Welcome Corps gives opportunities to Nest Immigrants into Believing Communities
The United States recently started a program, Welcome Corps, that allows a group of five people to sponsor specific families through their first 90 days in America. God has his hands on this, and is opening doors that only He can! Through marvelous connections with a seasoned missionary, Tim, we had our first group meeting of the first team this past Sunday here in El Paso. This is amazing, given that we had only physically met Tim the week before.
Karla had been communicating with Tim since April to arrange a strategic visit for Tim in Erbil in May when we were gone. Tim stayed at the Iraq house, and he got to meet and know Hawler as she was his main translator as he made house visits with several families. These visits interestingly resulted from a strange yet God ordained trip Tim had made to Iraq nearly fifteen years before, with contacts reestablished earlier this year.
Tim has experience and a house in far east El Paso that has been used in the past to help refugees properly immigrate, plus connections with other believers that have a heart for this. This includes one contact who has already gotten a believer from Lebanon to America through this program that just opened up this year.
Our focus will be the Syrians that are at substantial risk of being persecuted should they have to return home to Syria. Please pray for us as we go through the online training and security checks required for this program, plus raise the $2,600 and funds for plane tickets for each person.
Our desire is to not only get people here, but to nest them with church communities that will help them spiritually and navigate the transition to a new land. We believe this program can help us do this! Karla is juggling trailblazing team lead responsibilities while visiting her family in Canada and a road trip with her day. And Tim is already framing up the team members for Team 2 that is aiming to help the new believer in Iraq whose father will likely kill her. Pray that the paperwork once submitted will be processed quickly.