• Host a simulation to help youth see refugees as individuals and begin to identify with them. To obtain information about a simulation that can be modified for your setting, contact Exodus World Service.

• As a church, celebrate World Refugee Sunday, the Sunday closest to June 20. Share stories and music from refugees and pray for them.

• Begin serving refugees in short-term, group settings. Collect various items that refugees need—pots and pans, food staples, toiletries and cleaning supplies—and deliver them to a refugee family when they arrive. Talk with the family and teach them how to use items they may be unfamiliar with.

• Host events for refugee children such as Christmas parties or soccer tournaments.

• Begin after-school programs for refugee children who are often behind in school.

Have youth provide one-on-one tutoring for the children or speak to your church leadership about allowing a resettlement agency to teach English classes in your facility.

• Divide interested youth into small groups and pair each with a refugee family to mentor weekly for three to six months. Use this time to share stories, answer questions, practice speaking English, go shopping together and play games.

Regardless of how you minister to refugees, teach your youth to spot God in each other and the refugees they befriend, and then watch as they discover more about who they and God are. In the process, don't be surprised if they begin living missionally in their very own communities.

Where Are the Refugees?

Government agencies worked together to plot settlement patterns of refugees in the United Sates. Click here for more about this map.

Photo submitted by author from an event called "Fun in the Sun" for refugees hosted by Lakeview Student Ministry in August 2007. More than 80 refugees from Burma and many African countries were served that day.