At Open Homes Hamilton, we welcome newly arrived refugee claimants by pairing them with Hosts who have some extra space in their homes for a few months while they get on their feet. From the outside, it looks like we are the ones doing the welcoming. And yet, so often the tables are turned on us in a beautiful, unexpected way that echoes biblical stories of  “strangers” revealing the face of God.

Just before the pandemic started, a Host family in Ancaster welcomed a Nigerian woman and her two small children. Soon after they arrived, everything shut down. You probably have very clear memories of those days of adrenaline and uncertainty.

It turned out that the Guest had been a seamstress in Nigeria, and that her Host sewed women’s menstrual supplies for a charity. Soon, they were sewing together, and quickly moved on to sewing masks, as we all figured out how to protect ourselves and those we love from this pandemic.

The Guest continued sewing, and perfecting her mask designs, and eventually sold them, both to members of our community and through a stall at the farmer’s market. 

Now, she has started a career as a PSW here and has been supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our society through this pandemic. She’s in her own apartment and is flourishing. And every time I share with her that there is a new Guest, she sews another batch of masks and insists on giving them to us for free. When a Colombian Guest had a baby, she sewed a diaper bag. When another Guest moved to her own apartment, she sewed a lunch bag.

Once when I visited her, she had a gift waiting for me. She had designed an outfit for me, based on pure guesstimates about my dimensions, and asked her sister in Nigeria to sew an outfit for me, that she then paid to have shipped here for me. 

Who is really welcoming whom? Rhihannat* is a blessing to me. 

Years ago, I was a volunteer with Micah House and was matched with a newly arrived Colombian family: parents and their two young daughters.

We hit it off. They had a great sense of humour and loved to tease me about my broken Spanish. They came to my wedding. I came to their daughter’s first communion. We celebrated Christmas Eve together and Juan cooked bunuelos, a deep fried pastry from Colombia. We camped together, and he made this delicious herby sauce called chimichurri to top our barbecued steaks.

When I told them about my now-husband, then-boyfriend Dan, Juan said very seriously that my Colombian father would have to approve of him. 

Who is welcoming whom? I received God’s love through them.

That’s part of why we call the volunteer groups who support a Guest “Kinship Circles”, because often, we are becoming family. Not always. But that is the invitation. And that was the call on the people of Israel--to enfold the “stranger”, those who were without kin in the land, into family. To share resources. To celebrate together. To belong to each other. 

We have a chance to belong to each other in a way that explodes the boxes of giver/receiver and long-time Canadian/refugee claimant.

I often have an opportunity to receive God’s love through the people I’m supposedly serving.

What would it look like for you to follow Christ into being a Guest, into receiving the gifts that refugees bring? What would it look like for your church, or your family?

Written by Laura Dobrowolski, Executive Director of IAFR Canada.

Last year, I was able to visit Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi, home to more than 55,000 people.  On this visit I met with many inspiring leaders who seek to build peace and hope within the community.  

One such leader was Pastor Justin, an energetic entrepreneur who happily toured me around the brick-making enterprise his church engages in to support its ministry work, as well as the plot of land he farmed to supplement his own needs and the widows and single mothers within his community.  It was inspiring to witness the kind of initiative and solutions that he and his community had generated to address the needs before them, given how difficult the conditions were in the camp.

Fast forward to this past June.

The World Food Programme (WFP), facing shrinking revenue and increasing costs, cut a large number of refugees off the distribution list.    Even though the distribution amounts to approximately 15 cents per day, at least 300 vulnerable households were immediately plunged into dire straits. Over the next couple of years, the WFP plans to systematically cut all camp residents in Dzaleka off the household distribution. In addition, Malawi’s policies make opportunities to earn a living outside the camp very limited. As a result, the majority of refugees in Malawi are completely reliant on food aid and other external assistance for survival.

Dzaleka camp residents are facing a food crisis and the need for durable solutions is pressing.

When the cuts by the WFP happened, Pastor Justin was already thinking about solutions.  Could we acquire some land and train camp residents to farm?  
He felt the urgent need to equip people with the tools with which they could do something to address the crisis at hand. 
 
Meanwhile IAFR Canada met with another Canadian charity, Thrive for Good, who trains leaders to farm small patches of land called Life Gardens.  This model has already worked in many countries, including Rwanda and Kenya.  

Life Gardens work with a minimum of 6 hours of sunlight and a minimal amount of water, enabling people to grow nutrient-rich food.  It is sustainable, scalable and low-complex. It increases access to nutritious food and involves low-cost technology.  
 
The idea emerged to support Pastor Justin’s farming solution with the expertise of Thrive for Good’s Life Garden model.  

• This spring, he will be organizing and overseeing this project as community leaders and pastors attend the initial round of training with a Thrive for Good facilitator.
• Within the first 3 months, as the first cohort is trained, enough food will be grown on a ¼ acre plot to feed 40 people.  
• A new group will be trained every 3 months as the Life Garden model takes root (pun intended!). 

In the meantime, IAFR is looking to support the current need for food with an emergency shipment of dried vegetable mix through a partnership with Ontario Christian Gleaners.  This organization provides 3 lb packages of dried vegetable and protein mix, that when reconstituted provides 80 servings of nutritious meals. A full container shipment of the vegetable mix will provide 1 million servings to help sustain people now.

Over the long term, we are partnering with INUA Advocacy, an on-the-ground refugee-led organization who advises governments on the development of healthy refugee policies centered on self-reliance, participation and sustainability.

INUA has been a trusted frontline advocate for the reinstatement of vulnerable households that have been systematically and wrongfully removed from the WFP distribution. They will continue to lobby and campaign for better laws for refugees and will press the Malawian government to follow through with implementing their Refugee Integration plans pledged in 2019. 

The fulfillment of these pledges would enable residents and partners to grow farming beyond small individual pieces of land into larger spaces that can support more people and can provide food that will go to market. 

This advocacy will therefore underpin the food crisis response so that refugees can eventually exercise the right to work and to mobility within the country, giving them the opportunity to establish food security and to flourish as contributing members within the country of Malawi. 

Dzaleka refugee camp is in the country of Malawi.  A former detention centre for political prisoners, it is now home for over 54,000 refugees from countries such as DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Somalia. Through our partners, There is Hope Malawi, and Health Partners International of Canada, we have collaborated to bring humanitarian medical kits to the health clinic that serves the camp and the surrounding community – over 80,000 people.  
Our executive director Laura Dobrowolski recently visited the camp and returned with many stories of beauty and hope. 
Here is one reflection...

It was Sunday afternoon in the camp, and this small and festively decorated church was a gathering spot for youth from many churches within the camp.  They came together for a friendly Bible Quiz competition (complete with prizes) and finished with some spoken word and musical numbers, demonstrating energy and talent, joy and creativity.  It was a beautiful reflection of the life and community to be found in Dzaleka. 

The church is at the core of so much here: 

• a safe place to gather,
• a forum for study and for celebration,
• a place to learn and to grow. 

It reminded me of the UNHCR’s invitation to faith communities to enter into the world of refugees and find practical and good ways to welcome the stranger.  They recognize that the church is uniquely suited to strengthen faith, emotional well-being, personal capacity and community.  These are key ingredients to the fullness of life for all of humanity! 

May you be encouraged, as I am, by the work of faith communities within refugee camps to restore hope.  And may you sense the invitation, as I do, through the UNHCR’s Call to Faith Leaders to welcome the stranger.

Written by Alison Witt, who co-leads the Prayer Pilgrimages with Sharon Schmidt.

I used to think prayer was boring.
Of course I knew prayer was important- but for me it was more in the same category as eating kale or going to the dentist. That category of ‘things I know are good to do but just don’t bring me delight’.  Something changed along the way though and I can honestly say that prayer has brought me much delight over the past few years.

Participating in neighbourhood prayer walks, spending time in interactive prayer rooms, and going on silent retreats have all been part of helping me learn to pray in more creative and expansive ways. When I was a child I was taught that prayer is a ‘two-way conversation between you and God’. That sounded really attractive, yet for most of my life that simply wasn’t my experience. My prayer life was much more of a monologue involving me pouring out my heart to God (or at its worst reading through my shopping list of prayer requests.)

Slowly I am learning to listen. To pay attention. To hear what God is saying to me. And it is so energizing!

One of the prayer practices that has been particularly life-giving for me is prayer pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is going on a journey with a particular spiritual motivation. Not as a tourist who goes to consume, but rather going with a posture of listening to God and encountering Him along the way.  A few years ago I was invited to go on a week-long pilgrimage to Iona, Scotland.  I had a specific question I was taking with me and seeking God's direction about.  The journey was filled with prayer, reflection, worship, beauty and many hilarious adventures.  And in the midst of it, God spoke to me.  It was so incredibly personal and meaningful. 

I’ve come to understand that it’s not so much about the length of time - pilgrimages can be a week, a month, a year… or even just one day. It’s about the intention and the posture with which you are approaching your trip. Since prayer is at the centre of what we do at IAFR Canada we have been experimenting with ways to build pilgrimage into our ongoing ministry.  Some of our team already went on an international prayer pilgrimage to the Mexican-Guatemalan border but we wondered if there are some strategic places right here in Canada where God might want us to go and pray.

Border crossings are a liminal space- a place where life and death decisions are made and life altering actions occur.  The Fort Erie- Buffalo border is one of the main official entry points for refugee claimants entering Canada. It is also a symbolic place that represents all the other unofficial, and official crossing points along the very extensive Canada-US border. We sensed that  this is a place God was leading us to go and pray. So in early June we invited a group of pastors and ministry leaders to join us on a day-long prayer pilgrimage to the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie.

One of the pastors who joined us was Jesse Hill from Philpott Church in Hamilton.  He said “The prayer pilgrimage was a great opportunity to encounter a hidden side of the refugee experience, and to pray about how the Lord might be at work among refugees in my own community. It  was both refreshing and eye-opening”.

These day-long pilgrimages are filled with learning about the experiences of refugee claimants, and learning about listening prayer, which have become two of my favourite things. So I guess it's no surprise that these pilgrimages to the border bring me great delight. (For the record, I am also experiencing much delight in eating fresh kale from my garden, but I still avoid going to the dentist.)

IAFR Canada anticipates hosting day-long prayer pilgrimages to the CAN-US border twice a year, fall and late spring.  If you know a church leader who might want to join us on a future prayer pilgrimage, please let us know!

One year can make an incredible difference.  We had the chance to talk to IAFR Canada team-member Insaf Safou about her recent trip to connect with Loving Hands Lebanon one year after its launch.

“One of the elderly ladies at Loving Hands is our “ironing lady”, said Insaf.  "She prepares everything for packaging.  When she first joined the team, she was often quite depressed.  Her circumstances are very difficult.  Now, there is a smile on her face.  Her situation has not changed, but she has!”

Loving Hands Lebanon recently celebrated one year of operation as a social enterprise, teaching sewing skills to women.  It’s one of many critically-needed programs Beirut Nazarene Church offers to refugees and the community, in partnership with IAFR Canada.  In the process of creating a way for women to support their families economically they have also created a community of women who care for one another.

If you walked into the workshop, you would find a mix of refugees and local residents, Muslims and Christians all working, laughing and eating together.  Daily devotional times have helped ground this team in God’s love for them.  During a recent conference for women’s ministry leaders, which included the Loving Hands staff, one woman shared that she really loved her first overnight experience of gathering for worship, teaching and prayer.

Loving Hands launched with the facilitation of Insaf Safou, the oversight of Beirut Nazarene Church, and the wisdom generously shared by Hopeful Hands Erbil, founded in 2017 by a local team led by Insaf. 

The local team formed quickly, bursting with creativity that soon produced bed sheets, bags, decor and clothing.  All their raw materials come from Lebanon, supporting the local economy with their buy local, made local approach.

In addition, a storefront has recently been rented to display and sell the beautiful, expertly made products that Loving Hands is creating. Profits from the sales of their handiwork become the paycheques for the Loving Hands staff. 

At a time when the Lebanese economy is really suffering, Loving Hands is helping refugees in Beirut not just survive, but also recover from forced displacement.  They truly have accomplished so much in just one year.

Lana* is a 7 year old Syrian girl. She has 5 sisters. Her mom works as a hairdresser at home to meet the needs of the family.

Last month there was a fire in their apartment building and the mother reached out to us, sharing her fear and sending us pictures of the blackened building. Fortunately, nobody was injured, and their own apartment was undamaged.

We came to know this family when they joined our STEP educational program in October 2020. As refugees, the girls had never been to school, so finding an educational program that could help them catch up was essential for Lana’s parents. Lana and her sisters walk to school each day from their home nearby.

Lana loves school a lot. She and her sisters are smart and fast learners. When classes were paused for the two-week Christmas break, her mother sent us a video of the girls crying hard. They could not wait for school to start again!

Although last year was not a normal year due to COVID shutdowns, they were able to continue studying from home through supported online teaching. We are happy to report that Lana and each of her sisters have successfully passed to another grade level!

Rebecca Kaplan shared her experience of Home-Hosting a refugee with Open Homes Hamilton, speaking at the No Room Storytelling Evening in Hamilton, May 14, 2022.

It's been amazing to hear this evening how some experts are literally changing the landscape of this city to be more accommodating. It also makes it a tough act to follow because I am not an expert on anything that would put me up here.

But in my life, I seem to reflect on the same question a lot: “How did I get myself here?”

I guess in this case it was because of an email I received.

On September 15th of this past year, in the middle of a busy day, in the busiest season for both my husband and myself, since we both work in schools, I received an email from Danielle at Open Homes that basically went like this.

"Hey Rebecca, we have a possible guest. He's a 24 year old African Muslim man who doesn't speak English, only Arabic and French. Are you interested?"

Are we interested? Cue reflective question: “How did I get myself here?”

To give you a bit of background, we were new Open Homes Hamilton Hosts.
We had been involved with Open Homes for the past few years as church point people. We weren't even Hosts yet. We hadn't finished filling out the paperwork when Danielle emailed us, so this was a very new ball game for us.

I grew up in a bigger family. I grew up in Burlington. Everything I learned about hospitality I learned from my mother. And we always had company. As teenagers we were allowed to pack our backyard so full of friends. I got to witness my parents set an example for taking people in under all sorts of circumstances, from friends who needed a place, family who needed an in-between, and more foster kids than I can name.

My husband was raised with a much quieter outlook on life. It was actually quite the opposite of how I grew up, so my husband is the best guy. And after 15 years with me and all my wild ideas, he wasn't fazed by the email that I forwarded him that day.

We both had lots of questions.
Do we even have room? We don't have a huge house. We have a 2 1/2 story. You know? East of downtown Hamilton- do we physically have room?

What would it look like having a Muslim man in our Christian home? Do I need to be making better dinners? Do I need to make more time to sit down and entertain? Do I even have time for that with work and kids? 

We have 4 kids, all are under 12. They are loud and untidy. They occasionally use the upper floors of our house for a full contact basketball game. Can they make room?

Do our daughters have room in their lives? They're six and seven, and was this too weird or too uncomfortable for them? Some of our people thought so.

Would he approve of our lifestyle?
We have a dog and a cat. Would he approve of those?
Would he approve of our family roles when they looked so culturally different to what he was used to? Why would he want to enter into a house as crazy as ours? Why would anyone?

We held our questions close and responded to Danielle's email less than an hour later: “We're in.”

Enter Moussa*.
And I'll never forget what it felt like to answer the door that day.  We tidied up our house. We read our kids the riot act about misbehaving when we have guests over. 

And there stood Danielle at our door with a young man slightly shorter than me, coming with not much more than a backpack. A man who didn't seem to be old enough to leave everything familiar to him and end up in a country so full of unknowns. How on earth did he get himself here? A man who we later found out had never been away from his family and had not eaten a meal at a table with a woman or even used a fork.
Did we have room for this?

Over the next few weeks, all our questions slowly got answered.
We did have room. Not a lot, but enough. We opt for our kids to share a room instead of everyone having their own. So we had a spare room that we used on and off for an office. It was easily converted to a bedroom on short notice.

Moussa made such an effort to be helpful in our house. A Muslim man could be comfortable in a Christian home with a Christian family. We made the decision when Moussa was with us to only buy halal meat so we didn't have to cook twice. As we chatted, we learned more about how Moussa came to be in Canada.

Our kids had room. They quickly got used to another person thoughtfully asking how their day was, just in order to practice English. They shared all their kids' books, which were easier for Moussa to read while learning. Our youngest daughter Zoe had one more person at the table to draw unicorns with. (Once we explained the difference between a unicorn and a rhinoceros to somebody who had never even heard of a unicorn.)  Our Julia had an expert teacher to help her learn her French numbers which were practiced for hours and hours over multiple board games.

Nick and I adjusted to having another adult in the house. Our friends, family and church community showed up almost every day to welcome our friend and help us to feel like we weren't carrying the weight of hosting on our own. It was all wonderful and glorious and nothing ever felt uncomfortable or wrong. Just kidding.

There were moments.
There are many moments, moments where we had to reset our expectations.
Moments, like when our oldest son trying to be polite, introduced his friends and their parents at the door by saying, "This is Moussa my refugee." They just know how to make it awkward. 

We knew our kids were so proud of what we were doing and as a family we found so many ways to teach along the way. There were moments when I wondered how to explain our cultural norms without sounding rude myself. Situations like having friends over, or trying to politely indicate that we were trying to have a more private conversation.

There was one moment where I tried to be open-minded and make this African dish called Fufu, which Moussa talked about frequently. I searched for recipes, went out and bought cassava and went back to the kitchen having no idea really what I was doing and boy did I get that one wrong! We sat at the table that night looking at the bowl of oddly textured tasteless green goo. And despite my sheer embarrassment in my failure, we all had a wild laugh.

About seven weeks into Moussa's stay with us, I was half-unexpectedly scheduled for surgery. It would require three months of recovery. No stairs, walking, doing anything, no cooking, cleaning, working, entertaining, and no doing what we had been trying to do to make Moussa feel comfortable for the last two months. We wondered if we still had room. What would this mean for us and for Moussa and for our kids? For our own sanity.

And that's when the tables turned on us.
I remember coming home from my surgery that day, unable to even put a sentence together.
Moussa came out with my husband and had to carry me inside. This Muslim stranger turned family member who had very little physical interaction with women, other than his own family, was helping to carry me inside my own house. Between Moussa and my husband and also our family and friends, I had around the clock care, enough adult supervision for our kids, enough help with housework. And enough of everything we needed in that season.

I was no longer making room.
I was no longer hosting.
I was being hosted.
I was being hosted in my own home by this person who accepted a less than perfect situation devoid of any of his cultural norms, who had to set aside his own comforts to care for me.
And boy was I humbled by that.

Almost seven weeks after that Moussa announced that it was time to go. I could not believe that four months had come and gone. We had just gotten so comfortable with having Moussa  around that we didn't feel ready. We didn't feel ready!

We needed to remind ourselves that we had committed to just a short-term home-stay. We forgot about the long-term implications of having someone stay with us. We never could have imagined saying, "Sure, we have room!" and allowing a stranger turned family member to have such a profound impact on our life and our family.

We questioned and worried as Moussa looked for housing, approaching the conversations as any overbearing mother would. We sat around the dinner table that night listening to him read us a heartfelt letter that he wrote, thanking us and letting us know he would visit lots. I felt in those moments that we should have been the ones saying thank you. And he does visit lots. Our kids said you're welcome and Nick and I both cried that night.

Nick returned the next day from moving his things into his apartment, and we sat in the quietness of our house that felt a little empty despite still being so full of children. Over the following days and weeks our kids reminded us that they missed their friend, too. We got to talk about what it meant to Host. What it meant to welcome people who are from different circumstances.

We got to reflect on the questions we had in the beginning.
What did it mean to have room?
Did we have room?
Did a busy, loud, sometimes messy, English-speaking Christian family of 6 plus a dog and a cat have room in our lives to welcome a 24 year old Arabic French speaking Muslim man into our home? Our lives and our chaos.

As we learned through four wild months, that went way too fast, our answer was a resounding yes.

An Interview With Benson Ocen - Founder/Director of I Live Again Uganda
Interviewer-Tricia DeBoer, Partner Representative

I Live Again Uganda (ILA) is celebrating its 14th anniversary on the 25th of March. Fourteen years of developing an extraordinarily successful program that helps people who’ve been traumatized find restoration and healing.

This interview with Benson unwraps ILA’s fabulous dreams for The Potter's House, a project in which IAFR Canada is both a thrilled and grateful partner. 

Tricia
How did I Live Again Uganda begin?

Benson
I Live Again Uganda began because of the war in northern Uganda, where many children were abducted and forced to become soldiers. They returned back to their families with a lot of trauma. Every person in northern Uganda became a victim of trauma, because of the war. 
After surviving the war, we needed to help give people hope, healing and identity through trauma counseling. So in 2008, the Lord birthed in us a call to start this ministry.  I Live Again is a way to restore life back to the people who had lost hope.

Tricia
The Lord's Resistance Army insurgency, the war that you have referred to, that lasted for more than 20 years. The war is over now. Do you think that it still affects the region and the people today?

Benson
Yes, the war is over. But the effect of war still continues because of the trauma. It will live on in the lives of people for decades. Today we see many children that are ages 16, 17, 18 - they were born in the Internally Displaced People camps.

The effect of separation of families still continues. So in a nutshell, I'm saying the effect of war is still evident in the lifestyle of the people of northern Uganda.

Tricia
Tell me a little bit about the moment that you chose to start I Live Again Uganda. What was that moment? What was that idea?

Benson
It started through a clinical psychologist from Australia, who came and did two years of research on mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder. I was part of the research team. The research was published in the British Journal for Clinical Psychology with evidence that people in northern Uganda are traumatized. 

After two years, the research was done, but we still had millions of traumatized people in northern Uganda. Over 1.2 million people were affected in northern Uganda, because of the war. It was at that moment that I sat and I thought, "Will it just end like that?  Something must happen."

And at that moment I said, "God help me." God talked to me clearly saying, "There must be restoration in the life of the people." He gave me the name "I Live Again" from what I learned from the research.

Tricia
Today, I Live Again Uganda is starting to expand and is building The Potter's House. What is the vision of this project and how was it inspired?

Benson
I Live Again Uganda realized that the need for mental health is overwhelming across the entire globe. There is a rise in trauma because of war, because of natural disasters, the increase in refugee displacement- over 82 million people have been displaced from their own country because of different factors. One or two people cannot go across all these countries to help in the healing of trauma. 

The idea of The Potter's House came through prayer when the Lord spoke to us, of a place where people can come together, learn and go and help in different places around the world. It would make expansion in bringing healing to victims of trauma easier. So, The Potter's House idea came to help people come do training in trauma counseling and to learn from one another. To ask and understand what has worked in different countries. 

Sometimes, when helping trauma victims, frontline workers can become traumatized.  So, we also wanted to think of how we can bring frontline workers together, to receive refreshment, get more training, get their own healing and be ready to go back and serve again. 

Tricia
How did you come up with the name The Potter's House?

Benson
It was through a gathering of ILA staff. We were at the land that the Lord had given us. We were dreaming about the land and wondering if we should build a school to help children. Or should we do vocational training or maybe an Agricultural Training Center? What would it be? We kept dreaming. But the Lord spoke to us and asked us, "Is that My desire or your own desire?"

So, we went to prayer, and as we were praying together, the Lord spoke to us through the words in Jeremiah.  The Lord told Jeremiah to go to The Potter's House. Then He asked Jeremiah, "What do you see?" Jeremiah explained how he saw the mud that was being formed in the hands of the potter. The Lord spoke to us clearly and told us that we are people who have been victims of trauma. But God Himself would mold us to make us new again. He showed us that pottery is very much therapeutic. 

God said, "This place shall be a place of encounter, a place that can be called The Potter's House, a place for remolding us to be a better person and become who we are called to be."

Tricia
What do you mean by it being "a place of encounter"? What does that phrase mean?

Benson
A place of encounter is a place where you would encounter healing, you will encounter hope and you will encounter your identity in God.

Tricia
Who do you hope will come to The Potter's House?

Benson
I hope the people who will join us at The Potter's House would be 

1. Victims of war. Those are people that will come for counseling. 
   
2. People who are on the frontlines, people who need to be trained in trauma counseling. 
   
3. I see children coming to camp for a week or two and learning from one another, being trained, being supported and being counseled.
4. I also envision seeing Pastors and Church Leaders coming together and supporting one another and working in unity seeking how we can bring transformation, how we can bring the gospel and how we can be people that work together in the vineyard of God. 
5. I also see leaders - political leaders, government leaders, tribal leaders- all kinds of leaders coming to us.

 Tricia
So how far along is The Potter's House in being built? Where are things at?

Benson
Clearing the land: We are in the process of clearing the land. It's currently the dry season here in northern Uganda, which is the best season to do that.

The roads: The district engineer has come and put together the information we need to hire excavators, bulldozers and trucks in order to build the road network. We are excited about that.

Water: We have already worked through an engineering company that will help us in drilling water or a well on site. We are excited about that too! 
 
Tricia
So after that, what's next?

Benson
Buildings: After that, the construction of the training centre, a sports centre and the security houses would begin.

Soccer field: Uganda is known for soccer or football. In building a good soccer field we can easily engage with young people and the surrounding community of The Potter's House site. It's important to us that we not only support those that are coming to us - but also the community around us. We are so excited about the football pitch that will be put there!

Our phone has been ringing off the hook all month.

• The local family shelter wants to know if Open Homes has anyone who can host a family of 4 from Colombia. 
• A Christian shelter in Toronto asks if we can find a spot for a single man from Ethiopia. 
  
• A friend from the Chadian community is desperately looking for a place for a young woman who just arrived from Chad and has nowhere to go. 

And that is just today! 

Our existing shelter systems are just not working. Toronto has the largest homeless shelter system in Canada, yet all of their city run shelters are full to capacity and turning people away in droves. The refugee-specific shelters are full too. It’s the same situation in all the major cities across our country.  It felt like a crisis before the pandemic, but now the cracks that already existed are gaping wider and wider and exposing a system that is completely falling apart.

One of the reasons that shelters are constantly full is that people have nowhere to move to. Have you seen the cost of renting an apartment lately? $1,450 a month. That’s the average cost to rent a 1-bedroom apartment in our midsize city in Ontario. It’s even more in Toronto.  And in Vancouver it is a whopping $2,200! What do you do when you are a newly arrived refugee waiting for a work permit and your entire monthly income is only $733? There are no easy answers.

What can we do? Do local churches have anything to offer in response to the current housing crisis?  IAFR Canada thinks so! We dream of seeing churches becoming vitally involved in both initial short-term housing solutions as well as safe, affordable long-term options.

You might be surprised at some of the ways that churches can make a difference. And you don’t have to be a big, wealthy church to get in on the action. There is a whole spectrum of opportunities for churches of all shapes and sizes to make a difference.

When the house next door to a small church in the east end of Hamilton went up for sale they recognized it as a unique opportunity and decided to buy it. After considering numerous options for how to use it, they chose to rent it out to a family from Haiti who was going through the refugee claim process. They rented it to this family at below market rental rates which allowed them to get on their feet while they were working hard to get Canadian credentials and find suitable work.  The church became good neighbours for this family and many dropped by to get to know them. The kids loved running next door to the church for Kids Club and Sunday School. The three or so years that this family lived there gave them the stability they needed to begin their life in Canada.

On a bigger scale, a number of churches in Ontario are partnering with Indwell, a Christian housing charity, to transform part of their properties into affordable housing units. The Baptist church in the neighbourhood where I live recently built a new church worship centre that also includes 45 units of affordable housing. That’s 45 people who now have a beautifully designed, safe, affordable home with built in community support! That’s a pretty big deal

Let me share a few ideas to spark your imagination for ways your church might respond in the midst of this housing crisis we find ourselves in-

• Buy or rent a house to provide initial short-term housing for refugee claimants. You can learn more about this model by joining our “Come and See” online visit to People’s House in Toronto on March 1st. 10 am registration   7:30 pm registration
• Rent or buy a house (or perhaps a multi-unit building) to rent to newly arrived refugees at prices they can afford- and be kind landlords!
• Partner with other experienced housing organizations to include affordable housing units on your church property. The partnership between Indwell and James North Baptist Church is a terrific example of this. You can watch a short video and read more about it here.
• Mobilize people in your congregation to host refugee claimants in their home for a few months. You can check out Open Homes Hamilton to learn more about this model
• Work together as a congregation to help people transform their attics or basements into rental units for newcomers at rates they can actually afford.
• Set up a rotating loan fund to help people with hefty rental deposits that can be a huge barrier to being able to secure a long-term rental
• Come together to build a tiny house in someone’s backyard where a newcomer can live. Check out IMBYHOMES for some inspiration.
  

What innovative responses might God want your church to pursue?

IAFR is committed to helping churches grow in understanding God’s expectations for His people in how we treat the forcibly displaced. We delight in seeing local churches discover  ways to come alongside refugees in ways that uniquely fit who they are as a congregation. So if the Spirit is nudging your church to explore ways that you can be part of making a positive difference, please contact us. We would love to dream, pray, and discern possibilities with you!

Today we helped a young refugee couple and their infant son move into an apartment after a three month stay in a Host home. They sent us a text: “Thank you very much for helping us in this beautiful country of very kind people… after everything my family has been through, today is a very nice day to dream again.”

Amen. May we all begin to dream again.