Georgia Baptists and the Backpack Ministry for Refugees

June 8, 2023153 views0

Georgia Baptists and the Backpack Ministry for Refugees

2023-06-08T09:47:05+01:00

By Church News

Georgia Baptists are taking the gospel to the state’s rapidly growing refugee population one backpack at a time.Backpacks have become crucial evangelistic tools in Georgia, a state that’s home to more than 1 million people who were born in other countries — often in places that are hostile to the gospel.With a robust economy and plentiful jobs, Georgia has become a popular destination for refugees fleeing war-torn homelands in search of a safe place to begin new lives.“They’re fleeing fresh trauma, and with that, leaving behind everything they know, leaving behind families, communities, the systems that they know,” said Emma Pirela, a Mission Georgia refugee mobilizer. “And they have to start over from scratch with a language they don’t understand and with nobody they know.”Georgia Baptists are meeting them at the airports when they arrive, helping them find homes and jobs, gather furniture, get drivers licenses, learn English, and acclimate to life in the Bible Belt.“Honestly, it’s hard for us to comprehend how hard it is for refugee families,” said Lorna Bius, the primary mobilizer for Mission Georgia, an initiative of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. “They start out with nothing, literally. Usually, they come only with the clothes they are wearing.”That’s why more than 50 volunteers gathered at Clarkston International Bible Church one Saturday, filling backpacks with school supplies that will be given to refugee children in the most ethnically diverse community in America. Many of the Clarkston residents come from places like the Congo, Sudan and Syria where war and civil unrest had put them in grave danger.The backpacks are delivered in person by Georgia Baptists who take time to build relationships and share the gospel.Mission Georgia’s backpack ministry isn’t limited to refugees.Sometimes volunteers fill backpacks with basic necessities for women and children rescued out of human trafficking. Sometimes they’re packed with children’s books to help kids learn to read at grade level because studies have shown that children who fall behind their classmates in reading are more likely to drop out of school as they grow older, become dependent on government welfare programs, and to go to jail.ALSO READ: The 2023 Habitation Conference Set to Hold in August