Katherine Woods said she’ll see the image in her mind for a long, long time.
“Last week, a mom and her four children reunited with her husband who had been here for a couple of years, and there was nothing sweeter than to see that dad just weeping as his children ran into his arms,” she said.
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For Woods, they’re the “why” behind Birmingham Cross Cultural Connections, a new nonprofit organization that resettles refugees and walks alongside them as they start a new life in the U.S.
Woods, BCCC executive director, said the idea to start the organization came when English as a Second Language classes at The Church at Brook Hills shrunk just after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seeing a great need
“In that season, we were trying to decide what to do with those ESL classes,” said Woods, who then served as Brook Hills’ associate city minister. “At the same time, the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions approached Brook Hills about possibly moving our Hispanic congregation (Iglesia la Conexión) out to Hoover, so we decided to tie ESL in with that and move both out to First Baptist Church in Hoover.”
Those ESL classes started in fall of 2022, and she said it was clear God’s hand was at work — the area around FBC was extremely diverse, and people began arriving in much bigger numbers than they had at Brook Hills.
“When we got here, we realized that many of the families who were coming to class were really struggling,” Woods said.
Many had come to the U.S. as refugees but had been here six months or a year and rolled off their refugee program and didn’t have any point of contact who could help them, she said. So she began to think about how she and other ministry partners might step into that gap.
‘All through the Lord’
“When the Lord first gave me the vision for BCCC, the idea was not that I would be the one to lead this,” Woods said. “The idea was that I would stay on staff at Brook Hills and that I would launch this for someone else to lead.”
But in fall of 2023 as she researched and got started, she realized that the need was great and it needed to happen as quickly as possible. She was going to need to take the helm to make it happen.
“A year later, it’s amazing to see that we’re here with staff and we’ve already received our first families,” Woods said. “I can absolutely say none of it was done out of my power; it was all through the Lord, because there was no way I could’ve made this happen.”
So far in August, BCCC has received four refugee families and helped get them set up in new homes. This is one of their two goals — as an affiliate of World Relief, a global Christian humanitarian organization, BCCC will resettle 120 individuals between now and December 2025.
Helping refugees achieve self-sufficiency
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BCCC’s second goal is to offer development for families over the long term — both the ones that they resettle and others who have rolled off refugee assistance with other organizations but still need help.
“We created this to walk with them long term so that they had somebody that they could call at the 12-month mark or the two-year mark when they lose a job or their child gets sick or they can’t make a rent payment,” she said.
In addition to helping them with needed items, BCCC offers personal development classes on topics ranging from budgeting to finding a job. They also help with things like getting driver’s licenses, getting enrolled in school and taking the citizenship test. The goal is to help refugees achieve self-sufficiency, Woods said.
She said the organization’s mission is to see all nationalities flourish here “while finding and living out God’s good design for their lives.”
Churches can help
Churches can come alongside them in that goal, she said. Any church can partner with them through donating hygiene and kitchen items and bed-in-a-bag type bedding for newly arrived refugee families.
Churches in the area can also play a part by acting as a “care team” and adopting a refugee family to help provide for them, offer rides to appointments when needed, help them navigate life in the U.S. and host them in their homes at holidays.
“That’s a really huge thing and a really good way to develop relationships with them,” Wood said.
Eric Roberts — pastor of FBC Hoover, which shares its building with BCCC — said his church has been grateful to host Brook Hills’ ESL program and now BCCC.
Playing a part in the ‘long game’
“In the Lord’s providence, people from many places worldwide without access to the gospel have found a home in our neighborhood,” he said, noting that his church has been excited to see people from more than 30 countries come through their doors each week for food, fellowship and English classes.
“We are excited about our new partnership with Birmingham Cross Cultural Connections,” Roberts said. “The church is prayerful that through this ministry, we will have a part to play in the long game of not only helping international friends acclimate to life here but that they will hear the good news of the gospel and trust in Christ to save them.”
Keith Stanley, city ministries pastor at Brook Hills, said his church is excited too.
For more information, visit bhmccc.org.
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