In this Oct. 17, 2024 photo, Catholic Charities’ Migration and Refugee Services staff participate in a training led by the Kentucky Office for Refugees, which is based out of Louisville. RACHEL HALL | WKC
Welcoming the stranger
Catholic Charities looks forward to helping refugees become ‘self-sufficient’
BY ELIZABETH WONG BARNSTEAD, THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC
Refugee resettlement “is a life-saving project,” according to the director of Migration and Refugee Services (MRS), a new program with Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Owensboro.
“You are providing life-saving support to refugees,” said Khaibar Shafaq, the director of the program, which launched in late 2024 and is affiliated with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ longstanding resettlement efforts.
Shafaq himself had to flee his home country of Afghanistan after the Taliban’s 2021 takeover of the country, following the departure of United States troops. Shafaq was in danger of being targeted by the Islamic State group because he had worked with and supported the U.S. government.
After Shafaq – and two years later, his wife and young children – were brought to the U.S. and safely resettled in Owensboro, he knew he was called to help serve others forced from their homelands by dangerous circumstances.
After months of planning, consultations, and training with other refugee-resettlement agencies, MRS, through the Diocese of Owensboro, now joins the broad network of migration and refugee resettlement support within Kentucky.
“Our objective, at the end of the day, is to make them self-sufficient,” said Shafaq.
Khaibar Shafaq, director of Migration and Refugee Services with Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Owensboro, Ky., smiles with Susan Montalvo-Gesser during an Oct. 17, 2024 training with the Kentucky Office for Refugees. RACHEL HALL | WKC
This program continues Kentucky’s longtime tradition of resettling people forced from their native lands, which began after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Louisville received the commonwealth’s very first group of refugees, which came from Vietnam.
Today, Kentucky is home to three refugee resettlement agencies with five offices across the state. The agencies in Kentucky operate the Reception & Placement program, meeting refugees’ needs upon arrival.
MRS will assist each refugee family with intensive case management services for 90 days, in addition to support until they are employed, for up to 12 months. It will serve a cross-section of refugees being resettled from across the world, and currently anticipates welcoming people from Afghanistan, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – all of whom have been forced from their homes by persecution and/or threats to their lives or their families’ lives.
“These people are vetted and screened and came through legal channels to the United States,” said Shafaq.
MRS will help newcomers find housing, learn about life and customs in America, secure jobs, learn English, and ultimately become U.S. citizens.
Shafaq said welcoming the stranger is “nothing new” in the Catholic Church; the Church has welcomed and cared for the marginalized from its beginning.
That being said, he added that “people were sent here for a reason: we were ‘chosen’ to welcome them.”
“That’s in every religion, to welcome the stranger, even if they are not one of you,” he said.
To learn how to help MRS’s efforts, visit owensborodiocese.org/migration-and-refugee-services.
Originally printed in the January 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
