that were unfamiliar—awkward—that always made them stand out as outsiders.

This is our story, our spiritual heritage:

  • Adam and Eve leaving the garden

  • Abraham moving from his home at God’s command

  • Israel living as forced laborers in Egypt

  • God’s people sojourning for a “generation-length”of decadesto the Promise Land

  • Naomi moving to Moab and Ruth moving back to Naomi's home

  • The Holy Family fleeing to Egypt, displaced culturally and linguistically

  • The early church scattering under the Roman Empire crossing borders, languages, cultures

  • Finally, reflect on how Jesus himself, left His heavenly home to live on earth in order to invite us to be at home in Him.

We are all a migrant people living between heaven and earth, between this life and the world to come. How might this reality shape and re-shape how we think, pray, and act in regards to those who at this very moment have no meaningful home? And how might we understand our own story as a pilgrim narrative?

Give

Would you dedicate your Lenten Almsgiving to the Matthew 25 Initiative which enables ACNA parishes to tangibly serve their neighbors in the love of God?