For many refugees, arriving in the United States is the end of a long, dangerous and often traumatic path. Nathan Hughes recounts the story of a friend whose life was threatened by the Taliban, separated from his family, and forced to wait years before finding safety.

Serving with refugees has opened Nathan’s eyes to resilience and faith of newcomers — and to the reality that the arrival of the nations on our doorstep is a missional opportunity for the Church.

This video invites the Church to listen more deeply and to see our refugee neighbors with new understanding.

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This video is part of the “This Is My Immigrant Neighbor” series, which invites us to see immigration not as an issue, but as a human story.

Video Transcript:

My name is Nathan Hughes and I work with refugees. It’s become a joy in my life. It’s become one of the things that I really enjoy the most. The word foreigner/sojourners is mentioned 91 times. I mean, you can’t say that it’s not very much a part of the Bible and a part of the story of a lot of the people in the Bible. I believe that we’re called the care for refugees. I mean, we’re called the care for the vulnerable and for the marginalized.

A lot of people just don’t understand some of the struggles that specifically refugees that they face. And you know, how they’ve come here, why they’ve come here. There’s just a lot of misinformation. I get a lot of questions asking: Are they legal? Are they taking our jobs? Are they, basically, what are they taking from us or, you know, where are they coming from or why are they coming here? The journey to be a refugee or just to, you know, to make it to the point that we’re seeing them here is an extremely long process.

So they’re in their home country and because of well-founded fear of persecution, they have to, they have to leave. A lot of them are fearing for their lives or their family lives, or maybe they’ve had family members killed or, you know, you, you name it, and they have to leave their country. And then they usually have to wait in a secondary country or a refugee camp for on average 12 years. They can’t, they can’t go back. It’s not safe for not safe for them to go back.

The role that the U.S. plays in that once they get — once they basically get assigned to the U.S. — the U.S. goes through the whole process of vetting them. They spend 18 to 24 months going through every government agency across the board and, you know, and going through vetting the legal status of a refugee is that they’re completely legal as soon as they step on the ground. And all the people that I’ve met, they got off the plane and they’re ready to start their lives.

My friend, he came to the United States here probably about six months ago and he’d been in Afghanistan and a job put him in a lot of danger with the Taliban. There was a period of time where he had to hide out because he knew that the Taliban were getting pretty close and he had made it on one of the Taliban’s list. So at that point he decided that it was time for him and his family to leave, to leave Afghanistan and that it wasn’t safe for him anymore. Ended up coming here to the United States as a refugee. Unfortunately, his family is still in Pakistan. Professionally, he’s a very accomplished. But right now, his biggest concern is getting his family and himself in a place where they can even live and exist.

So we have a lot of talks about his faith and about my faith usually over tea. I mean, the church spends a lot of time and money going out to the nations. The nations are here. I mean, they’re your next door neighbor. On average, a refugee doesn’t see the inside of an American household for 12 years. Because we’re not the most communal. We don’t just invite people into our home. You know, I feel like there’s a lot of people who again just don’t understand some of the struggles that that some of their immigrant neighbors are going through. I think that’s a big part of caring is taking that time to learn and to sit down at the table with somebody.