Within days of the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban showed up at Sahar’s door.
A university student and new mom, she worked for an American ministry in the city of Herat. (CT is not using her full name for the security of her family and the ministry.) In August 2021, Taliban officials accused the 22-year-old of “corrupting women” and “straying from the Islamic faith.” They threatened to send her to prison.
Sahar knew she had to leave. She didn’t have a passport yet for her three-month-old son, and her husband— like Sahar, a convert to Christianity—had taken his mother to Pakistan for cancer treatment.
Sahar decided to cross the border illegally.
Later that month, she fled with her son and father-in-law. At the border town of Spin Boldak, they met thousands of fellow Afghans trying to escape in suffocating heat, women in their heavy, Taliban-sanctioned burqas. Sahar held her son tight as she tried to pass through the narrow border gate and crushing crowds. They ended up paying a local to drive them into Pakistan and take them the 600 miles to Islamabad.
The family reunited, but within months, Sahar’s mother-in-law died. They stayed for nearly two years, trying to rebuild their lives in a country that did not recognize them as refugees.
“We were always worried that we might be expelled at any moment,” said Sahar. “We didn’t know how we would survive if we had to return to Afghanistan.”
While Sahar prayed for safety, Christians thousands of miles away in Brazil were following the situation in Afghanistan and praying for a way to help.
A little over two years after fleeing the Taliban, Sahar’s family arrived in Curitiba, a city of 1.7 million in southern Brazil, where ministry volunteers met them at the airport. Sahar and her husband had considered the United States or Germany but went further south instead.
“We didn’t want to be judged because of our country’s past,” Sahar said. “Here in Brazil, people don’t care about that.”
During their first six months, the nonprofit Missão Mais provided everything: food, clothing, medicine, and assistance with legal documentation. The family lived at the ministry’s camp, which included 16 houses, all occupied by other Afghan families. And from the month they arrived, they had citizenship in their new country.
Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, several Brazilian ministries stepped up to help Afghans, drawing from the generosity and welcome of local churches. With the US shutting down its refugee programs and the United Nations restricting resources for resettlement, these church-based networks serve as an even more crucial lifeline for refugees.
By the UN’s count, over half a million Afghans need resettlement this year, and the number of available spaces for refugees from all countries has dropped from 195,069 in 2024 to 31,281 in 2025.
Missão Mais is one of three organizations in Brazil currently authorized to vet Afghan refugees and help resettle new arrivals.
Another is Panahgah, which is named after the Dari word for “refuge” and began coordinating refugee sponsors among local churches in November 2021. Since then, the organization has worked with Christians in over 35 Brazilian cities to provide housing, food, legal assistance, and integration support for nearly 1,000 Afghan refugees.
Government officials have praised Panahgah’s community-sponsorship model for its success. Civil society organizations facilitate humanitarian visas and integration but do not receive government funding.
“It’s the community itself that takes responsibility for supporting and walking alongside the refugee families,” said Sindy Nobre, Panahgah’s legal adviser.
In addition to connecting refugees with church networks, the ministries offer Portuguese classes, migration guidance, and workshops about everyday life in Brazil, from the banking system to public health care.
Vila Minha Pátria, a nonprofit established by the Brazilian Baptist Convention’s National Mission Board in April 2022, serves as a primary reception center for arrivals as they prepare to relocate to other cities, where they will receive a year of support. The Vila initially received 54 refugees, but demand quickly grew as airport staff and others referred families who didn’t have a place to go.
“Today, in addition to Afghans, we’ve welcomed refugees from nine other nationalities,” said Jennifer Soares, who coordinates the Vila with the backing of church leaders who visit, donate, and host families.
Last year, though, Brazil suspended the humanitarian visas that allowed Afghan families like Sahar’s to arrive, and it reformulated the process so that Afghan refugees must go through approved organizations, rather than the embassies, to resettle in Brazil.
While the Vila has room for more, families remain trapped in Afghanistan with no safe way out. Relatives of resettled families often reach out to share their situations and ask for help.
“We receive daily messages from people hiding in their homes, afraid of being found by radical groups,” Soares said.
When Sahar moved to Brazil in 2023, the Christian ministry where she and her husband worked—which moved operations from Afghanistan to Pakistan—arranged her family’s travel documents. “All we had to do was an interview,” Sahar said.
Once her family reached Brazil, Missão Mais supported them through the process of obtaining ID cards and tax registration numbers with the Federal Police, granting them citizenship within a month of arriving. Their current ID cards are still provisional, but this month—a year and half later—they expect to receive permanent documentation.
After the US stopped accepting refugees under the Trump administration in January, many who had arrived in Brazil with hopes to move to America are instead crossing the border to French Guiana—a French territory in South America—in hopes of getting status in the European Union.
The drop in US foreign-aid funding has also forced the UN Refugee Agency to scale back operations in Brazil, suspending approximately 40 percent of planned programs, UN staff told CT.
While the agency continues to provide some assistance—relying on a mix of funding from other governments and private partnerships—it now prioritizes lifesaving activities and preventive measures to avoid a budget deficit should US support not resume.
Refugees arriving in Brazil receive less material aid and financial support, and fewer workers are around to help them settle quickly.
While churchgoers may care about refugees, many don’t know how to help them obtain legal documentation, housing, or jobs, according to Karen Ramos with the grassroots network Como Nascido Entre Nós (“As If They Were Born Among Us”).
There’s also a gap in theological understanding. “Without a solid biblical foundation,” she warns, the church’s commitment to welcoming and supporting refugees in meaningful and sustained ways can be fragile.” Beyond these limitations, there are cultural and social hurdles—including prejudice and resistance within some local communities.
After Sahar’s family stayed six months in Curitiba, Missão Mais connected them with a partner church in Ribeirão das Neves, Minas Gerais. The church provided housing, food, and a monthly stipend of 2,000 reais for one year (about $362). During that time, Sahar’s husband found work as a janitor washing buses. Later, he applied for a new role as a traffic controller and now works every other night.
Their son, now four, attends school in the afternoons while Sahar takes driving lessons. Once she has her license, she hopes to study sociology at a university.
Church members invite them to birthday parties and weddings, visit their home, and share meals. “We’ve introduced them to Afghan food—and they really liked it,” she said.“We were welcomed and embraced. Today, we hardly even remember we’re foreigners—we feel like we were born here.”
