A History of Lutheran ‘Accompaniment,’ Growing As Global Refuge, and the Origins of Canopy NWA
[presentation given to the staff of Canopy NWA]
It’s helpful sometimes to go back and ask: how did I get involved in this work? As Canopy NWA team members I invite you to reflect back on your own first experiences getting into non-profit or resettlement work.
I’m going to share how I got into it, and I hope there are some moments in this story that might be an inspiration for all of you.
I’m an Iowa farm boy with very little direct early experience of immigrants or refugees. I think the closest I came was befriending foreign exchange students in high school and later serving as a camp director at a camp where Vietnamese children attended after being resettled in the Quad Cities through Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS, now named Global Refuge).
But in the late 1990s my wife and I served as missionaries with our denomination in Slovakia. We experienced wonderful hospitality and help, with locals/Slovaks (mostly colleagues/teachers at the high school where we taught) translating for us, taking us to government offices for visas and documents, and in a variety of ways helping us newcomers adjust to life in post-Communist Eastern Europe.
When we got back to the US after our three years, I worked for a year as program staff with Global Mission Institute at our seminary, which was a joyous way to explore with international seminary students the life of the church in their settings. I realized global accompaniment had instilled in me an ongoing passion for international connection.
Something struck me as we moved back home: home had become strange. I began to wonder what it was like (for foreigners) to come to the US and go through the various institutional and bureaucratic hoops we went through while living in Slovakia.
It was at this time that LIRS had launched a national Ambassador program. This was a volunteer role one could play in the synod interpreting the work of LIRS in local congregations. As a young pastor I traveled around the South Central Synod of Wisconsin sharing about the work of LIRS. The nearest resettlement site at the time was in Milwaukee, just outside our synod to the east.
However, we had an opportunity in 2009 to bring a satellite office of LIRS to Madison. After developing the relationship and securing approval for a sub-office in Madison, our congregation welcomed a Bhutanese family. Dozens of other congregations in the Madison area followed suit, welcoming other Bhutanese families as they arrived.
Then we moved to Arkansas. It’s a little different being in a state with almost no Lutheran affiliate orgs and only 20 churches of our denomination in the state, so for the first few years of ministry I had to celebrate and observe the work of LIRS mostly at a distance, and volunteer at immigrant supporting orgs like Worker Justice Center.
But then came the Syrian refugee crisis. The majority of the Republican governors across the country quickly went on record as opposing refugee resettlement in their state. Governor Hutchinson made such a tweet while on a trip in Japan.
This was when we decided to form Canopy NWA.
I sat down with parishioner Donna Davis after an Advent soup supper at church and, talking mostly under the light of some winter candles, wondered how to start a refugee resettlement agency.
We took a couple of initial steps: first we scheduled a meeting with Frank Head at Catholic Charities. We did not want to step into a space another org was already working in (the first rule of whether to start a new non-profit). But Frank immediately indicated they didn’t have the capacity for direct resettlement (they did manage the small number of US ties cases coming into the state each year). Frank had been receiving daily hate mail from Arkansans afraid of Syrian refugees (I think many of us remember the awful depictions of Syrians on the news during that period) and he promised to not forward the hate mail but to send us the emails from “the helpers.”
So, we started fielding those emails and in the meantime called LIRS to ask how to start a site. They were at first puzzled because they thought we just wanted to resettle one family, but eventually LIRS committed a staff person to do a site visit.
Just as a side note: in almost all other places around the country, Lutheran resettlement work is embedded within a larger non-profit structure, most typically Lutheran Social Service of (insert state here). So it was indeed outside their wheelhouse to work with a brand new startup rather than a large existing entity. I’ll always remain profoundly thankful that the staff at (then LIRS, now Global Refuge) were willing to say “maybe” rather than simply “no.”
Excitement increased substantially after the visit as they realized a lot of the stereotypes of Arkansas were unfounded and that NWA was highly resourced and ready to welcome newcomers. A few more rounds of site visits were conducted as 360s with the heads of all the various impacted areas (mayors, employers, schools and ESL programs [pictured], churches and doctors and so on). Meanwhile we filed to become a non-profit (April 2016), kept meeting with the initially large team, and whittled down from the initially interested folks to a very active “working board.”
It was a huge learning curve doing the 360. We visited Tyson headquarters, every mayor office, real estate heads, the NWA Council, and many faith community leaders.
Everything was a green light with just two things that stood out as concerns: the desire of some churches to only serve refugees if they could proselytize, and what everyone thought might be an upcoming housing shortage.
The second was largely out of our control and has (thus far) been mitigated by excellent community partners and connections. The first we had to have very strict boundaries up at the founding so as to really launch with the culture we wanted to establish that would not re-traumatize refugees. Religious trauma is real. From our perspective as Christians, “reaching” people for Christ in this way is not “in the way of Christ.”
By the summer of 2016 both the state department and LIRS agreed NWA would make a spectacular resettlement location. In November of that year we hosted a big training for potential co-sponsorship teams, and our first family arrived. By that time we had hired Emily Linn as our resettlement director, someone who had shown up from the beginning and was amazing with the heavy lift of the 360 community eval and more.
Two things happened that summer that were also remarkable: Governor Hutchinson came in person to meet our little team (and over the remainder of his tenure became a real champion of resettlement even while taking heat from his colleagues). Second, we received a substantial grant from a major NWA foundation. This was crucial to our launch.
By the spring, Canopy NWA was deep into the thick of refugee and migrant advocacy, because as you will mostly all remember, January of 2017 saw an indiscriminate Muslim ban by the new president and a temporary shutdown of the refugee program. We scheduled visits with local officials like Steve Womack, and visits in DC with senators with the leadership of the ELCA and LIRS (http://www.canopynwa.org/impactstories/cotton-refugee-resettlement-commitment?format=amp).
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Now let me back up. All the while we were forming Canopy NWA, we were aware of (and in conversation with) many other resettlement offices around the country. A director from Colorado came out and offered advice, and staff from Baltimore flew in regularly.
We realized how unique our startup was, especially in the ecology of LIRS affiliates. Most resettlement offices around the US are part of larger entities in their states (LSS of Minnesota has a $150 million per year budget, for example, by comparison the annual budget that same year for LIRS itself was $50 million)). Canopy was tiny (just four staff at the start, I think the budget the first year was around $300,000) and even now with 40 staff is still small in comparison to almost anywhere.
There is a history for how this came to be, so this is a pause to put this in context.
Lutherans were, to a certain extent, “later” immigrants from Europe. Some of the last groups to arrive around the time of the first world war were groups like Latvians, Slovaks, Estonians. But also in the 19th century there was a large migration of Norwegians and immigrants from other Scandinavian countries. These groups maintained the ethnic nature of their churches (especially the language) longer than a lot of other Christian groups who had become Americanized.
As a result, many Lutherans identified with this spiritual notion, that our love of the stranger is grounded in our own personal (or collective) ancestral experience of being strangers in a strange land. This also happens to be one of the most common motifs in Hebrew Scripture/Old Testament. “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor” (Abraham). “Honor the sojourner in your midst, because you were once sojourners in Egypt.”
Lutherans settled more predominantly in some parts of the country than others. Arkansas was not one of those places. So when we began the conversation about resettlement with LIRS, it wasn’t simply that we were bringing resettlement to Arkansas, it was also that we were bringing (mostly for the first time) Lutheran services to Arkansas.
This may not be particularly significant to most of you as staff, but it was significant in terms of institutional and state dynamics, because we were both extending Lutheran social service more extensively around the country while also establishing new relationships with state agencies for the first time.
Back to the Lutheran history, the ramp up of Lutherans as resettlers of refugees is really a 20th century story.
Many Lutherans were displaced during the period of the First World War, and at the end of World War II 1 out of 6 Lutherans was a refugee. Nascent church organizations especially in New York City committed to receive many of these refugees.
In 1939 LIRS was founded, initially to resettle Lutherans displaced by the Nazis. The organization was also instrumental in the US opening doors to refugees more generally.
For the next few decades, we continued resettling (primarily) Lutherans impacted and still seeking home post-World War II.
But things expanded when in 1965 the US removed racial and ethnic preferences for immigration. This dramatically changed the shape of immigration to the United States, impacting resettlement as a result.
You could say there is a before and after in this story related to immigration, which is worth mentioning. The flow of impact of decisions is fluid, but there are specific decision-points that have had a long-lasting impact.
Before 1921 anyone could come in except, and the “except” included the sick, criminals, and the Chinese (sorry, it was a very random list that made sense to our government at that time). After 1921, no one could come in unless, and the unless became related to country-by-country visa restrictions and all the other admissions criteria that makes up the very complicated (and widely recognized as broken) modern U.S. immigration system.
It’s difficult to understate how radically different things were before vs. after 1921.
Refugee resettlement continued and developed after the 1965 laws in particular, and in the latter part of the century settled into a pattern, averaging around 100,000 arrivals per year. For example, between 1975 and 2008 the US resettled 2.8 million refugees (meaning 1 out of every 100 Americans was a refugee).
With some notable exceptions (9/11 and the Trump presidency) the United States has maintained this pace until the present.
A few other immigration laws changed that have affected the overall ecology of immigration in the U.S. The I-9 form was adopted in 1986, adding a work authorization requirement relative to immigration. Then in 1996 we saw the criminalization of undocumented status (prior to 1996 no one really talked about undocumented people as “illegal”).
I weave the story of immigration and the story of refugee resettlement together here just a bit just to illustrate the overall trajectory of how on the one hand the U.S. became responsive to a growing global refugee crisis, and continues in many ways to lead, while also introducing legal changes to immigration that Lutheran advocates for refugees and immigrants have resisted, and raised concerns about.
I also raise it because advocacy for immigrants and advocacy for refugees are inextricably linked.
Overall, the approach Lutherans have consistently taken in relationship to all of these issues of resettlement and immigration can be broken down into four questions.
Four questions:
Does the proposal promote family unity?
Does the proposal promote human rights and worker rights?
Does the proposal enable those without status to come out of the shadows and live without fear?
Does the proposal provide a path to permanence as a full member of society?1
You can see how refugee resettlement does a fairly good job of meeting all these criteria. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has consistently done its work with the basic insight that if we are going to be a leading organization in the work of resettling refugees, we also must use our voices to call for the kinds of public policies we believe are best for those arriving.
And when we are really working well, LIRS has linked its work up to the work of local congregations, because public witness to immigration and refuge and other justice issues especially have integrity when such witness is linked to them.
I want to continue to challenge Canopy NWA to think in terms of local congregations. Our organization was founded out of one, and we will engage the very wide community of potential volunteers if we link organically and creatively with local congregations.
Finally, I want to mention the shift in name for our national affiliate, Global Refuge. I think many of you perhaps had the chance to read the publicity from Global Refuge explaining their name change. I’ve also written a bit about it from my perspective as a long-time advocate for and partner with Global Refuge.
To be honest, it isn’t easy for many Lutherans to see the name of their tradition removed from the name of the organization. There’s some grief there.
But the basic point I find to be so very important: we need a name for our organization that all our stakeholders can find themselves in. We don’t want the name to be a barrier.
Global Refuge does this well.
I’ll admit to you that I am not always in favor of removing such markers from the names of organizations. For example, when a church doesn’t show you in their name the denomination they are a part of, I think to a certain degree that’s hiding or disguising their history.
I want to know if a church is Southern Baptism, or ELCA Lutheran, or Quaker. It will help me to prepare as I attend, and know what kinds of things to expect. If a church is just called “Church” with no markers of their history, I have to dig around to find out if they’re LGBTQIA+ affirming, if they’re going to require me to get re-baptized as a condition of membership, etc.
It’s much better to have such information clearly out front.
But I also understand that sometimes people come to my church and ask, “Can I attend your church if I’m not Lutheran,” and then I have to explain “of course you can, we’re open.” We want to make sure we are not unnecessarily setting up such boundaries for those who may need to access our services, or to those who are considering employment with us.
The name change accomplishes the shift well. Global Refuge has kept a lot of great information on their web site (https://www.globalrefuge.org/who-we-are/history/) sharing their history and origin, while also indicating through the name change they are sensitive to a newly emerging situation in which as they work globally it will help not to create unnecessary barriers.
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Returning to our international experience as missionaries and a bit of mission theory. When we got back to the United States from Slovakia, I had a deeper understanding of and commitment to the theological approach our denomination takes to global mission, that of accompaniment.
At its most basic, accompaniment is mutual rather than colonizing. It is not the goal to “reach” people with the gospel or “share the faith” but rather respond to and support one another on the terms set by the invitation.
The notion of mission as accompaniment (https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Accompaniment_(full).pdf), which emerges from liberation theology and development methodology, promotes solidarity among church companions that embodies interdependence and mutuality. For the theology nerds, it’s grounded in the New Testament expression of koinonia.
In our case, the Lutheran church in Slovakia needed English teachers to help rebuild their high school programs decimated under the Soviet Union. The Slovak government had committed to reparations, so parochial schools (which are also state funded in the Slovak system) had been returned buildings and other resources confiscated during Communism.
So here we are as Canopy NWA with some fascinating opportunities to practice such accompaniment. I have the pleasure of watching in real time as Canopy roles out new programs and approaches to resettlements, and I can tell that the concept of accompaniment is a core practice of this team.
We have (hopefully mutual) relationships with a fascinating network of entities, including our national affiliate, Global Refuge, but also the State Department, the executive branch of the United States of America, other national affiliates like Catholic Charities, and then also a wide range of local organizations and non-profits, public schools, landlords and service providers. Most importantly for the concept of accompaniment that takes account of liberation theology and development methodology, we have emerging partnerships and programs with the many Canopy households now launching new churches and businesses and non-profits.
Canopy’s vision is to see refugees and our community model “thriving together.” Global Refuge’s vision is “fostering a world of just and welcoming communities.”
These are models of accompaniment. Such visions are carefully thought out attempts to move beyond the patron-client model so prevalent in “service” organizations and toward a sense of mutual aid, recognizing the ways we all contribute to one another’s thriving, and need one another.
I hope this mixture of personal history, organizational history, and philosophical embodiment, has provided some food for thought and inspiration to action. The global debate about migration is begging for insight, faith and bold ideas, and I am absolutely thrilled to see Canopy NWA flourishing in that space.
From Stephen Bouman and Ralston Defenbaugh’s They Are Us: Lutherans and Immigration