First Christian Helps Refugee Children Prepare for School

Kentucky Refugee Ministries supports U.S. State-Department- sponsored arrivals to Louisville in their first-year transition to being US residents. They normally deal with about 2000 refugees a year, although 2016-2017 may be higher.

Before the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year, with at least 95 refugee students known to be entering JCPS, First Christian Church of Louisville helped support these students in two very important ways.

First, FCC Wholeness Grants purchased 91 backpacks suitable for lower-grade kids, and 25

backpacks, larger and more rugged, for high-school students. And a few more packs and bags were donated by FCC members. These backpacks were acquired and then distributed to the students in the early days of August.

Second, throughout August of 2016, FCC conducted a campaign to collect school supplies. Some came from items on hand in members’ homes, but most were bought by members for this campaign and donated. In total, these supplies made up 5 very heavy boxes filled with essential student supplies.

Getting KRM’s kids ready for school was a very special project, but is far from all that First Christian Church does to support Kentucky Refugee Ministries.

Refugee families arrive with no household goods. Thus, all year FCC collects donations of

“tools for living”: towels, sheets, pillows, blankets/quilts, dishes and mugs, pots and pans,

kitchen tools, and more. And most of those refugees who arrive in the winter do so dressed only in warm-weather clothes, so in the fall and winter we accentuate donation of coats and cold weather gear – in a normal season, FCC will deliver to KRM 70 or more pieces -- coats, parkas, warm hats, gloves, winter scarves, sweaters and sweatshirts, vests, and other cold weather wearables..

In Leviticus 19:34 we are taught that, "The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." We are so grateful to help KRM as they seek to live into this call from God.

If you are interested in participating in this ministry, please e-mail Rick and Katie Tipton for more information. You can also visit the Kentucky Refugee Ministry web site by clicking here.

The wholeness grant used to fund this ministry was made possible through your faithful financial support of our church and its ministries and help fund a variety of efforts to make our world a better place. You can find more examples of those efforts or apply for a grant to make the world a better place by clicking here.