If forcibly displaced people were their own country, they’d rank 13th in order of population! That’s just after Japan and ahead of the Philippines.
Today is World Refugee Day. Thanks for taking a moment to try to take in the situation. Look over my commentary, click a couple of links and if you’re a visual learner, drink in the three stunning graphics below that I poached from an insightful Al Jazeera article.
Three things to remember:
- God has a warm heart for displaced people. Jesus is God and experienced with his family the trauma of fleeing for their lives to a foreign land.
- If you’re an American Christian, please join me in growing our understanding of the situation at our southern border and refusing to conflate and hate.
- The majority of refugees today are Muslim.Al Jazeera says, “As of 2024, almost three-quarters (72 percent) of all refugees came from just five countries: Afghanistan (6.4 million), Syria (6.4 million), Venezuela (6.1 million), Ukraine (6 million) and Palestine (6 million).”
Four things to do:
- Pray: Here’s a brief meditation and prayer you can pray through and share with others.
- Pay: The INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR REFUGEES serves displaced in many places. Your gift to them would be put to good use.
- Play: Football, chess and dolls are supra-cultural. Find a place refugees gather nearby or far away and take some time to play. I think it would fall under Jesus’s category of “cup of cold water in my name.”
- Invite them to stay: Americans recently have been given the opportunity to band together and sponsor refugee families. Remembering that God doesn’t ask anyone to do everything, how cool would it be for Christians to receive grace from Him to help bring the number of refugees admitted all the way up to the 125,000 ceiling!
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