A Journey of Welcome with Bri Stensrud

Women of Welcome (WOW) is a community dedicated to diving into scripture to understand God’s heart for the immigrant and refugee. It has quickly grown into a strong and responsive group of Christian women led by Director, Bri Stensrud. We sat with Bri to discuss WOW, her honest struggles while advocating for refugees and immigrants in her community and her new book, Start with Welcome: The Journey Toward a Confident and Compassionate Immigration Conversation.

Can you tell us about yourself and how Women of Welcome came to be? 

Absolutely. I am from Iowa and I grew up as an evangelical pastor’s kid with a great childhood involved in my local church. I developed a deep love for Jesus and the church’s mission for the world that I still carry with me. After seeing my family in ministry, and through my own experiences, I’ve learned that to really follow Christ and his love for people in an authentic way is incredibly challenging and yet, I don’t know a better way to live. 

Back in 2015, at the height of really divisive rhetoric about refugees and other immigrants, so many Christians were wondering what to do with their pro-life Christian convictions while hearing vulnerable people around the world talked about in really dehumanizing ways. That’s when I got started on my own journey of becoming, what I call, a whole life pro-lifer. A lot of my professional work until then was involved in the pro-life movement. So, when I had a break in my career, I was invited by World Relief to go across the southern border and into Mexico to see what was going on firsthand. That’s when I realized that the language I heard in the media about the southern border was not aligned with what I saw. 

At the same time, World Relief was trying to keep the church engaged with serving refugees and other immigrants while people were getting really frightened because of the inflammatory immigration rhetoric. So, in 2016, Lifeway Research and the National Immigration Forum (NIF) conducted a study to determine if evangelical Christians really were fearful. It proved that refugees, for some reason, had indeed become a feared and controversial population. But what was interesting was that the study also revealed a pocket of hope specifically in Christian women. There was a significant amount of conservative evangelical Christian women admitting that while they have compassion, they were uncertain how to put that into action. 

It was then that World Relief and the NIF asked me to help educate and disciple this distinct group of women. That pocket of hope from the study prompted the mobilizing of the community that is now Women of Welcome. Today, WOW has grown to about 135,000 women who want to help educate the church and disciple more women into action and advocacy for their refugee and immigrant neighbors. 

What were the reactions from your community (family/friends/coworkers) when you began advocating for refugees and immigrants? What would you say to someone experiencing those reactions now?

Honestly, it was a complete mixed bag. I was pleasantly surprised by how many women at my church came up to me and asked about my experience at the border. There was also fear from my family and friends as well as a lot of questions about what I was doing. I noticed that some people got really quiet and that felt lonely and hurtful while on the other end, there were people who had a very curious and charitable approach. 

It can be very easy to get frustrated with people who don’t understand the image of God in refugees and other immigrants. It can be very easy to write people off but the way that you want them to react to immigrants is the way you should be reacting to them — with grace and humility. Remain curious about why someone has a fear or a misunderstanding in order to meet them where they are. Your calm and confident response could offer up something different for them — charitability. We often forget to offer that to each other. 

What hurdles did you encounter as your proximity increased to refugees and immigrants, and how did you address those?

Proximity is powerful. It makes things personal and it gives you perspective to be able to use your voice well. I would say there are a lot of hurdles to overcome in order to be truly proximate. We have gotten so busy in this country and a lot of what we are busy with is our own lives. We have become consumers of the gospel and of the church. We have gotten out of the practice of being in the hard margins of what makes a community complex. So we must make space for each other. 

Comfort is another big hurdle because it is deceiving. What are we comfortable with versus what does God model? He models a life in service of others and the community — it was 100% selfless and gracious. Jesus is found in hard places not comfortable places. 

What I have learned after having gone multiple times to the border with the WOW community is that it’s not about taking God to those places but recognizing that God is already there. It is short-sighted and almost insulting to think that God would not be there. So when we step out of our comfort, we must ask, “What is God doing and how am I called to partner with him in these hard spaces?” Remembering that has been extremely important for me in my work. 

Can you tell us about your new book, Start with Welcome: The Journey Toward a Confident and Compassionate Immigration Conversation?

Well, I never thought I would write a book about immigration. But it is a very personal book about my own ignorance and blindness in this space. I also share about my walk with the Lord and how I have grown specifically throughout my journey. This book is also a very clear invitation to the church to show up in confident and charitable ways when it comes to immigration without having to sacrifice anything in conviction. 

Our compassion is not political but is meant to be prophetic. As Christians, we know the prophetic carves a new path forward for people and it gives hope and wisdom. Following Jesus calls us to carve out those spaces for humanity. We have been so busy with “othering” people that we have forgotten how big and how wide God’s love is for all people. I wrote the book from a personal place but I hope it is helpful and educational. This book is meant to really invite people into a deeper conversation that they never thought they could have about immigration. 

Two things can be true at the same time: you can show up with your fear and also your faith intact. God is not afraid of your questions. So, let’s ask the hard questions and have a conversation.