What's Going On? Refugee Sponsorship - April 30, 2025

Mountainview has a long history of sponsoring refugee families. Most recently, we welcomed the Tooe family from Myanmar in 2022, reuniting them with their relatives whom we sponsored earlier.

The Deacons are now ready to move forward with sponsoring another family. The Said family, originally from Somalia, was forced to flee to Uganda after members of their immediate family were murdered and their farm was taken from them. Our hope is to help these people move out of the refugee camp and into a new life in Canada.

The Deacons are working with World Renew, who are experienced in supporting churches on the resettlement journey. The paperwork for this sponsorship is ready to be submitted. In recent years, Immigration Canada has tightened the rules around helping refugees enter Canada. One of the stipulations is that when representatives from Immigration Canada interview this family in approximately one year, we need to provide proof that all funds are in place to cover the cost of sponsorship support.

That amount is $75,000. We recognize this is a lot of money to ask from our congregation. (FYI, our sponsorship total for the Tooe family was approx $50,000). Ideally, we would prefer to have all the money needed set aside in a separate Refugee bank account by the spring of 2026. However, as we look at the timeline for the sponsorship, it will likely take 3 years before our resettlement obligations for the Said family are complete. That is about $25,000 per year.

The Mountainview Deacons are confident that our love for God and neighbour (even those we have yet to meet) will move and inspire us to help this family.

We will share more information in a presentation at the Annual Congregational Meeting on Tuesday, June 10th. At that point, any questions you have can be answered. We trust we can walk this journey together to change the life of a family.

The Deacons of Mountainview