The Rev. Daniel Behrens
In August of 2021 Ascension was approached by the Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders (SAMS) to consider a partnership with Daniel and Rebekah Behrens who hoped to relocate to the northern United States from their ministry with Trinity on the Border in Texas to come alongside refugees and poor immigrants permanently settling in cities. The Behrens have a call to work with refugees and low-income immigrants and felt a pull from the Holy Spirit to live and minister in a city where immigrants are settling for the long-term, rather than come alongside them on the Texas border which is very much a transit point.
The Behrens went through a discernment process with SAMS and have been launched as domestic cross-cultural missionaries. They moved to Pittsburgh in December 2021 with the hope that, with Ascension as a partner, they will build out an inland refugee/immigrant ministry program that the entire Anglican Church in North America can learn from. This vision is beginning to come true as another family of SAMS missionaries is partnering with a church outside of Atlanta, GA to serve refugees and recent immigrants in their community starting in early 2025.
Daniel and Rebekah have the blessing of Ascension, which functions as their home base, their sending church, St. Peter’s in Tallahassee, FL, and Bp. Alex Cameron of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh where Daniel is canonically resident as an ordained Anglican priest.
Daniel, Rebekah and their three daughters have settled in the Beechview neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where there are abundant relational opportunities with refugees and recent immigrants from Latin America and the Middle East.
In the first years of this partnership, the Lord has opened doors to connect with Spanish-speakers, Special Immigrant Visa recipients from Afghanistan, new believers from China, a Sudanese Christian community and many other ESL students who need help finding adequate employment. The primary program that has taken shape at Ascension is “Welcome Circes” where a group of church volunteers partner with a refugee resettlement agency to walk with a newly-arrived family for their first six months in Pittsburgh. Ascension has responded with great generosity and eagerness to this new opportunity, welcoming five refugee families in the first year and a half of the program.
What will the ministry of a ‘Missionary in Residence’ look like in the future? This pilot project continues to evolve. Daniel’s hope and our hope is that he will build out ministry and programming in new and innovative ways, forming a team along the way to complement all the good ministry already happening in Ascension’s International Ministry program.
The Rev. Daniel Behrens, Missionary in Residence