(Please note that this episode is only available in audio format).

Jody Crimi, is the Executive Director of Art Inspiring Change, a non-profit organization of artists focused on welcoming and loving Syrian refugees primarily in San Diego. She felt called by God in 2014 to love and serve the Syrian people. In this episode, she explains how the first steps she took in 2016 toward obeying God’s call led her to establish an incredible ministry that’s making a difference in the Syrian community and testifying to the love of God.

Along with a handful of women volunteers, Jody is now connected to about 80 local refugee families. Her team does more than help refugees resettle. They invest in long-term relationships with Syrian refugees, viewing them as friends and even family. Jody helps us understand the traumatic background of her refugee friends and the challenges of resettling in a foreign country. She also talks about the positive impact her ministry has had on her faith and personal life.

I hope this episode inspires you to find ways you can get involved in serving refugees in your community.

Takeaways from this episode:

1. When God calls us to do something, He will provide the means and the opportunities to equip us to follow His lead. Jody felt called by God to love the Syrian people. She did not know where to start or how to put her passion into action. God opened the doors for her at the right time. Motivated by the Holy Spirit, Jody showed up and let God lead her one step at a time.
   
2. Refugees who come from war-torn nations carry the scars of great trauma and loss. Building friendships with them will help us better understand them so we can know how to love them and pray for them.
   
3. Jody feels God chose her to be present with the Syrian refugees and help them resettle through the resources available to her. She wants policies and systems to change for the better but she recognizes that God’s will for her is to focus on the task at hand. Sometimes, we think that we have to be involved in a lot of things to help bring about change. We can seek God’s wisdom so we can concentrate on the specific task that God has planned for us, committing other details into His hands.
   

Jody Crimi served in youth ministry for 18 years before going on a life changing trip to the Middle East and subsequently devoting her time to serving Syrians in her community. She lives in Encinitas, California with her husband and enjoys painting and boxing.

If you’d like to help out Jody and her friends and support their ministry among Syrian refugees, click here.

Mabel is an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. An immigrant from India who has lived in seven cities across the U.S. in fourteen years, Mabel navigates between cultures, feeling at home everywhere and nowhere. In her award-winning book, Far from Home: Discovering Your Identity as Foreigners on Earth, Mabel draws from her personal experience as an immigrant and examines the lives of biblical heroes to shed light on how we can find purpose and joy as sojourners on earth.

Learn more Mabel here.

Buy Mabel’s book, Far from Home: Discovering Your Identity as Foreigners on Earth, on Amazon.

Buy Mabel’s book from End Game Press.

Download the tip sheet, Love Your Immigrant Neighbor : 5 Action Steps, here.