Restoring Broken Relationships in a Refugee Crisis

Refugee crises have existed throughout history. But did you know there are three times as many refugees today as just over a decade ago? According to figures reported by the UN, the number of refugees has skyrocketed in just over a decade, more than tripling from 15.42 million in 2012 to 43.73 million in 2024.

“This is a crisis that is not discussed too often,” said Eric Lintala, Church and Community Engagement Manager at World Relief Western NY. “If you look at the amount of people living under the poverty line globally, it’s decreased. If you look at the number of people dying from HIV/AIDS, that’s decreased. If you look at many of these world crises that need to be continually responded to, there’s been some incredible movement leading to drastic reduction over the last 20 years. Praise God. Whereas, simultaneously, the number of displaced people worldwide is going up and up and up and up.”

Lintala has been involved in the complex and holy work of aiding refugees in resettlement for the past three years. In addition, he has an undergrad in economics and religious studies, which gives him a critical view of what it looks like to live out faith in an area where intangibles like belief and community clash with the cold, hard realities of physical and economic necessities for life.

He is doing eye-opening work at this critical crossroads of economics, faith, and the enduring human need to survive and flourish.

World Relief: A Faith-Filled Beacon of Light for Displaced People

World Relief is a national Christian humanitarian organization founded 80 years ago and operates in 100 countries. In 2023 alone, it served 5 million people globally. It also welcomed 11,804 immigrants into the US and mobilized 4,440 churches to help in that work of shared flourishing.

World Relief Western New York is a newer branch operating in a hot spot for refugee resettlement. Lintala informed me that in the fiscal year from October 2023 to September 2024, of the 100,000 refugees resettled in the US, over 1,600 found new homes in this small city region tucked between Buffalo and Syracuse in Upstate New York. The impact has positively influenced the local community from culture to economics, workforce demographics, and food choices. Everywhere you look in Rochester, immigration has left a positive mark.

Activating a Christian Response to the Refugee Crisis

Much of World Relief’s work in Rochester and the surrounding region has been to educate and activate Christians to help displaced people not just resettle but thrive and contribute to a shared community. This is a key initial step in effectively supporting displaced people.

According to research from Lifeway, just a quarter of Christians have a Bible-based understanding of the call to help refugees. Yet, 71% of Evangelical Christians believe in a moral responsibility to care for refugees, and 82% of Christians say they would value a sermon on the subject. There is a disconnect within this faith-filled community between a willing desire to do good and understanding the means to do so.

This is where World Relief comes into the picture.

The organization emphasizes a holistic approach that helps individuals see refugees not as underprivileged numbers and statistics but as sacred, created beings. Lintala also stresses the importance of defining poverty not as a lack of material possessions but as broken relationships. It’s too easy to slip into refugee work as a practical activity, one defined by logistical decisions and “check-this-box” mentalities.

Yet, one needs to invest in this crucial area of humanitarian work for a matter of minutes to realize the sacred and spiritual elements at play. Refugee support is a holy work that requires a holistic solution and a spiritually grounded mindset. When, as Lintala said, we can redefine poverty as broken relationships, it levels the playing field, creating a relatable starting point for everyone to seek mutual transformation together.

He expanded this even further by sharing that he loves a holistic approach that centers on the question “What is applied faith?” and seeks to foster a “helping without hurting” mindset for staff and volunteers. World Relief’s mission is to boldly engage the world’s greatest crises in partnership with the church — including helping refugees.

This starts with economic elements, like food, employment, healthcare, and overcoming language barriers. These are all things that secular philanthropic organizations can do well. But it has to go further. “As we’re really trying to walk with somebody and bring the community into that,” Lintala explained, “the community connection is so central to our approach, and I think that’s one of the things that makes us pretty unique.”

For example, Lintala describes World Relief’s Home Team as volunteers who clean, set up, and transform apartments into first homes for newly arrived refugees.

World Relief’s Good Neighbor Teams (GNT) are also key. These are groups of around eight Christian volunteers trained to holistically walk with refugees and other immigrants toward mutually transformative relationships. Among the many benefits, this leads to dozens of hours of targeted, face-to-face interactions that a single, overworked case worker could never match. “Think about that amount of time,” Lintala said. “Imagine having a tenth of one case worker’s time — four hours a week.” In comparison, he points not just to the members of a GNT but to the synergy that comes from family, friends, and churches around these sacred groups.

Funding Cuts Threaten World Relief’s Work

In January 2025, the incoming Trump administration suspended federal funding for refugee support and resettlement agencies across the U.S. While the order was, in many ways, unclear, and much remains to be decided as of this writing, the impact was immediate. It paralyzed programs and forced internal staff to furlough staff members, halt services, and generally slow down or pause their work.

Lintala said that in the two and a half months following the cuts, World Relief of Western New York laid off a significant portion of their staff, severely losing expertise and capacity. The impact on refugees making the transition was also substantial. When we talked, he was aware of 116 refugees whose imminent arrival at World Relief Western NY had been cut off and paused indefinitely. They didn’t even have status updates on them.

Lintala stressed in our talk that the funding in question isn’t a “lost” resource, either. Statistics show that over time, refugees in the US have a significant positive fiscal impact that ameliorates initial support costs. One study found that the net fiscal impact (i.e., the contribution refugees and asylees contributed to compared to the expenditures they created for the government) of refugees and asylees between 2005 and 2019 was a robust $123.8 billion, with $31.5 billion going to the federal government and a further $92.3 billion to state and local governments.

Much of the funding designed to streamline that gradual contribution was gone after the cuts. The worst part is that the short-term crisis only served to underline a growing divide and deeper spiritual rupture within society. American society is wrestling with a disconnect from and resistance to the moral and relational responsibility to “welcome the stranger.” While funding and volunteer help are critical needs in the present, there is a more serious and significant divide behind the scenes that must be addressed for long-term healing and restoration to take place.

Lintala and the World Relief team see this, too. In the midst of talks about Trump cuts and funding crises, he pointed out that a growing fear factor has been building. “I talk with families,” he said, “who have been here for 50 or 60 years, who are saying, ‘I have never felt as afraid as I am right now.'” The refugee crisis in America in early 2025 is more than a fiscal question. It’s a cultural one.

A Solution Founded in Good Samaritan Faith

The short-term solution to the funding problem has come from the Good Neighbor Team structure. World Relief has asked its church partners to step up — and they have responded. 18 more GNT groups have formed, more than doubling their number. World Relief has also pivoted, seeking local grants and building stronger relationships with nearby non-government organizations.

This has sparked a deeper reaction, too — one with the potential for long-term repercussions. For instance, Prayer has been another key factor in activating World Relief’s church partners. Lintala explained that the organization, churches, and individuals are praying alongside one another for national and local leaders, families, World Relief staff, and their entire communities.

“Prayer is not a passive thing,” he said. “I think a lot of our cultural approach is that prayer is what you do when you don’t know what to do. But prayer is active. From a Christian perspective, we are advocating before the Creator of the universe to step into something and make a change.”

Looking Forward

Despite the cut in funding, World Relief is still actively working toward shared flourishing in its refugee work. It is leaning on the Christian community more than ever to maintain its impact. Its educational work also endures, partly through quarterly gatherings of pastors to continue developing the movement. Lintala said these are designed “to learn about what’s going on and how the church can step in to be a response in this time to welcome, to love, and to journey in this path of belonging for families, whether they’ve been in the United States for three days or 30 years.”

Lintala also pointed out that while federal funding is important and helpful, World Relief’s hope has never been in any of the countless presidential administrations they’ve worked with over the decades, but in God alone. Once again, this aligns with the larger shift needed to realign this hard and holy work with spiritual and community efforts that have the capacity to bring more holistic healing.

As we wind down our conversation, he references the Biblical inspiration for this kind of hope, explicitly mentioning the passage from Acts 17:26, which says, “From one human being he created all races of people and made them live throughout the whole earth. He fixed beforehand the exact times and the limits of the places where they would live.”

As things continue to unfold, the work of World Relief and similar Sacred-centered organizations remains a beautiful thing to behold. Christians are helping Muslims from Afghanistan get what they need for Ramadan. Born-and-raised locals from American cities and towns are talking with refugees about their faiths while driving to and from appointments. Everywhere you look within the World Relief network, there is a life-giving community that comes from approaching philanthropy through a spiritual lens. It is a resounding success “in-depth” that comes from a spiritually rooted effort to help others rise above the challenges of human displacement in the 21st century and overcome the just-as-important struggles that come with the poverty of broken relationships.

By Jaron Pak