Some conservative politicians with ties to Christian religious groups have been very vocal about keeping Syrian refugees out of the United States, fearing that some of them might reveal themselves someday as terrorists.
This political issue, however, is not stopping some Church groups from helping Syrian migrants already in the U.S. to feel at home.
The Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia, for instance, has been reaching out to refugees in their area and assisting them in adapting to their new home.
Twenty-year-old William Stocks, a member of the Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, shared to The New York Times how he has been offering free English lessons to Syrian refugees to help them communicate better as they set up their new lives in the U.S.
Stocks said he chose to set aside some politicians' adverse views about refugees from the Middle East, and instead chose to follow Jesus Christ's example of service to others.
"My job is to serve these people," he told The New York Times, "because they need to be served."
Among those who have benefited from Stocks' free English lessons are Anwar and Daleen, two of the 10,000 Syrian refugees who have arrived in the United States in the past year. Through the free lessons, Anwar and Daleen can now say and understand simple sentences in English.
"I have been here for four months, and I have seen nothing except goodness," Anwar also told The New York Times.
The Johnson Ferry Baptist Church is not alone in its efforts to help Syrian refugees. Some 1,055 other churches have also tied up with World Relief, an evangelical resettlement organisation seeking to assist migrants in the U.S.
Rev. Bryant Wright, the senior pastor of Johnson Ferry, for his part, said while there is indeed a possibility that admitting migrants from the Middle East can cause danger to the U.S., it is still better to treat them with kindness and generosity.
"Would it be better for these people to see Americans reaching out with love, and showing them all of the blessings Americans can have? Or do we turn our backs on them, and make them more sympathetic to Islamic terrorism?" Wright asked.
