Pastor Jean Pierre Gatera landed in Minneapolis with his wife and three kids in September 2016. He later told CT, “Resettlement was like getting thrown into the sea."

President Biden has already promised to raise the admittance ceiling to a relatively conservative 125,000. Is the American church prepared to start welcoming refugees again?

Gatera would know; he is now a pastor of pastors, serving other refugee churches across the U.S. with the International Association for Refugees, and advising them on both high-level and granular logistics relating to running their church in a new country.

In this episode, he joins hosts Kent Annan and Jamie Aten to talk about misconceptions of refugees, how his church cared for him when his family contracted COVID-19 last summer, and the one thing guaranteed to offend a newly resettled person.

RESOURCES:

Christianity Today 2018 feature story on Pastor Gatera and his ministry in Minneapolis

Sign up for updates from the International Association for Refugees, where Pastor Gatera ministers

"On Being a Good Neighbor", sermon draft by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This episode produced by Laura Finch

Theme Song “Turning Over Tables” by The Brilliance

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Follow us on Twitter: @kentannan | @drjamieaten | @laura_e_finch | @IAFR

(Note to the listener: In this podcast, sometimes we'll have evangelicals, sometimes we won't. We thinking learning how to do good better involves listening to lots of perspectives, with different insights and understanding with us. Sometimes it will make us uncomfortable, sometimes we'll agree, sometimes we won't. We think that's good. We want to listen for correction. Especially in our blind spots.)

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