South Sudanese refugees find home, and church, in Syracuse

By JESSICA MUNDIE
Religion News Service

On the corner of East Avenue and West Yates Street in East Syracuse, New York, sits Emmanuel Episcopal Church. The quaint building, with its bright white exterior and cherry red doors, is the home to not one, but two distinct congregations. The first, a modest parish of 25 Americans, meets early on Sunday morning, and the other, a group of South Sudanese refugees, worship in the midafternoon, in their native language, Dinka. Theirs is “a story of finding your way home” said Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe, of the Episcopal Dioceses of Central New York, who helped the refugees find a space to worship. “We’re much stronger and much more capable as a community because they are part of us.”