ATLANTA (ABP) — A peaceful night’s sleep for a refugee whose run from violence and danger has ended, the sound of fellowship as a Christian connects with a lonely international student and the joy of a congregation that rediscovers its
 Marc Wyatt, right, prays for the people of Lowertown, a community in Ottawa, where he and his wife, Kim, serve as CBF missionaries to internationals. (Photo courtesy of the Wyatts.) |
For more than a decade, the Wyatts, who now serve as Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel in Canada, have ministered among internationals, including students, immigrants and refugees.
They began in Thailand, where first-hand experience as internationals helped them understand those with whom they now minister. In 1998, they began serving at Matthew House, a shelter in Toronto that has helped refugees from more than 75 countries resettle in Canada.
As more individuals and churches became involved, the Wyatts widened their ministry scope to include meeting needs of other internationals, such as the large population of immigrants and international students living in cities near the Canadian-American border and in Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city and the second-largest French-speaking city in the world (after Paris).
Last year the Wyatts and children Rebecca, 16, and Jon Marc, 13, moved to Ottawa — Canada’s capital — to be more centrally located to the mostly French-speaking congregations with which they partner.
The Wyatts are helping Eastview Baptist Church, a Portuguese and English-speaking congregation, rediscover its missional presence. The church has connected with refugees such as Pierre (whose last name is not being used for security purposes) and his wife. Originally from war-torn Congo, the couple recently moved to Ottawa after years in Hong Kong, where they constantly feared deportation.
The Wyatts have helped network churches and ministry organizations to assist the couple with furniture, employment, friendship and a baby shower to celebrate the birth of the couple’s first child.
“How wonderful it is when churches … community leaders and municipal service providers … work together for the common good, blessing immigrant families and communities,” Kim Wyatt said.
The Wyatts have started ministering among a growing population of refugees from Haiti. These refugees journey to the United States and, feeling the risk of deportation, flee north to large Canadian cities, where their native French language is more commonly spoken.
In Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal, the Wyatts partner with Baptist churches to create a refugee ministry that includes emergency housing assistance, free food and clothing, counseling services, immigration assistance and orientation to the country.
“Our work is to seek, discover, advance, encourage and bless the work [of Canadian churches] among internationals in their local neighborhoods,” Marc Wyatt said.
Ottawa is home to immigrants, refugees and international students from approximately 150 countries. The doors for ministry are open, and through partnerships the Wyatts believe that more people can be reached with the presence of Christ.
“We work hard to include others with sharing the Great Commission of Jesus,” Marc Wyatt said. “Much more is possible together than separately.”
While most of their work is with Canadian churches, some U.S. congregations also partner with the Wyatts. First Baptist Church in Reidsville, N.C., added sending an annual summer missionary to Canada to the prayer and financial support they were already giving to the Wyatts. Other supporting churches include First Baptist Church in Danville, Va., and Monument Heights Baptist Church in Richmond, Va.
“God is sending his church to so love the world, to share and demonstrate the gospel to everyone, everywhere,” Marc Wyatt said. “God is bringing those he loves into proximity of his people, his church, his good news. Missionaries and churches are needed to send, support, pray for and welcome those [internationals] God is literally bringing to us.”
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