A “concentrated” effort: Ministering to refugees over one square mile

The tiny Atlanta suburb of Clarkston, Georgia is just one square mile, but with about 120 languages spoken there, it is the most densely populated one square mile of refugees anywhere in America.

That’s where a group of students from Columbia International University travelled the week of Jan. 17 to minister to refugees from Myanmar, Congo, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Ethiopia, Eritrea and other regions of the world. They were joined by CIU faculty members as well as students and a teacher from Ben Lippen School, CIU’s PreK-12^th grade Christian school located on the CIU campus. For the Ben Lippen students, the week was a part of Winterim, an annual opportunity for high school students to experience learning and ministry outside the classroom.

The trip was organized by CIU Dean of Intercultural Studies Dr. Ed Smither with assistance from the missions agency Send Relief who he says did an incredible job orienting the students to what it means to be a refugee, which at times led the group to tears.

“We learned about different types of ministries in Clarkston — church planting, ESL (Teaching English as a Second Language), job placement and training, after school tutoring clubs, and medical care,” Smither explained. “We stayed at Clarkston International Bible Church which hosts worship services in eight different languages each week.”

Smither says his heart is full as he reflects on how the students reached out to the refugees in several ways such as an afterschool homework club, organizing and distributing winter coats, organizing clothes for a thrift store, playing with refugee children on a playground, and listening to the refugees’ stories which opened opportunities to share the gospel.

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