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It all started with one person who wanted to do some good. He had funds he wanted to donate to help unhoused people in his community, and he reached out through his church to partner organizations who might be able to help. From those initial conversations, an impulse to help others is turning into a partnership that will assist refugees in their first few months in Virginia as they start a new life in a new place.
When a person or family receive refugee status, they receive funds intended to cover initial needs like housing, groceries, and utilities, but as we all know, those costs have increased significantly in the last few years. Those funds can quickly disappear as people try to find work and establish a new life here. Ministries like Welcome House, a ministry started in Raleigh that has welcomed over 400 guests in North Carolina, often stand in that gap and provide housing to refugees in the first few months so those funds can go further. As the conversation here continued, organizations like Re-Establish Richmond, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Virginia, River City Faith Network, Impact Missions, and several area churches have begun working together to make a Welcome House in the Richmond area a possibility.
When churches partner with a Welcome House, they provide financial support, volunteers to support maintenance and upkeep, and volunteers to provide hospitality and community to the people who are housed there. In some spaces, churches even offer an unused parsonage or other property they own to serve as a Welcome House. Anything churches have to offer can be part of the work Jesus calls us to do in welcoming the stranger. This partnership is in the earliest dreaming stages right now, but the need is there and so is the opportunity. We hope this first Welcome House will lead to others – both in houses we can purchase and offer to guests and in churches that offer their own space to welcome guests as they make a new life here.
World Refugee Day is June 20, a day designated by the UN to honor refugees around the world. A day that celebrates the rich cultural contributions of refugees worldwide, it is also a time for us to reflect how we can be neighbors to those who are able to come to our communities. We invite you to pray with us and consider how you may be part of welcoming our new neighbors.