Over 500 gather to celebrate World Refugee Day
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Three women of the Karen tribe of southern Myanmar performed a ceremonial dance to a song epitomizing the 2023 theme for World Refugee Day:
“Hope Away From Home.”
A narrator rolled back the meaning of the music: “I miss where I came from. I miss my village by the river. And I miss my parents every single day. It breaks my heart because I’m so far from them. ...”
More than 500 people, including many recently resettled refugee families, gathered under the MU Health Care Pavilion at Clary Shy Agricultural Park in Columbia June 24 for Central Missouri’s World Refugee Day celebration.
Music and movement permeated the event, cosponsored by Catholic Charities Refugee Services and the City of Refuge in Columbia.
“The message to everyone here is “Welcome. We’re so glad you’re here!” said Lacy Stroessner, director of Catholic Charities Refugee Services, a ministry of Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri.
“Welcome is really the basis, the bread and butter of what we do here,” she said.
Catholic Charities Refugee Services is the only agency in Central Missouri that resettles refugees, having welcomed more than 5,000 refugees, Special Immigrant Visa holders, and humanitarian parolees since 1975.
With a 27-member staff, the Catholic Charities program provides essential services to arriving refugees, with the most intensive level of services taking place in the first six months after arrival.
It is part of the U.S. Conference of resettlement network.
All of these refugees, who leave their homes out of legitimate fear of death or serious injury, are thoroughly vetted for security through multiple federal departments, including the U.S. State Department.
Most arrive here with little more than the clothes on their backs.
Resettlement services at Catholic Charities are funded by state and federal grants and private donations.
Services include: securing safe and affordable housing, furniture, clothing and food; job training and employment services; school enrollment and English-language instruction; benefits enrollment and healthcare facilitation; community referrals, extensive case management and more.
“Out and enjoying”
More than 20 community-resource agencies that work in partnership with Catholic Charities Refugee Services, City of Refuge, or both agencies set up tables for the celebration in Columbia.
World Refugee Day is an international observance designated by the United Nations to honor refugees around the world.
Observed on or near June 20, it “celebrates the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home country to escape conflict or persecution,” according to the official website.
More than 100 volunteers brought about Central Missouri’s celebration of the day this year.
For many of the families present, the event was a welcome respite from the rigors of beginning anew.
“Most of our families here, especially our newest arrivals, have very limited resources,” Mrs. Stroessner noted. “So, getting to go out into the community and do something fun, enjoying some time with their family and their friends is a treat in itself.”
She shared welcoming duties at the celebration with Debbie Beal, director of City of Refuge, a local nonprofit organization created to help refugees recover and regain control of their lives.
Groups and families from numerous nations, many dressed in clothing from their homeland, mingled around tables and food trucks where cultural favorites were being served.
Catholic Charities provided blood-pressure screenings.
People of all ages played games of skill and determination.
Young volunteers painted intricate artwork onto the faces of children whose complexions spanned the visible spectrum.
Youthful cheers and laughter filled the nearby soccer field, volleyball court and giant inflatable slides and bounce houses.
“It’s great to see everybody together, out and enjoying,” said Mrs. Stroessner. “It’s amazing to see all of our different communities at one event.”
Singers and dancers representing local congregations and ethnic traditions from far away drew attention and applause to one end of the pavilion.
“Our prayers go out to everyone represented and the countries that they represent, that peace will come and that we will have a day where you can visit and go back to your countries and enjoy your families,” the narrator for one of the performing groups stated.
“Where my heart is”
Mrs. Stroessner began volunteering with what is now Catholic Charities Refugee Services about 15 years ago.
She became its director last December.
“This is where my heart is,” she said, noting that she previously worked with refugees overseas for several years.
She called the Catholic Charities Refugee Services staff “an amazing team.”
The staff grew rapidly in the summer and fall of 2021, when the agency resettled nearly 300 people from Afghanistan in the course of several months.
“Anybody who works through this program will tell you that this is not an easy job,” Mrs. Stroessner noted. “Keeping track of the grants and the requirements is very complicated.
“And that’s for a good reason,” she said. “We are working with human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity, and all of that takes a lot of time and effort.”
She noted that stories of people setting down roots in this country while missing the people and familiar ways they grew up with are nothing new.
“Those stories get passed down from generation to generation, and the young people feel some of the sadness and relief that their parents felt,” she stated.
“But they can still connect with their homeland, they can still have that history and that love for it,” she said, “and that’s why events like these are so important.
“In the end, aren’t we all just trying to make a better life for our family and do well by our children?” she inquired.
Called to welcome
Mrs. Stroessner said she feels honored to work with such compassionate, dedicated people.
“The front-line staff are the folks who make the bulk of it all happen — the ones who have the closest relationships with our newest families,” she said.
She asked for fervent prayers for kindness and for the people being resettled by Catholic Charities Refugee Services to “live with ease.”
“By that I mean, may the stresses of their daily lives not bring them down,” she said. “May the challenges they deal with not be so heavy that they forget their dignity and their humanity.”
She said people can be an answer to prayer by donating to Catholic Charities Refugee Services, volunteering to help people become acclimated to their new homeland, and working to make their communities more welcoming.
“One thing I think is cool to recognize is that throughout the history of refugee resettlement, it has mostly been a nonpartisan issue, with much of the work being carried out by people of faith — people of many different faiths,” she said.
“I think it’s important to remember and recognize that as people of faith, no matter what faith we belong to — that we are called to be welcomers, to be inclusive, to house those, to clothe those, to feed those who don’t have what they need,” she stated.
She noted that the groups who volunteer to be community sponsors of refugees — working together to help a newly arrive family become acclimated to life in this locale — form bonds that often last a lifetime.
“It becomes a really beautiful expression of our call to be in right relationship with one another, regardless of our differences,” she said.
Mrs. Stroessner noted that children of the families being resettled here tend to pick up the language and culture quickly and will pass on what they learn down to their own children.
“If you think about it, the multigenerational impact of the work we’re doing today is pretty incredible,” she said.
“So, why wouldn’t we want to be good welcomers?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t we want to be good neighbors? Why wouldn’t we want to be great community partners and employers and building strong relationships?
“It’s going to make our community better, and not just now but for generations down the road,” she stated.
Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri (cccnmo.diojeffcity.org), an entity of the Diocese of Jefferson City and the local resettlement agency for mid-Missouri, responds to the needs of people in 38 counties regardless of faith, culture, or situation.
This includes services for refugees and immigrants, those with food insecurity, mental health needs, health and nutrition education, basic household, and financial stability and housing counseling.
