The operators of Welcome House Raleigh say they understand the anger at their decision to help resettle Afrikaners while refugees from other nations have lost federal benefits or been blocked from entering the United States altogether.
“We share that anger, honestly, with how the Trump administration is treating resettlement work by ending it and cutting off funding and leaving people in the lurch,” said Marc Wyatt, director of the welcoming ministry of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina.
President Donald Trump effectively dismantled the nation’s decades-old Refugee Admissions Program with an executive order in January, preventing fully vetted refugees from entering the country and withholding contracted federal funds from agencies that provide housing and other services to those already resettled in the U.S.
Kim and Marc Wyatt
Yet the U.S. this month welcomed 59 white South Africans whom the president claimed were “victims of unjust racial discrimination” in their majority Black homeland — a claim widely disputed. The move sparked outrage among immigration advocates and led the Episcopal Church to end its migration resettlement program by the end of the year.
“I do see how people are very upset about this. We are upset about it too. A lot of our friends have been hurt by this and believe me this has not been an easy or overnight decision,” Wyatt said.
However, the Baptist ministry decided to honor a request from U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in North Carolina to furnish two apartments for three Afrikaners placed in Raleigh. Welcome House routinely has partnered with the agency to provide English classes, housing, furniture and other assistance to incoming refugees.
That decision was noted in a news story by National Public Radio.
“We are not a resettlement agency,” Wyatt explained. “Part of our mission is to come alongside them and the folks they settle into our community. We also help asylum seekers and other immigrants — and we are also upset about their status being threatened.”
But agreeing to supply used furniture for the USCIR-provided apartment was not easy in coming, said Randy Carter, director of the Welcome Network and senior pastor of Temple Baptist Church, a CBF congregation in Durham.
“We are against racist ideologies like apartheid in South Africa, and we know the role Afrikaners had in that. And we are fully aware of our own history as white Baptists in the South. So, it took a lot of time and discussion, but it came down to the question of, ‘Who is the Christ we follow?’”
Eventually, ministry leaders decided Jesus would embrace strangers from around the world, whether they be Christians from the Congo or Burma, or Muslims from Syria.
Randy Carter
“From the beginning, we have received people without any type of qualification on who they are, and now we need to apply that same conviction to the Afrikaner who is landing on our doorstep,” Carter said. “But we fully recognize the tension in that.”
The Trump administration’s emerging refugee policy has provided quandaries for others, as well.
“It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” said Sean Rowe, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, in a message to the denomination.
“I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country. I also grieve that victims of religious persecution, including Christians, have not been granted refuge in recent months,” he added.
However, the Episcopal Church was approached by the Trump administration with a demand it resettle incoming Afrikaners, Rowe said. “In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step. Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government.”
Carter said he and others in the Welcome Network see where the Episcopal Church is coming from with the move. “We fully honor the Episcopal Church decision and understand the historical and theological grounding that led to it.”
Wyatt said it took him some time to get to that level of acceptance on the arrangement. “At first all I could really do is say ‘OK, we’ll help furnish the apartment.’”
But upon further reflection Wyatt said he became convicted the only option was to go all-in regardless of who the guests were to be, he said. “This is bigger than politics. It’s bigger than our moral outrage at it because when we read the Bible, the gospel doesn’t give us an exemption on who qualifies as a neighbor. It just says, ‘Welcome the stranger.’”
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