Following an inspiring General Conference and the Relief Society's "I Was a Stranger"initiative, Huffington Post featured the Church's efforts to help refugees while sharing profound insights from our faith.
On Sunday, April 3, I was watching Conference with my family in Florida when Elder Patrick Kearon, a high-ranking leader within the LDS Church, spoke about the current refugee crisis in Europe. What he said moved me to tears and compelled me to write this article.
“There are an estimated 60 million refugees in the world today,” said Elder Kearon. “Which means that 1 in every 122 humans has been forced to flee their homes and half of these are children.”
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While Elder Kearon recognized that there are “highly-charged arguments in governments and across society regarding [the refugee crisis]” he emphasized that his comments were “not intended, in any way, to form part of that heated discussion, nor to comment on anyone’s immigration policy.” Instead, Elder Kearon wanted to “focus on the people who have been driven from their homes and their countries by wars that they had no hand in starting.”
Elder Kearon then went on to enumerate some of the many ways in which the LDS Church has responded to the refugee crisis.