This Spring, Sally Hinzie and UBA partners collected goods to send to Ukrainians in need. Since then, Ukrainian believers have distributed these gifts to show and share the love of Christ. Here are just a few stories from that work.
4 Stories of Your Generosity at Work in Ukraine
Ways to Help Afghan Refugees in the Houston Area
Churches and Refugee Resettlement, Round 2
Helping Refugees in Houston
If Houston were a country, it would rank fourth in the world for refugee resettlement. Houston welcomed Vietnamese boat people in the 1970’s. In 2001, Houston opened its doors to thousands of refugees from Hurricane Katrina. And now, Houston continues to receive refugees fleeing persecution, war, or violence from over forty countries. But what is it like once these refugees arrive, and what kind of support do they still need?
Ten Easy Ways to Help a Refugee Thrive
Nearly 70.8 million people were forcibly displaced in 2018. Refugees are forced to leave their homes, their friends and often their family, and everything they know because of threats, violence, inability to survive, or persecution. When a person has spent weeks, months, or most often years in survival mode, it can be difficult to know what thriving can look like, especially in a new country, with a new language, operating in a new culture. There are simple ways that we can help a refugee thrive. Here are ten easy ways that you can help a refugee thrive, not just survive.
Sharing Spaces
I was in a meeting a couple of weeks ago with two churches wanting to share a building. The host church is almost 60 years old, and the church wanting to share their space was an immigrant congregation that is about 5 years old. It was a challenge to work out the details across cultural worldviews and language barriers.
UBA Prays Together
What We Have Lost
As one of the largest refugee-receiving cities in the US, there are so many ways to share Christ’s love with “the least of these,” and we’re proud to see our people doing just that. With the approach of World Refugee Day, I want us to think a little about the losses, big and small, that refugees here in Houston experience every day and ways some of our people are at work to make those losses a little less painful.
