A Lifelong Commitment to Welcome

If you ask Vicki Schmidt why she volunteers in refugee resettlement, she'll always have the same answer: “I was born into it.”

Vicki was 12 years old when her parents welcomed a family fleeing East Germany into their Fargo, North Dakota home. Vicki grew close to one of the children, who was just a few years older. Eventually, the girl felt comfortable enough to tell Vicki the harrowing story of her family's escape—they had hidden in a hay wagon headed for the border and were nearly caught when armed soldiers searched the wagon.

“That made such an impression on me at a young age, and it has stayed with me,” she says.

Vicki first connected with Global Refuge in the 1950s, and since then, she and her husband Peter have welcomed countless refugee families into their home.

“At one point, we were a family of 10—our family of five plus five other refugees—all cultures blended together like scrambled eggs,” she says, describing a time when they hosted families from Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Cuba all at once.

She and her husband have also fostered unaccompanied children. Two boys from Vietnam lived with them for four years and graduated high school while with the couple.

“They call us Mom and Dad,” she shares. “They’re now successful business people and parents, and they thank us often.”

Through decades of refugee work, Vicki has seen the impact refugees have made in her Fargo community.

“They have helped fill a real labor need in Fargo, they get involved, and they are strong community leaders,” she says. “They share their stories and have shown us many things through their lenses.”

Yet, the work of welcome has grown more difficult in recent months. As anti-immigrant sentiment grows and policies tighten, Vicki continues to advocate for families. She has seen how recent restrictions make it harder for them to find safety, even when they are fleeing life-threatening conditions. She has led immersion trips to the southern border, listened to families waiting for safety, and walked alongside them through systems that often feel designed to keep them out.

“We have a lot of work to do,” she says, “because not everybody feels that openness to the stranger among us.”

Vicki says one of her favorite scriptures is Micah 6:8—“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” She sees walking with refugees as bringing “a deep humility and a real sense of the God that is within all of us.”

Even as the national conversation grows more divisive, Vicki keeps showing up as a committed Global Refuge volunteer—and she encourages others to do the same.

“Out of our abundance,” she says, “we need to share.”