Meet our new Justice for People Seeking Asylum Coordinator

James Harris reflects on his journey walking along communities seeking asylum and his hope in taking action with the Common Grace movement towards a vision of flourishing and welcome in Australia.

In 2014, my wife and I left Australia in a huff. We had just spent the last two years walking alongside refugees imprisoned on Nauru, and heartbroken, we were finding it too hard to call Australia home. We spent the next six years between my home country, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the Middle East, until God called us back to the lands of Australia to begin healing our broken relationship with the country. So, in 2020, we found ourselves moving from Amman, in the Middle East, to Balgo in the middle of Australia, one of the continent's most remote Aboriginal communities.

The three years we spent in Balgo was healing. Even more so for my wife, a Gundungurra woman, who holds a broken relationship with Australia that runs deeper than I could ever fully understand. We are thankful for the guidance of Elders and the wider community there — who showed us simultaneously what Australia truly is, was and can be — a beautiful continent, built on partnership and shared responsibility to each other. Common Grace exists to help people pursue Jesus and justice together for the flourishing of all people and all creation. 

I am thankful for the community in Balgo, sewing a deeper vision of what flourishing in Australia looks, feels and smells like. As I enter this work with Common Grace, I hold that vision close.

I am continually struck by the Sheep and the Goats depicted in Matthew 25. Not that Jesus went to help the “least of these”, but that he was them. 

Ultimately, I believe the change the world needs will only come through Jesus, and I am convinced the place people need to meet him is exactly where he said he was; in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner. 

I remember being in Nauru, thinking, if every Australian had the chance to have dinner with these amazing people then this policy would dissolve overnight. With this mutual transformation, and a vision of flourishing in mind, the past two years I have been leading The Welcome Home Project, a pathway for churches to get involved with community refugee sponsorship. Literally, a chance to bring refugees into people's hearts, homes and dinner tables.

At this crucial juncture in history, like many people in the Common Grace community, the suffering of Palestinians is deep on my heart. As the Palestinian pastor Reverend Munther Isaac has said in his 2023 Christmas sermon, “Gaza has become the moral compass of the world.” I am glad to be joining others within the Common Grace community, as we are led by Palestinian Christians in continued lament and action, as we prayerfully practice resurrection, in a crucified world. 

 

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Can you help support this new role?

James is generously volunteering his time with Common Grace in this role until January 2025. We will be looking to raise support and funds to make this Justice for People Seeking Asylum Coordinator role sustainable into the future. If you have a heart to see Australia become a nation that welcomes and embraces people fleeing from violence, fear and conflict, please consider making a regular donation today. We are truly grateful for any support we receive and would also welcome a one-off gift to support this role.

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Your Invitation and Next Steps

Join Common Grace's National Director Gershon Nimbalker and James Harris speaking through our plans for how we can be taking action together for justice for people seeking asylum in 2025. Sign up to join our Campaign Community Call happening on Feb 4th 2025 at 7pm AEDT.

James Harris is Common Grace’s newly appointed Justice for People Seeking Asylum Coordinator and Director of Strategic Projects with NAYBA, where he leads The Welcome Home Project, supporting churches to engage in community refugee sponsorship. He has served in many roles globally, including being based in Jordan with World Vision and Nauru with Save the Children. James is a co-founder of the global Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage movement.

People Seeking Asylum