Friends of Refugees

By Caitlyn Furr

Posted December 7, 2015

Caitlyn, a first-year MDiv student, spent two years working in health policy in Washington, D.C. before coming to Candler. She serves as Church Engagement Intern with Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) Global Ministries. This post was originally published on Nov. 23 at www.cbfblog.com.

As a first year M.Div. student at Candler School of Theology at Emory University, I am required to take a Contextual Education (Con Ed) course. All students select one out of thirteen sites, and remain “interns” at that site for the entirety of the first seminary year. We spend four hours each week ministering in our unique Con Ed settings, and also participate in a weekly reflection group with our peers and the site leader.

For my Con Ed site, I chose Friends of Refugees, which is a family literacy program that teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) to refugees from all over the world. The school is located in Clarkston, Georgia, which is in the metro Atlanta area, and Clarkston is known for housing thousands of refugees. We meet in the Clarkston International Bible Church, where certified ESL teachers instruct classes comprised of refugee women who have varying degrees of familiarity with English.

The school also teaches the women important American life skills, such as how to navigate the justice system, how to become a United States citizen and how to enroll in social programs like Medicaid. One of the goals of the program is to reach beyond literacy, and to provide the refugee families with resources that they may not be able to find elsewhere.

logo Friends of Refugees is unique because, unlike any other refugee literacy program, this program provides childcare. Many refugee women are unable to learn English when they arrive in the United States because their children are too young to attend school and childcare is expensive. At Friends of Refugees, while the mothers learn English, we work with the young children to aid in their development and immerse them in the language, as well.

In addition to our time onsite and in reflection, my Con Ed group is taking an Introduction to Pastoral Care class. We are able to discuss the specifics of our site in class, and immediately apply what we learn in the classroom when we return to the site. The combination of the site hours and classroom time is incredibly enriching and relevant to my current life and ministry, and my fellow students and I have the opportunity to learn and benefit from each other.

Although I have only spent a short time ministering at Friends of Refugees, it has already impacted me greatly. The material we teach to the refugees at the school is not overtly religious, but the love of God is powerful within the walls. We are learning to minister to people who have backgrounds very different from our own, and may never have heard the Good News. We share the love of God with wounded women and children who truly need to be cared for. I have already learned a lot and have grown to love the women and children, and I hope to help them improve their lives holistically.