Moved to Welcome: How Our Church Walked, Biked, and Ran for Refugees

This blog is a guest blog written by volunteer Heather Ipema

A mom walks her children to school instead of driving. Two men embark on a 20-mile bike ride. A husband and wife go for a run together after work. What do all of these seemingly disconnected movements have in common? They were intentional and tracked for World Relief’s Moved to Welcome campaign.

Our church’s team, which seeks to support asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants, banded together to see how much distance we could cover during a single month to raise awareness of the movement of people throughout the world. We tracked our intentional activities for a month, at first thinking that we would try to cover the distance of the Darién Gap (70 miles). We chose that distance because our church had hosted some asylum seekers from Venezuela in the preceding months, many of whom had crossed the Darién Gap.

Thanks to the efforts of the biking enthusiasts in our group, we actually covered 207 miles—almost the equivalent of a family of three courageously traversing the Darién Gap. We chose to disrupt our lives and challenge our bodies in honor and support of people on the move, for whom those actions feel necessary rather than optional.

It was fun for our team to follow our progress in a shared spreadsheet and to take pride in our individual contributions, big or small. Most importantly, we kept the church informed of our efforts. Throughout the month, we advertised what we were doing and invited the congregation to give, pray, and join us in being on the move.

We appreciated that World Relief provided the opportunity for us to actively and tangibly demonstrate our commitment to caring for displaced people. In 2025, we have continued to educate and raise awareness about the needs of immigrants in hopes that more in our congregation will be moved to actively welcome along with us.