The state of Minnesota: all people are welcome here!

Minnesota State capitol building in St. Paul, photo by Virginia Bergman

A Minnesotan by choice, I was born and raised in northwestern Ohio, and I’ve lived in several other states, including California. I prefer Minnesota not so much for its climate – it does get really cold here in winter – but for the state’s historical emphasis on humanitarian concerns in its governance and its religious institutions.

The press release I recently received from the Minnesota Council of Churches in support of refugees who have made their homes here is a good example:

Preserving refugee stories as part of Minnesota’s heritage

The forthcoming book featuring refugee stories by the Minnesota Council of Churches Refugee Services received publication support from a Historical and Cultural Heritage Grant Minneapolis (February 25, 2011) – The stories of Minnesota’s newest refugees will be remembered for generations to come thanks to a Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. The grant award supports editing and publication of the book This Much I Can Tell You: Stories of Courage and Hope from Refugees in Minnesota to be released June 1, 2011.

This book gives a glimpse into the lives of some of Minnesota’s newest refugees. Women and men from Somalia, Bhutan, Iraq, Cameroon, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burma share their individual refugee stories that are as diverse as the storytellers. In their own words, they tell about their lives before conflict, why their lives fell apart, their experience as refugees and their transition to Minnesota. This book documents their trauma and tragedy as well as their hopes and

dreams for the future.

“Before we are the displaced and displaced people have no legal status. So now we are so glad to be living in America and get the legal status. We can legally live the center of our lives here, so we are very glad,” Saw Josiah, a Karen story teller, says in his chapter.

Besides being refugees, each person represented in this book shares another thing in common—they accessed services at Minnesota Council of Churches Refugee Services. MCC Refugee Services is a local affiliate of Church World Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries, two agencies contracted by the US Department of State to resettle refugees in the United States. MCC Refugee Services welcomes persecuted people from around the world into lives of freedom, hope and opportunity in Minnesota through four lines of service: Case Management, Employment Services, Immigration Services, and

Education.

“The refugees we are privileged to work with have journeyed across the globe to find safety in Minnesota. As Minnesotans we know refugees as neighbors, as coworkers, as customers, or as friends. But we don’t know their stories. We don’t know about their life before they became refugees or what they went through to find the safety we enjoy. We hope this book will help bring those stories to light so we can know each other better,” said Rachele King, director of MCC Refugee Services.

The book will be available on June 1, 2011 through Beaver’s Pond Books. To find out more about This Much I Can Tell You visit: www.mnchurches.org/refugeestories.