by Denise Peterson

Editor's Note: The following articles profile some of the work done by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Lutheran World Relief, and ELCA Domestic Disaster Response and Lutheran Disaster Response. While these glimpses offer only a sample of the work done by each agency, it is our hope that they will inspire and engage you to find out more about these and other Lutheran ministries.

Bearing coats, hats, mittens, boots, and a beaming smile, Judy Dirks expertly navigates her way to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. She knows the way well after 28 years of welcoming refugees from around the world to their new homes in Northfield, Minnesota.

Dirks’s willingness to welcome the stranger in Jesus’ name has brought untold blessings to her life. "Matthew 25:32-40 has been a real inspiration to me. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be in a different country with a different language," she said. "I knew of these verses before, but now I know what Jesus means."

Refugees have been forced to flee their homes and countries because of persecution for their faith, political views, or membership in a social group, national origin, or race. Perhaps they walked for days across mountains or deserts or risked a dangerous boat ride to another country. Always, they are looking for safety and a place of refuge. Dirks volunteers alongside the staff of Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, one of 26 affiliates of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), assisting refugee families in building new lives with support from congregations and individuals in their new communities.

In 1975, Dirks helped form the Northfield Refugee Committee, an ecumenical coalition of ten congregations that sponsors refugee families for resettlement. The committee has sponsored several families over the years, finding housing for them, stocking kitchens, making meals, seeking employment opportunities, arranging medical appointments, teaching English, and building lifelong friendships across cultures and faiths. Dirks has stories of weddings, graduations, family gatherings, baptisms, and funerals that reveal the deep bonds she has formed with her friends from across the globe. "We can call on each other now and talk about what’s happening. We’re just really close friends."

Starting a new life in a new land is never easy for those who have fled their homelands. Refugees often come with only the clothes on their backs and weariness in their eyes. They wonder who will help them learn about this new culture. Will there be schools for their children? Where will they work? What will they eat? Since 1975, Dirks has been at the airport to meet every refugee family the committee has helped. "I was so afraid there would be no one there to meet them. I didn’t want them to be afraid. I wanted them to feel welcome."

"I have strong feelings of pride for them," she said of the many refugees she has come to know. "They have faced incredible challenges in coming to the United States to live. They have overcome these challenges and have gone on to become successful, whether that means graduating from college or working in a factory. Our adult refugees work so hard to learn English and become citizens as soon as they are eligible, and then they buy homes as soon as they are financially able. I sometimes question whether I would persevere as well as they do here if I had to live in another country so very different from my own."

Dirks, who is a member of the Ambassadors Circle (LIRS’s corps of trained volunteer representatives), speaks regularly to Women of the ELCA groups about the joys of refugee resettlement and of being a congregational co-sponsor of a refugee family. "It has extended into other areas of my life now, and I’m now vice-chair of the Northfield Human Rights Commission. I also get to meet more Northfield women at other churches because they become involved. Now total strangers will call me with something to donate, or questions about other cultures. Even students at St. Olaf, the local Lutheran college, are told to call me with questions. It has given me a rich, full life."

The meaning of life has taken on new dimensions for Dirks. "I think about these new friends, female and male, refugees and immigrants, some I see often, and some I do not see as often any more. I realize that they have all left handprints on my heart, truly."