Rev Anji Barker, Synod Pioneer Cluster Leader, travelled to Mae Sot, Thailand with a group to convene at Council for World Mission’s conference ‘Church on the Move: A Place of Refuge.’
“In late May, I had the privilege of partnering with Social Justice & Caribbean Region team at, Council for World Mission. I had the honour of organising their team of delegates to travel to Mae Sot, a border town in northern Thailand, where hundreds of thousands of Burmese refugees have fled and continue to flee to each day. I was able to take part in a gathering convened by the CWM entitled Church on the Move: A Place of Refuge. Over four intensive days, church leaders and practitioners from across the globe came together to wrestle with one of the defining moral questions of our time: what does it mean for faith communities to respond to the crisis of forced displacement? Mae Sot was no accidental choice. Situated on the Myanmar border, it is a place where displacement is not theoretical but lived — where Burmese refugees cross in search of safety, where migrant communities build fragile new lives, and where local organisations work daily to provide education, skills, and hope. To gather here was to be immersed in the very reality we had come to address: seeing with renewed compassion.
The programme began by turning inward. Before examining global policy or planning action, we were invited to reflect on our own experiences of refuge and displacement. Where do I find my refuge? When has that been threatened? These were not abstract questions. They asked each of us to find the place where our own vulnerability meets the suffering of others — and from that place, to see with renewed compassion. Many of the delegates have personal experience of the refugee journey, as well as experience of being in places where refugees are fleeing to such as Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana where Venezuelan and Haitian refugees seek safety. We explored the biblical narrative of the migrant God and the refugee Christ — a God who is perpetually on the move, who appears in the stranger, the hungry and the imprisoned. The words of Matthew 25 echoed through every session: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” We asked ourselves what inviting the stranger in truly looks like, and what stops us — fear, prejudice, the sheer overwhelm of the scale of need.
Encounters on the Border
The heart of the gathering was a day of site visits to local projects that Seedbeds and The Lodge Road URC have been partnering with. These projects are initiated and run by refugees and serving displaced communities. In small groups, we visited skills centres, community schools, social enterprises making t-shirts, food, and handicrafts and grassroots organisations advocating for employment justice and labour rights— encountering the faces and stories behind the statistics. We shared meals with Burmese hosts. We listened. These encounters transformed the conversation from theory into something smelt, felt and tasted – a deeply personal journey reminding us that behind every migration statistic is a person carrying the weight of loss, trauma and suffering, and the stubborn spark of hope.
From Devotion to Action
The final days moved us from reflection into action. We examined faith-based responses to migration through case studies and explored strategies for local and regional engagement — from providing immediate sanctuary and relief, to longer-term advocacy for justice at national and international levels. Each delegate made a serious and formal pledge to go back to their church context and respond both personally and organisationally to the needs of displaced people in their local areas. The event was hosted and co-ordinated by the incredible Janet McConnell and Emma Rahman, who ensured that we were all reflecting on our practice. The question that stays with me is not whether the church should be a place of refuge – Scripture leaves no room for doubt on that. The question is whether we will have the courage, the imagination, and the commitment to make it so.
By Rev Anji Barker (Synod Pioneer Cluster Leader West Midlands URC)
