21.04.2026
Saint Francis
“What Will You Tell Your Grandchildren”
The Rev. Eric Shafer, guest preacher, Global Refuge
Sermon for April 19, 2026
I began my pastoral ministry in the late 1970’s serving Holy Trinity Memorial Lutheran Church in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. Just north of Allentown, Pennsylvania, Catasauqua is an old iron and silk town that, even in the 1970’s, was already past its prime. Holy Trinity was a small congregation. The ministry of its former pastor had not ended well. Good people for certain, but lots of work to do.
Shortly after I arrived, a representative of Lutheran Services of the Lehigh Valley, the local refugee resettlement partner with Global Refuge, called to ask if our congregation might assume sponsorship of a Vietnamese refugee family who had found an inexpensive apartment in Catasauqua, far from their current sponsorship congregation.
I knew all about the so-called “boat people” and the massive refugee crisis in southeast Asia following the end of the War in Vietnam, with Vietnamese fleeing communism and Cambodians fleeing government sanctioned mass genocide. I also knew our congregation was small and in recovery. I frankly did not think we could take on this big a new responsibility so close to the time I had just started in ministry there.
But I did not say no to this request. I said I would get back to the caller.
I debated within myself how to respond to this request, prayed about it, spoke with my wife, Kris, and our congregation’s lay leaders. In the process, I called my older brother Byron. After listening to my concerns, Byron said simply, “What will you tell your grandchildren?” What will you tell your grandchildren about this crisis and how you responded.
We took on this family. It was a life-changing experience for those involved. Not long afterwards we sponsored two Cambodian refugee families who became integral parts of our congregation.
This morning, I want to suggest that we are in another of those “what we tell our grandchildren times” here in the USA with the immigration and refugee crisis in our world – Afghans, Ukrainians, Haitians, Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, and so many more - all fleeing war and violence of all kinds. The global numbers are mind-boggling – some 117,000 million or more refugees in this world and more coming every day because of climate change and war.
What will we tell our grandchildren when they ask us how we responded?
You will not be surprised when I suggest that involvement with Global Refuge is a good way for each and any of us to respond to this crisis.
For 87 years, Global Refuge has worked with immigrants and refugees from all over this world, helping them to resettle here in the USA. And over these 87 years, Global Refuge has helped refugees from Hungary, East Germany, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, and so many others. During these 87 years we have placed 770,000 refugees!
In 2024 we resettled more than 20,000 refugees, Afghans, Haitians, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, and many others.
Global Refuge was and still is the principal US agency helping the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minor children who entered our country each year with more than 21,000 children aided in 2024. You might remember the children in cages during the first term of our current President – Global Refuge was then asked by the federal government to find foster care families for these children and was able to place more than 5,600 children into foster care quickly!
In 2026 we are working on the ground in Guatemala, helping young people who are deported back to that country adjust to their new lives in a land which may not feel very much like home to them, who speak a language they might never have spoken. We recently began this same sort of work in southern Mexico and plan to begin similar work in Honduras later this year. This work is one of our major focuses as we wait until we can restart our work with new refugees coming to the USA. We continue to operate three welcome centers across the USA, helping recent immigrants and refugees for what we call “the long welcome” of adjusting to their new home. We look forward to starting a new welcome center for refugees and immigrants in southern California later this year. We recently started a bank to make microloans to immigrant and refugee families.
Information on all of these efforts and so much more, including suggestions for prayer and study, for financial support, for outreach to those in detention centers, for advocacy with local, state and national leaders and more, that all of this information can be found on our website, www.globalrefuge.org .
As many of you know, in 2025 the new administration changed our traditional work with new refugees dramatically.
In January of 2025 the new administration quickly made three decisions which have drastically reduced the ministry with refugees that Global Refuge has done over these past 87 years.
First the president cut the number of approved refugees allowed to be admitted to the USA for 2025 to zero, the first time ever this number had been zero.
That number is set by each president each year, but until 2025 it has been set in consultation with Congress. And, except for our current President’s first term, this number has been between 100,000 – 200,000 or more each year. After drastic reductions in these numbers during this President’s first term, when it was reduced to as low as 14,000 per year, we finally got this figure back to the traditional average number which was 125,000 for 2024. In 2025 it became zero for the first time ever. And, it appears that that number will be 7,500 for 2026 with most of those admitted Afrikaners from South Africa.
Please understand. These are not so-called “illegal” aliens coming across our southern border. They are not undocumented, here without permission. These are the annual number of refugees our nation has admitted each year since 1965, based on quotas set by Congress for nations around the world. These folks have sometimes been waiting 5 or 10 or 15 or more years for entry. They have had exhaustive background checks done. These are the people congregations like yours have helped resettle, similar to the 770,000 people Global Refuge has resettled over the past 87 years as I noted earlier in this sermon.
Now, that was very bad news, but, at least, it did not hurt anyone already legally here in the USA.
And then, it got worse.
The president’s second action was to halt all refugee arrivals already in process. These are people who had been waiting, many for a number of years, people who had been approved for entry into the USA. This cruel action left people who had plane tickets to the USA, who had sponsoring congregations and family members waiting at airports to receive them, this cruel action left them at airports around the world with literally no place to go.
Now, it is hard to imagine this situation getting any worse. And then it did.
At the end of the new administration’s first week, the State Department ordered Global Refuge, and all the other refuge resettlement agencies, to stop giving pledged support to refugees who are already legally here, refugees who were receiving US government support through Global Refuge and our local social service partners. These were congressionally approved funds, funds which provide support for the first three months for new refugees in the USA, but now we were cut off from these funds.
This action was challenged in court and then, two weeks later, after a judge ordered the administration to pay what was owed to us, the State Department responded by terminating the refugee resettlement contracts with all ten of the approved refugee resettlement agencies, including Global Refuge, agencies that have done this work for the federal government for many years.
That marked the end, at least for now, the end of most of the traditional refugee resettlement work we had done for 86 years, and not only our refugee resettlement work but the work of all the US agencies which had been doing refugee resettlement for these many years.
In more recent months, the administration has announced plans to end the protected status of refugees here in the USA here under “special protected status.” These include Ukrainians and Afghans, placing them all in danger of deportation back to their home countries. Placing many of their lives in danger if they are deported back to these countries.
More recently, the president began the process of revoking special protective status for Somali refugees, here legally, many for many years.
In February, the administration tried to end the special protective status for Haitians, making thousands of Haitians, especially those who have settled and thrived in and around Springfield, Ohio, vulnerable to deportation back to a country where organized crime rules and chaos reigns. If deported, most of these people would face persecution and death. Fortunately, a federal judge stopped this action, protecting Haitian refugees for now. Unfortunately, the federal government has petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse that decision. It appears they may rule on this appeal in the coming weeks.
The administration has even threatened to revoke refugee status and even citizenship for refugees admitted to the USA over the past ten years!
This is just cruel.
What can we do?
It may feel we are helpless, but we are not.
Right now, the biggest need is money to help Global Refuge continue to support approved refugees already here in the USA, especially those who arrived in the USA over the past three years. and to increase our advocacy and legal efforts to help immigrants and refugees here in the USA. We have added to our team of immigration lawyers and advocates to protect those in danger of deportation, especially those in danger of deportation back to countries where they will most likely be killed.
As you can imagine, many of these are life and death situations.
You can share your donations via cash or check with me this morning or make a credit card donation or donation by mail through our website, www.globalrefuge.org .
We can also let our representatives in Washington know how cruel this is. Refugee sponsorship has never been a partisan issue. It has always been supported by Republicans and Democrats, by evangelical and mainline Christians and so many others. We need to tell the members of Congress, and anyone else who will listen, tell them to protect all refugees, especially Afghans and Ukrainians, and to restart the US refugee resettlement program.
We also need to keep ourselves informed. One good way to do this is to sign up for Global Refuge’s e-newsletter which you can do with me today or on our website, www.globalrefuge.org .
There are other things we can do to help. Some of us can demonstrate against these cruel decisions and practices. Some of us can accompany immigrants to their government appointments. Some of us can visit immigrants in detention centers.
And, finally, we should start and underpin these efforts in prayer, prayers for a change of heart by Washington leaders, prayers of support for our refugee neighbors and friends, and prayers for all those working on behalf of immigrants and refugees in our nation and around the world. I pray these prayers daily. I hope you will also.
We are not helpless. We must hold onto hope.
There are nearly 100 texts in our Old and New Testament that relate directly to the immigrant, the stranger, and the alien.
Two of those nearly 100 texts that do speak directly to our needed concern for the immigrants, the alien and the refuge are Deuteronomy 10:19 – “You shall also love the stranger, for we were strangers in the land of Egypt” and Paul’s words in Romans 12:13 “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.”
But there is probably no one text that is clearer than today’s Gospel from Matthew 25 where Jesus speaks of the Day of Judgement and His Second Coming. There Jesus is very clear: Those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit people in prison and welcome the stranger will be saved and live forever in the kingdom of God.
Thus, I believe that it is clear in our Christian texts, as it also is in the texts for Judaism and Islam, the other Abrahamic faiths; it is clear in our Christian texts that concern for the immigrant and stranger is central to our faith. And I believe it is fair to say, based on these many texts, you cannot be a Christian (or a Jew or a Muslim) without a concern for the stranger and the alien and the immigrant.
Involvement with Global Refuge is one way each of us can respond to these many biblical commands. And one way we might have something to tell our grandchildren.
Will you join me in responding? Thank you. Amen.
