It is Thanksgiving Day here in the US and I want to take a moment to express my deep gratitude for your prayers and financial partnership in the work of IAFR.
2015 has been marked as a year of forced displacement. The world is struggling to know what to do in the face of this overwhelming surge of desperate people seeking refuge. Solutions are illusive. As the global refugee crisis escalates, many countries are trying to close their borders. These are tough days for refugees.
This makes me especially grateful for your heart of compassion toward refugees and asylum seekers.
I'm thankful for the opportunities we have to come alongside of displaced people in ways that re-humanize them and that invest in their resilience and recovery.
Sometimes this means providing shelter in a refugee camp, as it did for the woman in the photo. Other times it is through providing trauma care training for refugee church leaders - or by participating in (and sponsoring) a refugee youth camp. Still other times it is through multiplying our impact by training others in refugee ministry, as we did earlier this month in Turkey. Even the simple, tangible, act of providing a Bible for a refugee is an investment in their long-term recovery from trauma and displacement.
In Europe and the US, we're helping churches welcome asylum seekers and resettled refugees in ways that facilitate recovery and integration into their new host society.
Because we believe that we cannot engage refugees with the heart of God from a distance, all of our ministries are highly relational. Because we believe that refugees are part of the solution to their own crisis, we partner directly with them whenever possible.
We can't do any of this without you. And so it is a good time for me to say thank you for your partnership in this life-giving ministry.
Happy Thanksgiving from the IAFR team!
Tom Albinson
President
International Association for Refugees (IAFR)
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IAFR is actively serving in Atlanta, France, Kenya, Malawi, Malta and Minneapolis/St. Paul. We are planning new ministry initiatives in Italy and Turkey.
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