wfn.org | UMNS# 050111-Refugees, immigrants bring new life to churches

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Refugees, immigrants bring new life to churches

Feb. 23, 2005	 News media contact:   Matt  Carlisle * (615) 742-5470*
Nashville {050111}

A UMC.org Feature
By Lesley Crosson*

Htoo Saw Ywa spent two years in a Burmese jail where the government held
him, his mother, two brothers and a sister.

He was 12 years old.

The family was imprisoned because the government was trying to capture
his father, an officer with the ethnic Karen minority army fighting the
Burmese government for a homeland of their own, Htoo says in a telephone
interview.

At 17, he fled Burma to avoid arrest for his involvement in a student
demonstration, living for more than a decade in refugee camps along the
Burma-Thailand border. He married and fathered three children in the
camps.

"I did not know what would happen to me, but I could not go back into
Burma because it was dangerous for me," Htoo recalls.

Many of the 53,000 victims of persecution, war and repression who last
year entered the United States as refugees tell similar stories. And
Htoo has much in common with thousands more who came as immigrants or
undocumented workers.

Churches in ministry with refugees and immigrants report spiritual
growth, heightened awareness of the world around them, and an increased
understanding of what it means to be an inclusive community.

"A warm welcome by a church can make a huge difference to refugees who
arrive here without family," says Susan Wersan, a United Methodist
Committee on Relief executive for refugee resettlement. "It can be a
transforming experience for a congregation."

New World United Methodist Church in Arlington, Texas, sponsored two
Liberian families, and the congregation now includes about 20 other
Africans from the city's refugee community, the minister says.

"They have helped us grow, as much as anything we have done for them,"
the Rev. Mike Dawson says. "This ministry has transformed the lives of
all the people who work in it.	Our church on Sunday morning now looks
more like what you think the church, apostolic and universal, ought to
look like."

Htoo's immediate family was assigned to UMCOR by Church World Service,
which works with the U.S. government and several religious denominations
and local social service agencies to help resettle refugees. Htoo-whose
father died several years ago-is also working to get his sister and a
brother into the United States; they are living in a refugee camp on the
Thai border.

When the family arrived in North Carolina last November, the members of
Resurrection United Methodist Church in Durham sprang into action. They
had previous experience with another Burmese family and they furnished
and paid for an apartment; they also worked with UMCOR and Lutheran
Family Services to help the Htoo family.

Blessings flowed both ways, says the Rev. Larry Bowden, Resurrection
pastor.

"It certainly has broadened our world view," Bowden says. "All of a
sudden we've become very concerned about conditions in a country that we
knew nothing about. It really has helped us realize how connected we
are."

It's also encouraged him to spread the word.

When the family moved 40 miles away to Raleigh to be closer to a family
friend, Bowden seized the opportunity to get yet another church
involved.

"It has been a wonderful experience for our congregation," says the Rev.
Susan Harrison, a deacon at Soapstone United Methodist Church in
Raleigh. The church helped with housing, transportation, medical care
and job hunting.

Htoo, 33, now works at a local retailer and attends services at
Soapstone so that he "can remain close to God."

Dawson recalls a similarly gratifying experience when a family in his
affluent, predominantly white congregation began inviting two young
Liberian girls to their house for sleepovers with their daughter.

"The girls became great friends," Dawson says. "When they would come
down for children's sermon, they would all be holding hands, and it was
just great to see this wonderful friendship blossom between them."

Throughout the church, Haitian, Hispanic, Hmong, Vietnamese, Chinese and
Korean congregations that serve the needs of people from these countries
are thriving. And even as they go through the process of assimilation,
the new Americans are strengthening the fabric of the church by sharing
their cultures, hymnals and styles of worship.

Immigrants from mainland China still find their way to New York City's
Chinese United Methodist Church, established in 1966.

The Rev. James K. Law, senior pastor, says the Chinatown congregation
enriches the denomination by its presence. "We are all brothers and
sisters, and so including all of us in the life of the church brings a
richness and a completeness to the body of Christ."

For Htoo, baptized in the camps by Seventh Day Adventists, Soapstone
United Methodist Church has become a place where he can feel safe and
worship in a Christian community.

And for some who welcome people like Htoo, the refugees represent
answered prayers.

"I had been praying for Africa for some time and our church was doing
the Hope for The Children of Africa" offerings, Dawson says. "One day I
realized that these refugee families who are here now are the people I
had been praying for without even knowing who they were. To actually see
my prayer walk through the door has really opened me and helped me
discover what really is important in life."

# # #

*Crosson is a writer living in New York City.

News media contact: Matt Carlisle, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5153 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

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United Methodist News Service
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