Refugee Resettlement In The Heartland Of America

Author : Kate Rice
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781721062355
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)

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Download or read book The Stranger Among You written by Kate Rice and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-10-28 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flying under the radar of most of the major media is the faith-based refugee resettlement movement. The seemingly divisive cause of refugee resettlement is actually a unifying one, bringing people from across the political spectrum together. Trump voters and Clinton voters, pro-lifers and pro-choicers, the religious and the secular are leaving their red and blue silos to stand in solidarity supporting refugees here in the U.S. This book profiles nine communities, most in the Bible Belt and other red states, and the way they're melding Silicon Valley scale with the words of Matthew, John and Leviticus, to take care of the stranger among us. It's a story of common ground, one that shows that this great nation is not nearly as polarized as we think it is.From the deep south, to the heartland, to cowboy country, you'll meet big-hearted Americans of all faiths-and of no faith-doing incredible work as refugee advocates. A couple of Republican governors-one who rode the anti-Syrian refugee bandwagon, and one who is as pro-refugee as he is pro-Trump-talk about refugee resettlement. Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, evangelicals, Jews, Lutherans, Methodists, Mormons, Presbyterians and others open up about leaving their own comfort zones to do this work-and why it is so rewarding. They're disrupters whose literal interpretation of the Bible to help the stranger is driving this movement. They share their highly personal stories of the way they searched their souls to go outside their own familiar world to help those in need. A young mother in Louisville, Kentucky. says "Christ didn't say, 'Make sure you have a great 401(k)!' He said, 'Join me outside the camp.' And this has allowed me to do that." Some followed a convoluted route this work in human rights. A young evangelical whose parents raised her in Morocco, where they taught English, was a freelance journalist in Cairo. She covered the tumult of the Arab Spring, student protests and refugees marooned in no-man's-land. You can almost hear the gunshots in her stories for media outlets as varied as Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera and Slate. Jesus, refugees and dusty desert roads leading the stateless only God knows where are mother's milk to her. She found herself back in Arkansas while she and her husband took a hiatus before starting graduate school-and found herself caught up in the refugee resettlement movement. In Des Moines, Iowa, a pastor for an Evangelical Lutheran church talks about how his congregation asked itself who would notice if it closed its doors. To their discomfort, members realized no one would. Today, it is a social justice machine. On Wednesday nights, girls in hijabs run through the church hallways during after-school programs that offer homework tutoring and English lessons. Their parents attend life-skill training that helps families that once lived in huts with mud floors buy homes. A former Guantanamo interrogator who is now director of the Islam and religious freedom team at the Religious Freedom Institute, talks about young evangelicals who come to her because they want to become more involved in Muslim-Christian relations. In Boise, Idaho, Mormon, Lutheran and secular volunteers tutor African refugees in a Jewish synagogue. You'll hear about conservative Christian leaders and their support for refugees and immigrants-and their concerns about the support some of their colleagues have given President Trump. You'll learn about the respect the observant show for refugees for people of all beliefs. They say that Jesus helped everyone, no matter what they believed. And if Jesus didn't make belief a condition of help, why would they, as His followers? It shows that this is a nation of people who can disagree on some issues and still work shoulder to shoulder on a common cause like refugee resettlement.