Many of you are asking how we can best help our community of refugees and asylees right now.  Before we respond to that question, we want to share our thoughts on how this group of people can be helpful and serve as an example to the rest of us.  As we trust in our Sovereign God, and know that He makes good out of even our pain, is it possible that He has brought our refugee and asylee community to our city for such a time as this?  They have experienced a variety of hardships and have skills that help them adapt to changing conditions, so we can learn from them. They teach us to slow down, cherish the people around them, live simply, and to share what we have with others in their community in need. Even more, they have faith that has been tested in many ways that may be difficult for us to imagine, and yet they continue to trust God. So we want you to be encouraged that while we are challenged in many ways in these days, there are examples among us who have already walked through similar days by holding fast to their faith in our Good Good Father, and caring for each other. Their faith is strong and so is their community. Let’s use these days to stand strong in our faith and love people well   

Now to answer the question of how we can best help members of our refugee and asylee community in the days ahead, here are a few ideas.  

1 Offer food that brings special comfort from their home countries. Many of our clients enjoy a special porridge that is made of a variety of ingredients, including brown sugar, cassava flour, garbanzo bean flour, and white rice flour. If you can provide any of these ingredients, we would love to share them with our clients to bring them a taste of home. Other food items needed for daily meals include dried beans and rice.

2 Help a family start their spring garden by providing seeds. Gardening is a healthy and productive pastime for our clients, especially older clients who are skilled at growing food for their families in small plots of ground around their homes. The community has some urban garden areas which we could also help to provide seeds. Vegetables they particularly like to grow include cucumbers, corn, pinto beans, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, green beans, cauliflower, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, cassava, any kind of greens (collard, mustard, turnip), and sweet potatoes.

3 Like your family, our clients also need cleaning and hygiene products such as toilet paper, liquid laundry detergent, bath and hand soap, liquid soap for handwashing dishes, paper towels, trash bags, and deodorant.

To make it easy for you to share some of these items with our clients, we have created a wish list on Amazon that includes the items mentioned above.  Please note that we have selected items that are currently available on Amazon, but we are happy for you to substitute other brands of similar products, and they do not have to be organic, gluten free or non-gmo.  https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1LY6SPIOQB03Y?ref_=wl_share

Items ordered on Amazon will ship directly to Jamie Jones for easy distribution.  

If you prefer to buy items and drop them off rather than ordering online, we can arrange drop off at several homes in the area, including Jamie Jones in Olive Branch (Jamie@ashasrefuge.org), Jenny McFarland in West Germantown (Jenny.McFarland@ashasrefuge.org), Deborah Eaton in East Germantown (Deborah@ashasrefuge.org), and Erica Stubblefield in Collierville (Erica@ashasrefuge.org).

…So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13