RALEIGH, NC – Refugee Hope Partners’ (RHP) name pretty well explains why the organization exists. RHP is a relatively small ministry, but its services are a big deal for refugees from around the globe who have settled in Raleigh, North Carolina.

More than 60 million people have been displaced worldwide. Unfortunately, these people often become political pawns. Political parties, governments, and other entities with their own agendas often use the refugee crisis as an emotional bargaining chip to gain public favor.

Refugee Hopelessness

Unfortunately, most people do not understand the global refugee crisis, immigration laws, or the personal plight of individual refugees and their families, even after the more fortunate have been “resettled.”

More than 60 million people are currently displaced from their homes and/or homelands.

Although refugees typically flee to a place of their choosing and capability, seldom do they have a choice about the country where they will eventually live.

Many refugees never make it beyond makeshift refugee camps where they often languish in squalid conditions, often for seemingly endless years.

Fewer than one-tenth of one percent (60,000) will have the opportunity to begin a potentially prosperous life outside of their native country. Not only do they face a long road to relocation through complicated immigration processes, but ultimately they must find their way into a culture that is dramatically disparate from their own, where the customs and language are different and where breadwinners are seldom seriously considered for jobs that pay above the minimum wage.

That’s where Refugee Hope Partners come in.

Refugee Hope

They exist to love their refugee neighbors with the hope of the Gospel in partnership with the local church. Committed to boldly sharing the love and hope found only in an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, they work with children and adults of all ages, teaching them how to grow and flourish in their new environment.

The ministry focuses on helping refugee families establish relationships, achieve independence, and flourish. But they will not settle for teaching men and women to “gain the whole world but lose their own soul.” (Mark 8:36)

RHP accomplishes its mission through a variety of contemporaneous ministries.

• The Early Learning Club fosters “intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development through exploration and enriching experiences in a warm and loving environment for children ages 3-4 years.” The goal is to equip refugee children to enter kindergarten with English as their second language and comfort with classroom structure and decorum.
• Homework Help assists students who are in the process of learning English as their second language while trying to understand the same homework assignments that their American counterparts are asking for help from their own parents at the kitchen table.
• Bible Study classes are held for elementary, middle, and high school girls on Thursday and Friday afternoons and Friday evenings. Boys meet on Monday, Friday, or Sunday evenings. In addition to about 75 students, some parents are now meeting with RHP team members for one-on-one Bible studies,
• The Bridge program helps refugee students transition from their teenage to adult years. The Bridge intends to replace the “what do I do now?” gap that many refugee students face. Only one percent of refugees enroll in college. Refugee Hope aims to change that statistic for those children who have been taken under their wing.
• Adult ESL provides multi-level ESL classes designed to assist adults within a wide range of aptitudes to become proficient in reading, writing, and oral communication. The program is conducted over three 13-week sessions each fall, winter, and spring.

The most enduring words on the Refugee Hope website are, “God seems pleased to use us to magnify His name.”

Refugee Hope Partners is unique. It ought not to be. Every U.S. community where there are refugees should have a ministry similar to RHP.

Perhaps the Lord would be please to magnify His name in a similar way through you in your community. To learn more, check the RHP website.

Read more news on the Refugee Crisis and World Missions on Missions Box.