Showing posts with label volunteers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label volunteers. Show all posts

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage Four: "On Your Marks"


Introduction

Five articles about faith-based ministry to refugees precede this one. The article Titles are The Warp and Weft of Life[1], Conception: Empowering to Serve Refugees[2], Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage One: Getting to Know Refugees[3], Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage Two: Founding a Faith-based Ministry to Refugees[4], and Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage Three: Connecting[5]. Besides these, others of my refugee articles relay stories directly from refugees about their lives. These articles begin with the title In Their Words[6][7][8]. One other article on working with refugees teaches about the importance of letting the person tell his or her story. The title of this article is Just Listen[9].

In earlier articles of the refugee ministry series, you learned who refugees are, how many refugees are in the world as of the end of 2016, and that refugees come from many countries in the world. For faith-based refugee work, you must receive God’s vision, pray continually, and depend on God for strength. Further, you must become acquainted with the refugees by talking with them, and then determine their needs based on those conversations with them and from your own inspection of their lives. Another part of working with refugees is setting up a refugee ministry organization with a clear mission statement, and clear goals and objectives. These will keep the ministry focused. They will allow people working with you to help refugees and people outside the organization to understand God’s vision for you and your goals for the refugee ministry as you received it from Him.

This fourth article in the Inception part of the series will look at those tasks immediately preceding the start of the refugee ministry, hence the title, “On Your Mark.”. These tasks are the necessities of your particular ministry. Whether you plan to teach English, give food or rent help, offer counseling services, give legal aid, offer medical aid with clinics, or whatever the vision God gave you, certain practical necessities are needed to begin the ministry. Besides the practical, you must consider other things. These other considerations comprise finding a venue, advertising, submitting funding requests, getting volunteers, more advocacy, and most importantly, continued prayer.

Prayer

Again, as stated before, prayer must enwrap every part of a ministry for the vision which God gives. God is the One who gives the vision and He must empower the work, so the workers will not grow weary, heavy-hearted, and give up on the work to which He calls them. Prayer must weave throughout each part of the refugee ministry to understand God about to whom or to which organization to meet with to get volunteers and funding. Prayer will help you decide when to change or adapt the work and when to enlarge the ministry. It will help you realize your need for added expertise. Added to this, prayer opens people’s hearts as you and the refugee organization advocate and seek ministry funding for refugees and the ministry to them. Without prayer throughout the entire process, the ministry weakens because it rests upon the limited wisdom, knowledge, and strength of people instead of on all-knowing and all-mighty God.

A Venue

One of the most important parts to any ministry is having a place from which to minister. A venue provides a place in which to keep an office and supplies, and becomes the place from which ministry to refugees occurs. A site can cost nothing, or it can require rent payment. It can be associated with a church or business, or can be independent of another organization.

How do you find a venue, a place, from which to minister to refugees? You must compose a priority list of what is most important for that ministry. Does the ministry venue need to be near a main transportation center, like a train station or taxi rank? Does it need to cost the ministry program nothing or can the program pay rent, and how much can it pay? Does the site need to be child-safe, as in will the refugees bring children with them? Do you need a site large enough, so the ministry can grow, or will you be a roving ministry?

After considering the priorities for a ministry site, the ministry team can begin the search for a venue. Often just driving around the area in which the refugees of interest live and praying asking God to show you a place works well. When God shows you a site, contact the manager, pastor, or owner and make an appointment to talk to him or her about using his or her building.

Another way to find a place in which to minister to refugees is by joining another ministry or organization. Consider the other ministries/churches or organizations in the area in which the ministry could best serve the refugee population you want to minister. Determine if one or more of these have the same Christian ethos as the ministry you want to offer for refugees. After that, approach the ministry/church or organization through a meeting telling them of your vision from God for the ministry, and asking them if you can use a room, hall, or any other place they have available.

Most importantly, before you seek an interview with a person, ministry, organization, or business from whom to borrow space, you must pray to seek God’s will about working with them. Some places God will shut the door to you seeking to work with them. He knows best what the underlying ethos is of that person, organization, or business. Even though you might not understand why God tells you not to seek a venue from them, trust He knows the heart of the property owner or manager. Look elsewhere once God closes a door for that site.

Resources

Funding

Resources are a necessity for any organization or ministry. Without them, people and tools would be unavailable for use or to help in the ministry to refugees. No organization could operate without people, pens, paper, pencils, etc.

Before you can do anything else, though, you must find resources and a way to pay for them. How will the ministry get funding? How will it get people to help? Connect with the people, churches, businesses, and organizations you visited in stage three. Determine if they give funds to ministries in the community. Ask how a person gets the funds from the person, church, business, or organization. Obtain the documents needed to submit a funding or grant request. Ask how soon you will hear about your application. If you have not received a reply from the people, businesses, churches, or organizations by the time they said they would decide, email or call them asking when you will know the result of your funding application.

Funding is a key challenge for organizations, profit and non-profit. Often you will need to get funding from several organizations to make sure you obtain all needs for the ministry. When considering refugee ministry, remember to approach the United Nations High Council on Refugees (UNHCR), USAID, and the department of social development or social services. Do not give up if you do not get funding immediately. God gave you the vision: He knows from where the funding can come. Keep praying asking His help and guidance on where to seek funding and to soften the hearts of the people or organizations so they will join you in ministry to refugees.

Supplies

Another part of getting resources is buying physical supplies. What is the program you will start first in the refugee ministry? What supplies will you need for that program? Paper, pens, pencils, and folders are a staple supply in every ministry and organization. Printing costs will occur for handouts for classes or other programs. Will you buy a printer or pay a local print shop? How will you manage that? Will your ministry distribute food, clothes, or blankets? You will need to buy the basic items you will distribute to refugees. For each ministry, places to sit and write will be necessary. These sorts of costs will need consideration in the funding or grant request you submit.

Besides tangible supplies, a ministry will often need people to help with the work. Maybe, you will work on your own at the start of the program. As the number of refugees helped increases, more personnel will need to be on the ministry team. Initially, the team members will be volunteers. After a ministry grows and funding is not as large of a concern because funding is steady, the ministry program can become an employer. Until that time, you will need to solicit and train volunteers.

While working with the refugees, leaders emerge among them. Approach these leaders to tell them of the need for volunteers on the team. Find out their gifting and training. Many refugees have extensive training. They graduated from a university in their home countries. With the refugee leaders as part of the ministry team, the refugee community begins to trust and respect the ministry. They then seek to bring more people needing help while often offering their own services to the ministry.

Besides ministry volunteers from the refugee community, you should consider and solicit volunteers from surrounding communities of the host city and country and city. Return to the organizations with which you made connection at the start of planning for this ministry. See if they would consider telling their employees about the refugee ministry and encourage them to offer their time to help refugees. Churches could put a notice in their Sunday bulletin or on their bulletin board. Employers could hold a monthly corporate employee community day and offer their manpower to the refugee ministry. Small business owners could offer their help by training refugees to work for them. The ways to get volunteers is endless. Talking to the volunteers before and after a volunteer day is also important. Teach them how to do the work for the day. At the end, ask them how the day went for them. What was a highlight for them? What did they find difficult? Debrief the volunteers and answer any questions or concerns. Remember, before soliciting volunteers, get your prayer supporters for the refugee ministry to pray that God would open the hearts of people to care for refugees and join their hands and heart to the ministry.

Advertise

Why you need to advertise? How will the refugee community you want to help realize help is available to them without the ministry being advertised somehow? Until refugees in the community learn about a new ministry and it takes root, it cannot make a big dent in the needs of the community.

How would you advertise to reach refugees? Contact other non-profit and non-governmental organizations telling them about the ministry you will soon offer and ask if you can place a flier in their offices. Tell local pastors and churches about the ministry soon to be operating. Make fliers and put them in the mail boxes in areas in which refugees live. Put fliers up on public notice boards at grocery stores, pharmacies, and other community stores. Put these fliers up in doctors’ offices, libraries, and schools. Go into the community where refugees live and talk to people on the street. Take a refugee leader with you who can talk about the ministry and about you as a person who cares about the refugees’ problems.

Paul wrote something like this. Getting your news out to the community in need requires going to them is similar to Paul’s writing when he said, Christians are to go to the people in need and tell them about God’s salvation made available to them. As a Christian ministry to refugees, the program did not come to you from God, so you can feel good about yourself because you are doing something for refugees. God’s vision came so the people He loves, which includes refugees, can experience His love. How will the refugees recognize God’s love if you do not get into their community and tell them about the refugee ministry, and why it’s available to help them? Ultimately, the refugee ministry is to tell the people God loves them so much that he provided a way to save them from their sins and give them eternal life with Him. That love is for eternity and for now. God’s love isn’t just for the future; God’s love is for now, too. Paul said in Romans 10:1, 10-14, 

1 “Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. 10 For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.’ 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him. 13 For ‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ 14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

The ministry from God’s heart to you as a vision to help the refugees comes because of God’s love for them. He loves them with a saving love for now and eternity. Just as the people cannot hear about God’s saving love without someone going to tell them, the refugees cannot hear about the refugee ministry without someone going into their communities to tell them it exists to help them because of God’s love for them. All who seek to minister must go where the people are to help them.

Advocacy

In the refugee ministry article titled Connecting, you understood many reasons exist for finding other organizations serving the refugee community. Connecting with the other organizations helps you network to meet more needs of refugees. It helps you find funding for the programs. Connecting aids you in knowing how to find funding or volunteers.

Besides advocating with other organizations, you must advocate for refugee ministry within the community and city, so people will accept refugees. Why is this necessary? Many times, people within a community, city, or nation protest out of fear about refugees entering their sphere. They are afraid refugees will take jobs away from them. Refugees willingly take lower paying jobs than nationals. Because of this, employers often choose refugees over nationals. Nationals fear the culture from which refugees come will bleed into their city or nation. They do not want genocide, war, or “strange” religions to affect their way of life. People-land owners or property managers-within the host city or country are prejudiced against refugees and asylum-seekers. They show it by charging refugees and asylum-seekers higher rent prices. Often, they will rent one room of a flat/apartment for half the price of the full price of the whole apartment. Often, they will build shacks in a back yard that do not have access to running water or sewerage. These landlords will then charge exorbitant rents so they pay their own mortgage for the property from the rents.

Ultimately, advocacy within the host community, city, and nation should aim to help the people know the plight of the refugees and why they had to flee their homes. It aims to touch the hearts of people, so they will care for the refugees instead of seeing them as a threat. You can advocate for refugees by speaking at churches, businesses, in councils, in neighborhoods schools and sports clubs, and with local government leaders. You cannot be the only one in a community to care for refugees and asylum-seekers. The task is a very large. It takes a community united to care for its aliens, orphans, and widows. God understood this and told the Israelites to care for their poor and powerless within their own communities.

Consider these verses from the Bible:

At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year and shall deposit it in your town. The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do. (Deuteronomy 14:28-29 [NASB])
“You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly.” (Leviticus 19:15 [NASB]) 
For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. He executes justice for the orphan and the widow and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. So, show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:17-19 [NASB])

Other verses of direct teaching from Yahweh in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament, as well as teaching from prophets and New Testament writers, teach these lessons and more.

Conclusion

What is most important to know is God loves everyone. He is not prejudiced. God wants all people to come to a saving relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. At this point and throughout the ministry to refugees, prayer is paramount. God giving you His ministry vision for refugees shows His love for refugees. It also shows His love of you. He knows your heart and trusts you will follow His guidance to care for refugees. God knows you love Him in return by obeying His calling on your life.

By obeying God’s calling on your life, you show love to the refugees in the community, city, and nation. Love for anyone, including displaced people, occurs in several ways. It includes prayers for them, introducing them to God by telling them the gospel, listening to their stories, and seeking to minister to them by providing tangibly for their needs. Jesus modeled social ministry sandwiched by the gospel with His life. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, lifted the lame, restored hearing to the deaf, encouraged the fainthearted, and brought the good news of God’s saving grace to all people.

Jesus is your example of how to minister to refugees and the powerless. He began by Himself and began calling people to follow Him. Jesus trained His followers as to whom God loves and how to minister to the. He taught them to pray. God provided all things needed for the people Jesus and His followers encountered. You, also, at this starting stage of ministry to refugees, must pray, find a venue, get funding, buy resources, request volunteers, tell refugees about the ministry, advocate for the refugees, and pray more. The task is daunting at times. You will grow weary. People may misunderstand your intentions. Others may spread lies about your intentions or the ministry. Funding may not always come when you decide you need it. God may not seem to be listening to you. Jesus experienced many of these things and He said His followers would experience them, too. We are not greater than the Master. I encourage you at all time to keep the Lord before you. Pray continually. Seek God’s will constantly. Rest regularly. Learn when to stop for the day. Get help from friends when needed.

      The LORD bless you, and keep you;      The LORD make His face shine on you, and be gracious to you;
      The LORD lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.                            
       (Numbers 6:24-26 [NASB])



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Thursday, August 23, 2018

Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage Three: Connecting




Introduction

Four articles about faith-based ministry to refugees precede this one. The article titles are The Warp and Weft of Life[1], Conception: Empowering to Serve Refugees[2], Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage One: Getting to Know Refugees[3], and Inception: Working with Refugees, Stage Two: Founding a Faith-based Ministry to Refugees[4]. Besides these, others of my refugee articles relay stories directly from refugees about their lives. These articles begin with the title In Their Words.[5][6][7] One other article on working with refugees teaches about the importance of letting the person tell his or her story. The title of this article is Just Listen[8].

In earlier articles of this series, we learned who refugees are, how many refugees are in the world and that they come from many countries. For faith-based refugee work, we must receive the vision from God, pray continually, and depend on God for strength. Further, we must get to know the refugees by talking with them, and then determine their needs based on those conversations with them and from your own inspection of their lives. Another part of working with refugees is setting up a refugee ministry organization with a clear mission statement, and clear goals and objectives. These will keep the ministry focused. They will allow people working with you to help refugees and people outside the organization to understand God’s vision for you and your goals for the refugee ministry.

This article will focus on the third stage of beginning work with refugees under the banner of Inception. Its focus is on connecting with people. Connections include the gatekeeper, the activist, and the caretaker of the refugees. Further, connections must occur besides these for effective and possible expansion of ministries and for acceptance of refugees by the community in which they live.

Prayer

As in each of the earlier articles of this series, prayer must enwrap any ministry with and to refugees. God is the One who must give the vision and empower the work, so the workers will not grow weary, heavy-hearted, and give up on the work to which He calls His people. Additionally, prayer must weave throughout each part of the refugee ministry to know directly from God to whom or to which organization to meet with to get volunteers and funding. Prayer will help you determine when to change the work, and when to enlarge it. It will also help you know to whom to reach out for added expertise. Prayer, too, opens people’s hearts as you and the refugee organization advocate for refugees. Without prayer throughout the entire process, the ministry weakens because it rests upon the limited wisdom and knowledge of people instead of on all-knowing God.

Researching

Why should you want to connect with other people and organizations instead of being a lone ranger working with refugees? First, God intended the community to help the sojourners and aliens. Deuteronomy and Leviticus were both written to the Israelites as a people, a nation. To them God commanded to love the aliens because they, too, were aliens in Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:19 and Leviticus 19:34) Additionally, in Deuteronomy 14:28-29, Moses taught the Israelites to take care of the aliens by keeping their third-year’s tithe in their town to feed the widow, orphans, and aliens who lived among them. In each of these passages, no one person helped all the poor people. It took a community concerned for the poor to take care of them. Because of this, you should strive to work alongside other people and organizations who already work with refugees and the poor in the community.

If you live and want to work with refugees in a city or town, most likely other people and organizations already work with refugees or poor people in the community. Based on your mission statement, goals, and objectives, decide from which experts and skilled people you potentially might need help in the ministry to refugees. These may include churches, social workers, counselors, doctors, lawyers, immigration officials, educators and the education department, nurses, and job skills teachers. Note, these areas of skills could include individuals or organizations, and businesses or government employees. Do not scratch off an expert because you do not need them now. Keep them in a file for the future in case the refugee ministry expands in that direction. Develop a relationship with these experts.

Once you decide which skilled people or organizations you should look for, start your search with the following methods. A good place to begin your searching is by talking to the refugee leaders. They will know some organizations already because the grapevine is effective among poor people. Another way you can find out who and what organizations help poor people and refugees is by talking to local church pastors. They are active in the community and, if they are not new in their positions, will know of organizations and people who work with refugees and poor people. Next, look through an internet browser for organizations who help the poor and refugees in your community. Finally, do not overlook your own connections: your doctors, people you know through your child’s school, connection through your church or your spouse’s job, etc. Even if these people will not be helping currently or soon, they may help in the future. Keep a file of their details and skill. They could become a useful connector, skilled volunteer, or board member.

Meeting

Once you have a list of people and organizations who help refugees and the poor of the community, email or call them to ask for an appointment to speak with them about the vision God has put on your heart. Be specific about that vision, such as saying you want to help refugees in your community by teaching them the local language, or providing blankets, food, school uniforms, etc. If they do not respond to your email, then call and ask for an appointment to meet with the director of the organization.

Before you arrive at your appointment with a person or organization, prepare what you will tell him/her/them. Do not go in without an agenda. Your presentation and questions should include:
1. The vision God gave you.
2. Your mission statement, goals, and objectives.
3. Your needs to make this ministry operational.
4. Ask how they began their ministry.
5. Ask what their main ministry focus is and to whom.
6. Ask them questions about areas in which you are weakest, so you can gain from their knowledge.
7. Ask if you can spend a couple hours in their ministry learning what they do.
8. Ask if you can call them should a need for their expertise arise.
9. If the organization is a business, ask if they would be interested in setting up volunteer days for their employees to work with your organization monthly or quarterly
10. Additionally, if the organization is a business or a funding agent, ask if it would interest them to contribute funds to help with ministry to refugees of the community.

Once the first meeting with the people or organization is complete, you will have a better idea of other assistance ministries in the community. These assistance ministries will know about you and your organization. An initial bridge with them will be in place by which to get help in the future. These connections will enable you to re-enter their sphere to be an advocate for the refugees in their community.

Advocating

Besides connecting with the community to learn, to find other ministry individuals and organizations, and to seek volunteers and funding, another big reason exists for getting into the community. Advocacy for refugees is very important to the organization’s/ministry’s success. It must happen on many levels: in neighboring streets, churches, and schools around the ministry site, with local NGOs/NPOs, with government offices, and in churches and schools in the city/town. Advocacy occurs not just to get funds and volunteers. It must occur to help an established society accept a ministry and a people group, especially a ministry to “the least of these.”

In general, people dislike associating with or seeing people who are “lower” than themselves in society within their living and working spheres. Several reasons exist for this. They are: possible decreased property value, fear for personal safety, fear of jobs being given to people willing to accept a lower wage, and personal prejudice. Advocacy can help ease these issues and help a community accept the refugees and then take initiative in tangibly helping them. Without advocacy, a ministry to refugees will struggle. Roadblocks will arise because of the above reasons. This will cause the organizers of the ministry to spend a large amount of time fighting fires instead of ministering to the refugees of the community.

Conclusion

For a ministry to refugees to make a difference and grow, connecting with local community leaders, professionals, and organizations is paramount. These connections can help you learn quicker about how to make the refugee ministry stable and grow. They can provide a base of volunteers and funding, too. Additionally, connections can provide a skill base of expertise for utilization in the refugee ministry. These professionals and skilled people can prove helpful to expand the ministry and be the experts on the organization’s board when the organization grows, too. Besides these reasons for connecting with the community, another exists. Connecting with the community is advocacy for the ministry and for refugees. It helps the people of the community, the community leaders, professionals, and organizations to understand the lives of the refugees, their needs, and to get past their own personal fears and prejudices. Without this advocacy, a ministry to refugees will not grow and may even die.

As a final note, recall what Moses taught the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land about their tithe to God in Deuteronomy 26:5, 10-11.
5You shall answer and say before the LORD your God, 10‘Now behold, I have brought the first of the produce of the ground which You, O LORD have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the LORD your God, and worship before the LORD your God; 11and you and the Levite and the alien who is among you shall rejoice in all the good which the LORD your God has given you and your household. [NASB]
God mandates throughout the whole Bible we are to care for the alien, sojourner, and our neighbour. Refugees are these people about whom God spoke. Will you choose to obey this command by God?

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