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In 2025, we met Amina and her infant son in Geneina, western Sudan, where World Relief operates one of the last remaining health and nutrition centers. When we asked her what she had eaten during her pregnancy, she replied: “Leaves.”
With no food available in her village, she had resorted to boiling wild greens to survive.
After giving birth, her body could no longer produce milk. Desperate to save her son, she walked for hours through dangerous terrain to reach help.
At the clinic, World Relief staff admitted her son into a therapeutic feeding program. Within weeks, he began to gain weight again.
That could have been the end of the story. But Amina didn’t stop there. Now, Amina helps other women in the community, teaching them how to identify signs of malnutrition and prepare nutritious food for their children.
The Reality for Displaced Families
When families like Amina’s become displaced — whether because of conflict, persecution, poverty or some other reason — it is easy for us to assume they only have one goal in mind: survival. We know, after all, that the drive to find safety and security will push people to the brink. A mother will boil wild plants to feed herself. Walk for hours through dangerous terrain to find care for her infant.
But the reality is that displaced families like Amina’s believe in far more than survival. They believe in a brighter future — a future where their community is at peace, where their children flourish, where they and their neighbors experience restoration and healing. That’s what motivates people like Amina to walk for miles to find care for her child and volunteer to make sure others receive the same level of care. They believe in more.
Today, displaced families like Amina’s and 36.4 million refugees around the world are believing for something better. They are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters who made the painful decision to flee conflict or persecution in their home countries, often leaving behind loved ones, special places and ways of life. Their courage has carried them across borders, through dangers and difficulties, and into new communities. Every day, they’ve sought the hope of not just survival, but something more.
Now, the question is: Do we?
Believing in More Than Survival
Over the past year, we have seen that the resources to support refugees and other displaced people are increasingly dwindling. Changes to U.S. immigration policies and drastic cuts to foreign aid are compounding the largest displacement crisis the world has ever seen.
U.S. refugee resettlement for the most vulnerable families has virtually stopped. Some refugees already rebuilding their lives in the United States have lost access to essential benefits like food stamps that help families cover basic needs as they work to establish their lives in a new country.
Meanwhile, vital international aid funding that supports families displaced by violence, disasters and other crises has been drastically reduced. All the while, millions of refugees are experiencing increased crisis, suffering and uncertainty. And right now, the latest crisis — a devastating Ebola outbreak in DR Congo following massive cuts to foreign assistance — means many are fighting harder than before simply to survive.
All this should lead us to ask: What do we believe in for refugees and displaced families? Does it stop at survival?
At World Relief, we don’t think so. We believe that God has called the church to a different vision: To imagine a world where families flourish, and where people experience restorative relationships with God, their neighbor, themselves and all creation.
That means we believe in more than survival. We believe in flourishing and resilience. We believe that families deserve the possibility of a different future. To believe in more belonging, more resilience, more hope.
But that takes courage. And it takes all of us.
So, the question is: This World Refugee Day, what will you believe in?
Will you believe in more than survival?
Samuel Heard serves as a content specialist at World Relief. His writing has appeared in a variety of outlets, including Baptist Press, Mere Orthodoxy, the Center for Faith and Culture and elsewhere. He lives in Upstate South Carolina with his wife and three children.