news article
From the Advocate: IRM reconnects refugees, immigrants back to worship
March 1, 2016 / By Kathleen Rubino / .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Click below to read the full Advocate online.
When the Rev. Ewart Morris – pastor at the Valley Falls and Albany: Emmaus United Methodist churches – arrived at the Emmaus UMC in 2012, he felt called to establish multiethnic worship at the church. As he searched and prayed about it, he met the Rev. Bizimana John Rusingizwa, who shared his idea for International Reconciliation Ministries (IRM).
“The vision for this new faith community is to put people together, to be one, and to walk together,” Rev. Bizimana said.
Rev. Bizimana, pastor at and planter of the IRM, developed the vision for this ministry years ago, when he lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“There are many different languages and different people,” he said. “It happened that they were fighting each other, and after war, my vision was to reconcile people because in the kingdom of God, (there is) no difference between people.”
So he started the ministry to reconcile the people of Africa. When he fled to America, he continued to reconcile people here because he felt African people still needed reconciliation in a new country.
Rev. Bizimana said that many Africans come to America to get a job, but they forget about God and their culture. He hopes, through IRM, to reconcile any bad blood between different cultures, reconnect refugees and immigrants, and to bring them back to worship.
Rev. Morris helps to guide IRM in its work in collaboration with Rev. Bizimana and the Rev. Dave Masland, Upper New York Conference Director of New Faith Communities. Rev. Morris said he feels this ministry is a good way to bring Africans back to each other and to God. IRM has been an official new faith community for about two years and currently serves 80 people.
The new faith community aids African refugees and immigrants who resettle in America. Many of them come from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. IRM reaches out to them and sets up a meeting – particularly during a Sunday worship service – at the Emmaus UMC. The ministry also has a Saturday rotation, where it meets with the families it helps in their homes.
Each week at the 4 p.m. Sunday service, refugees and immigrants worship the Gospels and Old Testament, read in one of the languages – including French, Swahili, and Urdu – and translated into English afterwards. As an added bonus, the refugees and immigrants sing songs and dance to music in their native languages each Sunday.
“Since the International Reconciliation Ministries has been established as new faith community, one of the gifts to us is that every week, every Sunday, they sing one or two items in one of their languages, and that is a great gift to us,” Rev. Morris said.
In addition to these services, IRM holds a conference each year, inviting Africans from across the United States, Canada, and Africa to gather at the church and “teach them to forget the bad things they were doing in Africa, to be one people.”
Four African refugees said that they came to the United States to escape war and find peace and stability, which they have received from the Emmaus UMC and IRM.
“The people we help, they are so happy to find a new place to be together and to share together, to help each other,” Rev. Bizimana said.
Rev. Morris said this new faith community has become an avenue through which Emmaus UMC can reach the African community.
“International Reconciliation Ministries is a faith community built around the gospel of Jesus Christ, helping the African community live the faith that they lived back in Africa now that they are in a new place, help to live that, but emphatically, in their own culture so that they can continue in their languages and in some of their ethnic activities,” he said. “And frankly, a lot of it is very, very Christian; they do a lot of prayer time, fellowship time, but there’s an opportunity for us to come together as a whole body of Christ in all of our multiethnic settings at Emmaus.”
Rev. Morris believes IRM is a much-needed ministry in the Albany area because it allows the refugee and immigrant communities to gather in one place and be a part of ongoing Christian fellowship.
“It’s amazing how even though we don’t all speak the same language, the language of love supersedes it all, because a smile from one another is as good as an embrace as if you can say something in their language,” Rev. Morris said.
To watch a video about the International Reconciliation Ministries, go to https://vimeo.com/155000631.