Ministry is 'First Line of Defense' for Refugees

By Michael Wacht *

A UMNS News Feature

NOTE: See also Cuban family makes new life with help from Florida church and Haitian Mission reunites families, helps them get fresh start.

MIAMI (UMNS) -- When Refugee Sunday was established in the Florida Annual Conference in the 1960s, ministry to refugees was "romantic," according to the Rev. Brice Harris, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Pompano Beach.

"We were helping Cubans and fighting communism," said Harris, chairman of the conference's Refugee Ministry Task Force.  "It was all very romantic."

Today, he said, the romance has worn off as the number of refugees has grown.  The Florida Conference annually touches the lives of about 4,100 refugees who have fled from Cuba, Haiti, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Indonesia.

"We're the first line of defense," Harris said.  "We meet the needs of people who come here with nothing on their backs.  For more than two decades, we've helped thousands to become settled in the United States at a time when no other resources were available to them."

The needs include necessities such as health and school kits, food, and furniture, according to Judith Pierre Okerson, a member of Grace Haitian United Methodist Church in Miami and a supervisor with Church World Service.  Refugees also need help find housing and employment.

Many refugees need to be oriented to their new life in a new country, according to Harris.  "We try to acclimate parents into American culture.  What is considered child abuse here is just discipline in another culture."

Funding for the ministry comes from an annual Refugee Sunday offering and the United Methodist Committee on Relief's (UMCOR) Global Refugee Response Advance #982540-1.  Florida Conference churches gave $1,500 last year, while UMCOR put $35,000 toward the ministry, Harris said.

About 12 Florida United Methodist churches, mainly in the Broward County and Miami areas, have helped settle 1,400 refugee families in the past year, according to Okerson.  Other groups, including United Methodist Women, lend support by donating health and school kits.

*  Wacht is the assistant editor of the Florida Annual Conference's edition of the United Methodist Review.  This story first appeared in that publication.