When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34 (NIV)
Hospitality is a central tenet of the Judeo-Christian faith. In Old Testament stories, God offers protection to wanderers through God’s own people, who open their doors to share compassion, food, drink and shelter.
Jesus was well aware of and practiced in these stories of his faith, and he interpreted them in new ways, giving his disciples and followers further guidance about whom they should count as their neighbor, like the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37), and what they should do to welcome the strangers they meet (Matthew 25:35-46).
In 1940, the Methodist Committee for Overseas Relief (MCOR) was founded to mobilize Methodists to care for the growing number of refugees and displaced populations in Asia during World War II (MCOR would become the United Methodist Committee on Relief, or UMCOR, in 1968). After the war, the agency joined with other faith communities and global partners to provide humanitarian aid for Europe’s displaced and suffering war survivors.
The need to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees and other displaced migrants has not abated since UMCOR’s founding. Today, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reports 117.3 million people are forcibly displaced from their homes globally, more people than at any time since World War II.
“We are living in a time of unprecedented displacement, and the call to respond cannot wait,” said Roland Fernandes, general secretary of UMCOR, Global Ministries and Higher Education and Ministry. “Our ability to make a meaningful impact depends on strong partnerships – with local congregations, global agencies and ecumenical allies – working together to ensure that migrants are met with dignity, safety and hope.”
Increased support for migration ministries in 2025
Most years, UMCOR, a unit of Global Ministries, has a budget for global migration grants of about $1 million that generally support agencies, church ministries and other nonprofits around the world that respond to different aspects of migrant care: receiving, caring for, resettling, training, sheltering, feeding, finding jobs for and reuniting migrants with family members.
But 2025 has not been like most years. In total, almost $6.3 million, in 226 grants, will be dispersed this year. More than $3.2 million has been dedicated to providing bridge funding for partners that suddenly lost funding provided by the U.S. government, internationally from the defunding of USAID but also from the loss of U.S. Refugee Admission Program funding for refugee resettlement and from most programs previously funded by the Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugees under the U.S. State Department.
“We actively seek to engage with the United Nations and ecumenical bodies as, together, we strive to promote policies that care for the safety, dignity and voice of migrants,” notes the Rev. Jack Amick, director of UMCOR’s Global Migration unit. “We are also trying to be very intentional about being supportive and present when other entities of the UMC come together to work on migration issues.”
From Ukraine and Gaza to the U.S., relief extended to migrants globally
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Global Ministries and UMCOR have continued to support both internally displaced people and refugees. The United Methodist Church in Ukraine has received support to care for displaced groups inside Ukraine. Grants have also been provided to various United Methodist churches and conference agencies surrounding Ukraine that have created and sustained resources to care for refugees, granting close to $1 million this year. In Moldova, a grant has supported the refugee work of Church World Service at a center that helps many Ukrainians who fled Russian occupation of territories in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, Global Ministries and UMCOR have supported the relief efforts of several different partners that have projects up and running inside Gaza. In the past two years, grants to International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) have provided food, livelihood projects and counseling to displaced people – concentrating on women, children and other vulnerable residents in the displacement camps of central Gaza.
In the U.S., UMCOR helps local United Methodist congregations fulfill their calling to welcome migrants into their churches and provide for the needs of immigrant communities. This year, UMCOR planned to offer 100 Mustard Seed Migration Grants (MSMG) for up to $2,000 each to congregations for new or extended ministries.
As 2025 unfolded and people across the United States saw and heard of migrants being detained and transported to unknown detention facilities for deportation, congregations decided to do more for immigrants who needed assistance but did not know where to turn. Additional funding has meant that 155 Mustard Seed grants have been distributed, and the program will continue in 2026.
Park Hill United Methodist Church in Denver received a Mustard Seed Migration Grant to increase the reach of its Agape Food Pantry, particularly in a time when an influx of immigrants from Central and South America was straining the city’s ability to respond. The UMCOR grant galvanized members of the congregation to volunteer in the pantry and donate goods and funds themselves. The seed money propelled them to partner with other nonprofit providers, and they have since received a city and county grant.
They also discovered their community was home to African immigrants from Mauritania and Senegal. As with many church-run pantries that depend on volunteer labor, some immigrants who were offered food just when their families needed it most returned, even after their situations improved, to volunteer to serve others and provide translation help.
“We have learned that WE can make a difference. We don’t need to wait on the government to respond to the immediate needs in our community,” one Park Hill member said. “Our congregation has attached faces and names to members of the immigrant and refugee communities. Many of our volunteers know the regular recipients by name and greet them with a hug, even through language barriers. The language of love is universal.”
In addition to food ministries, other UMC congregations offered apartment furnishings and cookware for resettling refugee families and events that provided opportunities for migrants to tell their stories. Some churches have developed backpack ministries for new students, refurbished instruments for migrant youth seeking to join a high school band and provided diapers and other newborn supplies for new moms. ESL classes and Know Your Rights seminars have been the focus for other Mustard Seed grant projects.
Mustard Seed Migration Grants supply congregations with the tools they need to engage directly in the spiritual practice of welcoming migrants of all kinds into the church community and their wider community. Sometimes the practice leads to partnership with other faith traditions that also value the spiritual practice of welcome and hospitality, connecting the global reality to the local community in real and tangible ways. Congregations can learn more and apply here.
You can partner with Global Ministries and UMCOR by increasing our ability to support, welcome and care for migrants.
