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Pacific is hosting a forum on the Syrian Refugee Crisis with a goal to understand what we can do in terms of sponsoring refugee families. Our capacity to respond will be entirely dependent on establishing a committed and competent team to help make it happen. You can read more about the crisis here.

Register for the Forum by selecting here so we can be sure to prepare enough food.

What you can expect at the Forum:

1. Lunch: We want to support the youth hotdog fundraiser that is happening. Go get your hotdogs and chips first and with them in hand, make your way to the children's ministry room (Room 125). At the forum, there will be salad, extra drink options, and dessert provided. 

2. Childcare: We have childcare available for those would like to have it. Parents wanting someone to look after kids during the forum can email Rachel Tran (henraet@yahoo.com). Kids can be dismissed for supervised play after lunch.

3. The Big Question: Our goal, if we believe we need to respond to the refugee crisis by being a sponsoring church, is to establish a committed team of capable people who will work together to make things happen. We will ask you to sbe involved. What part might you play? Attached is a general description of a team needed.

3. Guest Speaker: We are looking forward to learning from our guest speaker Jennifer Mpungu. She heads up the newcomer and resettlement programs of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) here in BC. Before she immigrated to Canada in 2003, Jennifer spent ten years as Foreign Service officer and then twelve years working in the largest refugee camp in the world. She will help us to understand the reality of being a sponsoring community. Read more of her bio below.

For more background:

Jennifer Mpungu - Bio

Before immigrating to Canada in 2003, Jennifer spent 10 years as a Foreign Service officer before moving on to the Not-for–Profit sector in Kenya for 12 years.  Jennifer was first exposed to the global refugee problem when working with CARE International in the Dadaab Refugee camp, the world’s largest refugee camp, implementing projects to either sustain warehoused refugees in three camps or to prepare them for resettlement to countries like Canada.  Since 2006, Jennifer has given leadership to the refugee work of MCCBC—resettlement for those overseas and journeying with those who flee to Canada seeking asylum. She has the unique perspective of experiencing firsthand the complexity of the refugee continuum that starts with displacement and traverses the durable solutions in the form of repatriation, local integration or resettlement. These aspects provide effective, realistic and achievable answers to what would otherwise be an endless cycle of poverty, alienation and exploitation.  In addition, she also manages two projects in Surrey and Vancouver, which provide support to newcomers navigating their way in a new country and faced by multifaceted challenges.  To recharge, when not consulting in other areas of Canadian immigration, she enjoys gardening, reading and is very involved with event planning in the Afro-diaspora community. She currently resides in Abbotsford with her husband, two daughters and a son-in-love.

 

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