Raleigh, NC - The 12×30-foot storage unit in Raleigh, NC is packed with chairs, tables, mattresses, lights, lights, pots and pots.

Much of its content will soon be towed to two apartments, welcomed to serve three new refugees. It is a job, a program of North Carolina Cooperative Baptist Scholarships, dealing with countless times on behalf of newcomers from places like Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria and Venezuela.

However, the two apartments will have three Afrikaans – according to many faith-based groups and others, their status as refugees is controversial.

Last week, Marc Wyatt, director of the Raleigh, received a call from the US Refugee Commission’s North Carolina field office asking if he could help provide apartments for refugees, of which of the 59 Afrikaans who arrived in the U.S. from South Africa last week, he told RNS.

This is a common requirement for the Ministry to work with refugee resettlement agencies to provide temporary housing and furniture for those in need.

At the same time, the request is extremely challenging. With that in mind, Wyatt said yes, consult with the Welcome House Network Supervisor and seek feedback from the department volunteers.

“Our position is that both moral and moral allegations are our mission to help welcome and love someone,” said Wyatt, a retired Cooperative Baptist missionary who now works for the North Carolina CBF. "Our holy book says that God loves people. We do not discriminate."

Extend the welcome of the Bible to everyone

Wyatt said he recognized that the Afrikaans were part of a white minority that created and led South Africa’s cruel segregationist policies, known as the nearly 50 years of segregation. The policy, including denying the country's rights to black majority on voting, housing, education and land, ended in 1994, when the country elected Nelson Mandela in its first free presidential election.

Wyatt, who runs the welcome House Raleigh Department for 10 years, provides temporary housing and furniture warehouses for refugees and is now an asylum seeker. He said they will now pay tribute to the Afrikaans.

“My wife and I came to the position that if it wasn’t a full welcome, it wouldn’t be welcome if it wasn’t like everyone else,” he said. “If we weren’t actually trying to include them in our lives like anyone else, then we were going to withhold something, which is not the way we understand the Holy Book.”

Like Wyatt and Welcome House, many faith-based groups are now considering whether to help the government resettle Afrikaans after the Trump administration shut down all other people’s refugee resettlement.

Last week, the Bishop Church chose to end the refugee resettlement partnership with the U.S. government rather than resettling the Africa Dutch. Bishop Sean Rowe said his church’s commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and its long-term relationship with the late Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu made it impossible for the church to work with the government to relocate the Afrikaans.

Sean Rowe, the most preacher who presides over the church, told NPR: “Currently, we will be somehow in convincing with other refugees who are being censored and waiting in the camp for months or even years.

In January, in his first executive orders, President Donald Trump closed a decades-long refugee program that brought wars, natural disasters or persecutions of displaced America to the United States. The decision left thousands of refugees, many living in the camp for years and undergoing a rigorous scrutiny process.

But then, Trump directed the administration to quickly track a group of Afrikaans for resettlement, saying the white farmers were killed in the genocide, a claim that many believe is unfounded. The order left behind many refugee advocates who have worked for years to resettle the anger of vulnerable groups.

“Refugees have been sitting in the camp for 10, 20 years, but if you are a South African Dutch from White South African, then suddenly can you get the job done in three months?” asked the Welcome Network Director, Rev. Randy Carter, Rev. Randy Carter, the Reverend of the CBF Church. “I want to attach a lot of words, but I don’t want any printed words.”

“Welcome calls are not always easy”

Carter said he respected and respected the Bishop’s decision not to work with the government to relocate the Afrikaans even though his network took a different approach.

"Welcome calls aren't always that easy," Carter said. "Sometimes it's hard."

At the same time, it is important to resettle volunteers in mind that the ministry opposes segregation and racism in the United States and abroad and is committed to repentance and restoration.

The USCRI Relocation Group’s North Carolina Field Office also recognizes how this particular resettlement is for faith-based partners.

“In our communication with them, we said, ‘Look, we know that this is not a normal problem. You or your constituency may remain, and we know that this should not affect our partnership,” said Omer Omer, director of the North Carolina Field Office at USCRI. "If you want to attend, welcome. If not, we will understand."

USCRI has not released the names of three African-Americans who chose to settle in Raleigh. Other Afrikaans chose to resettle in Idaho, Iowa, New York and Texas.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested last week that more Afrikaners were on the way. The Trump administration believes that white South Africans are discriminated against by the country’s government, pointing out a law that could allow the government to seize private land under certain conditions.

Since the end of apartheid, the South African government has worked to imbalance and redistribute the South Africans that the former colonial and apartheid governments have seized.

This story is created through a collaboration between NPR and NPR Religious News Services.