Posted: 4/15/05
Texas students befriend
Afghan refugees in California
By Traci Rylands
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
FREMONT, Calif.–Pastor Paul McGovern knew Crossroads Church had a heart for global missions. What he didn't know was that a group of Afghan refugees in desperate need lived less than a mile from the church.
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global Missions field personnel Lita and Rick Sample, who recently had joined Crossroads Church, alerted him to the presence of the refugees.
“I was shocked,” McGovern recalled. “Fremont is one of the most expensive places to live in the world. I wasn't aware of the high population of refugees all around us.”
The Samples belong to the Fellowship's “internationals cluster”–a group of CBF field personnel who minister to people living far from their homelands.
While most Afghan families had enough money to pay the rent, they had little for necessary items like laundry soap. The Samples, along with church members, began to help meet these needs.
| Laura Rodgers (a Baylor senior) dresses in traditional Afghani clothes in the apartment of Farima Kadir Abdul. Farima is 16, has a younger sister (15) and a younger brother (9), and lives with her mother, Farida. |
The Afghans–most of whom are Muslim–also were hungry for friendship with Americans, they noted.
“We tell them we're happy that they're here and that Christians in America care about them,” Sample said.
Other churches and Baptist student groups across the country are partnering with Crossroads Church through CBF's refugee needs project to provide needed items many Afghan families lack.
This year, 11 Baylor students helped lay the groundwork for starting an Afghan congregation in San Francisco by building relationships during spring break.
The students sang songs and performed skits that presented Christian messages. They also ate with about 70 Afghans and danced to Afghan music.
This was the second consecutive spring break Baylor Baptist Student Ministry volunteers have spent serving Afghans in San Francisco. Two students also served in the area last summer as short-term missionaries.
“A lot of this is letting Afghans know a Christian environment is a safe environment,” said Brian Severski, a Baylor junior who went on the trip. “And that's something they haven't known in years.”
During Christmas 2003, the Samples and Crossroads' small groups “adopted” four Afghan families. They invited about 25 Afghans to Christmas parties in their homes.
“We made it a point to share with the Afghan guests the true meaning of Christmas, that it's about the birth of Jesus,” Sample said. The following Christmas, about 125 Crossroads members held 12 parties for 17 families, reaching 73 Afghans.
Plans are being made to start an Afghan church so refugees can learn about Christ in the Farsi language.
“This will allow them to come as seekers, to know what the gospel is about and who Jesus is without a high-pressure kind of preaching,” Mrs. Sample said.
The Samples hope other churches can use this refugee ministry as a model.
“We didn't come to California with these ideas,” Sample stressed. “This came out of our partnership with Crossroads Church.
They've helped us learn how a local church can minister to refugees around them.”
—With additional reporting by John Hall of Texas Baptist Communications.
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