Two Pastors. A Student. A Warehouse Worker. Four stories you will want to read and share in recognition of "Refugee Sabbath" on June 14.
Debbie Michel
June 12, 2025When Angel Chourio’s mother told him about a Biden-era program known as ‘humanitarian parole’ that could potentially allow him to emigrate with his wife, he was ready to seize the opportunity.
But first, he and his wife Maria prayed on it.
Chourio, then a pastor at a Seventh-day Adventist Church in Venezuela, had already been praying to be reunited with his mother, whom he had not seen after she had migrated to the United States six years earlier. It was a bittersweet moment: Chourio would be closer to his family, but his wife would be leaving hers behind.
They needed to discern God’s will, looking for signs that this was His plan for them, given that they did not have the financial resources to make the move. “But nothing is impossible for God. It wasn't long before God performed multiple miracles, provided the financial resources, and opened doors for both of us to have valid passports,” Chourio said.
But their path to the United States was neither straight nor easy. Along the way, Chourio hit a bump in the road: their application for the humanitarian parole program was denied. The couple was told that it was only open to Venezuelans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans – a puzzling response given that they were Venezuelans.
“We informed the family of this incident and they located lawyers,” Chourio said. “No one gave a reason for this. Multiple calls were made, but none were successful.”
For the time, it seemed like they’d reached a dead end. Chourio moved on with his life in Venezuela.
Then seven months later he received an urgent call from his mother. Chourio thought something was wrong. She had received an email which she said had resolved the issue – a yellow highlighted ‘error’ message on his application was gone. Chourio had his green light to come to the United States, arriving in September 2023.
The Biden administration launched the parole program in early 2023 to permit individuals outside the U.S. to enter based on "urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit." Applicants needed background checks and a U.S. sponsor. About 530,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela were permitted to stay for two years.
Under the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigration, both legal and illegal, many immigrants like Chourio's ability to remain in the United States legally is at risk. The legal landscape for how immigrants can come to the United States – already winding and torturous for so many – has become that much more complicated. The Biden-era humanitarian parole program, for instance, has been revoked; meanwhile, other provisions have been rescinded for some countries, but not eliminated for others.
‘God Brought Me Through’
Like the Chourios, Katia Pierre came to the United States from Haiti through the humanitarian parole program.
Pierre immigrated after enduring a kidnapping experience where she was held hostage for eight days while her assailants demanded ransom money from her family. Pierre’s memory of the incident is – understandably – hazy, but she recalls focusing on the Bible verses that counsel against fear and encourage trust in God.
Pierre who now resides in Indiana has reached the end of her two-year reprieve from the parole program. She is afraid to return to Haiti, saying that nothing has changed in the country. With her immigration status now in limbo, Pierre is now unable to work at the Amazon warehouse where she had found employment. “So she’s at home, not knowing what the future holds for her and her family,” said her sister Paula, who translated for Pierre in an interview.
Amid the uncertainty, Katia’s relationship with God has only deepened. “I got so close to God that I feel like I can be safe to talk to him, and I feel so close to Him and I have hope somehow God's gonna say something for my case, or somebody’s gonna help me out,” Katia said.
Pierre is now hoping to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a program established by Congress in 1990 that allows people from unsafe countries to temporarily live and work in the United States without being permanent residents. While the program was meant to be temporary, many immigrants who have benefited from the program have spent decades living in the country.
The Dream, Interrupted
For Abriel Thuc, a South Sudanese native, the notice came without warning. A few weeks shy of graduation, Thuc was getting ready to wrap up his final semester at Andrews University when the news landed: his immigration status was being revoked. Both safety and the dream of receiving an education drew him to America.
Born in South Sudan and protected under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Thuc had made the most of his years in the United States — earning a degree in international business, serving his campus and helping others. Now, he was being asked to leave because of a deportation spat between the U.S. and Sudanese governments.
Thuc grew up in a traditional agricultural lifestyle focused on raising cows and other livestock. His family did not have an education. When he shared his educational aspiration, he had to convince his father and older brother to let him go. Eventually, Thuc enrolled at an elementary school run by missionaries.
“I just started there, little by little,” Thuc said.
As he pursued an education, Thuc also began on the journey that would bring him across the ocean to the United States. When the simmering civil war boiled over in 2017, Thuc decided to relocate to a refugee camp in Kenya to continue his studies – a transition that again he had to make over the misgivings of family members.
As he made the harrowing trip from war-torn South Sudan to Kenya, Thuc remembers praying, “God, please, let me go to Kenya and get me out of this.”
His prayer was answered, but Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya came with its own challenges. The camp's population was swelling due to an influx of refugees, not only from South Sudan but also from Ethiopia and Congo. Although Thuc could attend school, he said it was “not even good,” and the food available in the camp was substandard. At one point, he had to go for two days without eating, and the water in the camp was not clean.
Through basketball, Thuc got an opportunity to come to the United States on an F1 student visa. After high school, he went on to Andrews University, where he studied business administration.
Thuc’s departure from South Sudan and immigration to the United States have also been spiritual journeys. As a child, Thuc said his family had a firm faith in God but lacked specific knowledge of the Bible or Jesus. As he learned more about his faith at the Catholic-run missionary, he converted to Catholicism. In Kenya, he attended a Mormon church.
Through his many transitions, Thuc’s one constant has been his faith and trust – first that God would help him escape South Sudan, and then that God would give him the resources he needed to live out his dream of education in the United States. He credits the prayers of the Lake Union community during an Easter Sunday “Resurrecting Hope” prayer vigil with enabling him to stay in the country, given the turmoil in the U.S. immigration system.
“Now I believe that those prayers. So for me now, I feel like I'm okay. I’m relieved from all of that stress and worry,” Thuc said. “I still have hope that change is going to happen here and there, but God will keep those things in place for those who came here for a better life.”
War at the Doorstep
Like Thuc, Vitalii Hanulich’s decision to come to the United States was forged in war – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Hanulich, who was a pastor in Ukraine for 20 years, saw the brutalities of Russia’s war firsthand as a resident in Bucha, a small suburb of Kyiv where human rights investigators later uncovered evidence of war crimes against civilians.
The war came home for Hanulich in a very literal sense when soldiers entered his family’s apartment and trashed it.
“We are very lucky that we moved from Bucha during the first day,” Hanulich said.
Eventually, Hanulich and his family – including a three-month-old and a teenager – found their way to the United States through the last administration’s humanitarian parole program, settling in Chicago where relatives from Ukraine were already living.
Hanulich says the Protestant culture of the area was a refreshing change from Ukraine.
“It’s a huge value that I feel here,” Hanulich said. “Because we have, in Ukraine, an Orthodox culture. We have corruption, bureaucrats, so many, many difficult issues.”
“It’s a very big difference,” he added. “It just probably feels a little more free here.”
Although he felt guilt over leaving Ukraine, when he arrived Hanulich was told not to think of himself as a refugee. He was encouraged to start a new life with his family. Hanulich did just that, starting a church that grew to a congregation of about one hundred in a year, with 25 people in a special Sabbath School class. Already eight people were baptized from this class.
Through the growth of their church, he can see how God has blessed him and his family.
“During this period, we see how God made us,” he said.
For immigrants like Hanulich, being a pastor is a way to serve and give back to communities that have prayed for them and supported them in coming to the United States.
Pressing On in Faith
Chourio recalls searching for that sense of higher purpose.
After settling in Indiana, Chourio found work as a DoorDash delivery driver and his wife became a preschool assistant. They were also involved in churches in Lawrence and Carmel.
“Everything was going very well. But we still had a question in our hearts, especially mine: Why did God bring us here? A part of me never lost the desire to serve as a pastor, but at the same time, I felt it was highly unlikely I would ever have that opportunity,” Chourio said.
With some encouragement from his wife, Chourio began praying for God to open the door to a pastor position – if that was the reason he had been brought to the country. So when an opportunity opened up, Chourio “accepted without hesitation,” believing that he had found the ultimate purpose for why God had in mind for him in the United States.
Chourio has been serving at the Hammond Hispanic Church since June 2024, in addition to three other Hispanic churches, in Logansport, Merrillville and Marion.
Yet as Chourio nears the two-year limit for the humanitarian parole program, his ability to stay in the country has been put into question. The couple applied for – and were denied – TPS. He applied for a RI visa but received a letter from U.S. authorities that he would have to leave.
After praying, a Texas judge stayed the order to leave, so for now, Chourio has gotten yet another sign that God wants him here, doing His work.
“It’s important for us to abide by the laws of a country that has opened its doors to us, and we are also grateful. The Bible teaches us to give to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s. We’re still waiting for a response from the process, but we trust in God that everything will turn out well,” Chourio said.
As Thuc shared, “We didn’t come here just to start over in fear.” And like him, others are learning how to keep moving forward even when the ground underneath them shifts. They may not know what’s next, but they know Who walks with them.
None of them expected the process to be easy. And it hasn’t been. But somewhere between the letters, the hearings, the prayers, and the waiting, they’ve kept going. Not just because they believe in a better outcome, but because they believe in a faithful God.
To learn more about refugee and immigrant ministries and resources for Refugee Sabbath, please visit: www.refugeeministries.org
Danni Thaw is a freelance writer.
