Karen Resettlement Banquet
A Wonderful Success

The Karen Resettlement Banquet was held on August 17th at Yoder's in New Holland, PA.
  Over 120 people attended and raised a little over $3,000 for
Church World Service to do Karen resettlement work.

 

 

 

 

Article By Rich Schramm:

 

Banquet Helps Launch Faith-Based Outreach with Resettled Karen Refugees:
  A new opportunity for hospitality at its most profound level has arrived with the tens of thousands of Karen refugees originally from Myanmar (Burma) who are in, or on their way to, the U.S.  
  The needs among them are great; many have spent years in refugee camps in Thailand following oppression from their government that drove them across the border.
  Cleared by U.S. immigration officials, they include a substantial number of Christians whose ancestors responded to the Gospel message first brought to them by Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson nearly 200 years ago. 
  In Lancaster County, Pa., the ministries of welcome and fellowship for those displaced Karen families are well underway due to the efforts of Church World Service, American Baptists and other Christian groups and individuals. For them, reaching out to their new Karen neighbors is a necessary response fulfilling the biblical injunction to “love the stranger” (Deuteronomy 10:18).
  A national ecumenical agency long known for its widespread work in relief, development, emergency response and refugee resettlement ministries, Church World Service (CWS) has been busy helping the incoming Karen.  So far this year CWS has settled 26 persons—four families and nine single men—in Lancaster, Elizabethtown, Strasburg, Millersville, and York.  It anticipates aiding up to 18 additional persons by the end of September.  A number of those resettled have found employment and some attended English classes over the summer.
  One of those motivated by deep compassion for “the stranger” is the Rev. Bill Offutt, a retired American Baptist pastor now serving an interim ministry in Bear, Del.  Working with CWS officials and the Rev. Roy W. Johnsen of Westgate Baptist Church in Lancaster, Offutt was instrumental in organizing a Karen Refugee Resettlement Banquet, held August 17 at Yoder’s Restaurant in New Holland, that introduced the challenge of Karen resettlement to a wide ecumenical audience.
  “When I was told that the Karen were coming to Lancaster,” Offutt recalls, “I felt a tremendous obligation to American Baptist mission work to greet these people on behalf of those who have made such heroic sacrifices to carry the Gospel to them over the years.” 
  The banquet focused on the history and plight of the Karen people, their unwavering Christian faith through generations of oppression, and the real needs that mark their lives in a time of transition and culture shock.  That message was presented by Duane and Marcia Binkley, American Baptist International Ministries missionaries who ministered with the Karen refugees at the Thai border camps and who now serve them in the U.S. as they transition to resettlement here.  
  Among those attending the banquet was Ken George, American Baptist National Ministries’ director of Direct Human Services, who has worked with CWS as it has partnered with American Baptists in resettlement ministries and whose office provided financial support for the banquet. (Number one among all Protestant bodies, American Baptist Churches USA has helped resettle more than 96,000 refugees and displaced persons since the end of World War II.)
  It would be “something of a great tragedy,” Offutt feels, if the arriving refugees failed to receive a compassionate welcome “in a place which does not know their language, their customs or their tragic story.” 
  “When I talked with Nate Milton at Church World Service of Lancaster, I learned that CWS had no funds to help the Karen learn English or funds to assist in another way. I immediately felt I could use my past experiences of putting together fund raising banquets to help the Karen and CWS.” 
  Following only weeks of intensive planning, the banquet became a reality “and brought a fantastic financial response for Church World Service to use with Karen resettlement in Lancaster.”
  “It inspired the staff at CWS to be hopeful,” Offutt observes. “It got key people together to create a synergy for the Karen resettlement effort. It educated and informed people about the Karen and their Baptist heritage.”
  Also highlighted at the banquet was the presentation of the CWS Distinguished Refugee Resettlement Service Award to the Rev. Donald Sensenig for his longtime work with area refugees and its Southeast Asian community. 
  For local officials of Church World Service, indeed, the banquet served a vital role.  “Our Karen Refugee Resettlement Banquet had as its goal the introduction of the Karen to interested members of the community and the drumming up of interest in other churches or groups in sponsorship,” notes CWS Lancaster director Sheila McGeehan.  “We plan to make this banquet an annual event, each year raising up a new refugee group or concern.”
  The response during the banquet program was impressive: more than 130 attendees, offering and banquet proceeds exceeding $3,000, and, most importantly, an understanding of the needs of--and a prayerful contemplation of response to--their new Karen neighbors by the churches and groups represented.
  For Westgate Baptist in Lancaster and its pastor, the Rev. Roy W. Johnsen, the arrival of the Karen posed opportunities both to take on logistical planning for the banquet and to publicize  that ongoing need for responses from people of faith.
  Additionally, according to Johnsen, the resettlement challenge is one of the ongoing calls to  hospitality and multicultural fellowship provided the church: “God has been doing a new and unique work at Westgate.  This fine group of committed Christians has taken on an international dimension, with people from different nations – the Philippines, Togo, Kenya, Rwanda, and visitors from Ethiopia, Nepal and Pakistan.  We have become aware of the dramatic needs of refugees and we are responding with the compassion and love of Christ.  This act of God is breathing new life and vitality into our fellowship.  In light of this recent move of God among us, we felt compelled to help with the banquet, and its success is one more indication of God at work among us.”
  With the word out and the concerns identified, CWS hopes to enlist the Christian community in a variety of ways.
  “We have a great need for church congregations willing to sponsor a Karen family or individual,” McGeehan says.  “Sponsorship entails a commitment of 3-6 months, and the goal of sponsorship is self-sufficiency within a 3-6 month period.  The sponsoring church provides housing, food, friendship, counsel, orientation to the new community, transportation, and help applying for social security number, finding a job, registering children in school and adults in English-as-a-Second-Language  classes.”  
  In addition to resettling about 45 Karen in and around Lancaster by the end of fall 2007, McGeehan anticipates a continuing effort of resettlement throughout 2008.  
  For her--and for Christians in Lancaster and throughout the U.S.--the ministry of hospitality offered by people of faith will provide an essential means of support for the newly arriving Karen: “They are a gentle people, yet strong.  They are survivors.  The church will act as a friend and advocate for them as they begin their new life far from their homeland, relatives and friends.”