Afghan Outreach Ministry
Serving our new neighbors
Trinity has the great opportunity to welcome over 50 Afghan refugees to Birmingham through the Inspiritus Refugee resettlement program. Individuals and families began arriving just before Christmas and will continue to arrive over the next few months. They are coming here essentially with only the clothes on their backs. Evacuated amidst chaos in August, these refugees have been living on military bases and are now finally getting into apartments. This is a new land and a traumatic experience for each of them, and a long process that they are still enduring.
That’s where we step in! By networking with several area organizations and churches, we can play a huge part in making this time of transition more comfortable and help these families and individuals get the items they need to restart their lives here in the United States. At Trinity West Homewood, we offer a large clothing closet for adults and children, household items, furniture and food to help our new neighbors find what they need. We have now welcomed over 50 refugees, and look forward to welcoming many more as the year continues. We are grateful to be able to utilize our Trinity West campus to store donations from other local churches, creating a welcoming, central location where our new Afghan neighbors can come get what they need.
Here’s how you can help!
Give:
Check out our Amazon Wish List for new items you can purchase and have shipped to the church. We will get these items straight to the apartments!
In addition to the items on our Wish List, we are also collecting the following. Items can be dropped off anytime at Trinity West on the outdoor collection shelves across from the gym, or during office hours on the Outreach Cart in the Oxmoor campus Welcome Center.
- Cleaning products (dish soap, laundry detergent, cleaning wipes, etc.)
- Hygiene products (shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, etc.)
- Small furniture in good condition (end tables, side tables, etc.)
- Kitchen tables & chairs in good condition
- Non-perishable cooking staples (oil, honey, flour, sugar, etc.
You can also donate monetarily to the COVID response account – feel free to send me a message or note your donation “Refugee Ministry.”
Serve:
We need volunteers! To make such a big program run smoothly, we need your help. If you’re interested in helping, contact Mary Liz Ingram anytime and I’ll get you plugged in!
- We need volunteers to sort/organize donations in the Trinity West Homewood gym each Wednesday from 9:00-11:00am
- We need volunteers willing to provide transportation so the families and individuals can get to Trinity West on Thursday mornings and back to their apartments.
- Furniture deliveries: We will soon be delivering furniture to apartments as well, so anyone willing to help.
Care Team:
If you’re interested in deeper service, this is a very relational commitment to a couple of individuals or a family. We are forming a care team of 8-10 individuals to provide relational and cultural care. This commitment requires training through Inspiritus, and each person on the team will commit to visiting with the family once a month in person for around an hour. These visits are to help them with everything from bills, to shopping lists, to navigating through a culture that is very different from their own. If you are interested in participating in a Care Team, contact Mary Liz Ingram for more information. (A Trinity Care Team is dependent upon reaching the minimum number of volunteers.)
Thanks for serving your neighbors and helping us be faithful to the words of Leviticus 19:33-34: “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”
We are excited to see the wonderful things that come from this ministry!