A friend was pumping me with questions about IAFR's ministry. When he heard that I have been serving refugees since 1981, he asked me a question that I will never forget.

Why aren't you burnt out?

It was an insightful question. Burnout is rampant in work among people in crisis. Yet many of our missionaries have been serving refugees and asylum seekers for more than a decade. Some of us have been in this ministry for 30 and even 40 years.

I told my friend that there are two main things to which I attribute the secret behind the longevity of my ministry. I think these are true for my IAFR colleagues as well.

1) We believe God is active and engaged in time and space and that we are partnering with him in this work.

When my friend heard this, he leaned back in his chair and said, "That would change everything." He's right. It does.

That doesn't mean that the ministry is easy or that every story has a happy ending. In fact, most of the people we serve carry deep wounds and struggle daily to keep hope alive. But many of them give witness to God's goodness and faithfulness in the midst of hardship. They testify to us that God is faithful. And we find joy in partnering with God as he cares for our friends.

2) We pursue friendships with the refugees we serve. We don't believe in "professional distance".

The other secret is a bit counter intuitive. We don't try to insulate ourselves from getting too close to the people we serve. We do the opposite. We visit them in their spaces, and when possible, invite them into our homes. We seek to share both meals and life together.

SJ Holsteen, Our Ministry Leader here in the Twin Cities, is a great example of this. She lives in one of the IAFR safe houses that offers temporary shelter to asylum seekers.

The people we serve are not a burden or a problem to be solved. They are friends. We mutually enrich each other's lives as we share life's journey together.

Our faith and friendships keep us going strong.

So when you partner with IAFR, you are doing far more than providing practical assistance to people in need. You are strengthening hope and re-humanizing refugees and asylum seekers by placing friends along their path, friends who carry the life-changing news that God is good and active and engaged in their lives.