At the Immanuel Senior Care Center in Elstal, about 18 miles outside Berlin in the German state of Brandenburg, 26-year-old Sharoon Masih moves between the kitchen and the common room carrying trays of food with a generous smile and the willingness to strike up a conversation.
Officially, Masih works as a service assistant, serving meals, helping residents with personal hygiene, and providing general care. But his job frequently also requires meeting relational needs. “The elderly people are always inviting me over,” he said. “They want to talk. They want to tell stories.”
And sometimes they want to hear his.
From Pakistan’s Punjab province, Masih arrived in Germany in 2018 as an asylum seeker after facing persecution for his Christian faith. Before starting his position in Elstal in 2021, he faced a period of instability, including a denied asylum application and the threat of deportation as he awaited his appeal. Through a local church in Berlin, he found both spiritual and practical help.
A pastor encouraged him to pray, wait, and entrust his future to God. Within weeks, a connection led him to the care home. Within a month, he had a job. Within a year, he had secured residency.
Masih said his journey has shaped the way he approaches his work today. The sense of being a stranger in a new land helps him connect with residents who often feel like strangers themselves—isolated in their rooms, distanced from family, and navigating the numerous psychological, emotional, and physical dislocations that can come with old age.
“My experience taught me what it means to be alone,” Masih said, “but God used that experience and led me to this profession to be a bridge.”
In stories like Masih’s, two of Germany’s most notable demographic shifts converge as its growing aging population meets its freshest newcomers. Among the refugees and migrants filling the role of caregiver to older adults are many Christians like Masih, from Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. They’re not only providing for physical needs but also bringing their faith, culture and spiritual presence into Germany’s care homes.
Germany has one of the oldest populations in the world. By 2035, a quarter of Germans will be over the age of 67. At the end of 2021, about 5 million people required some level of long-term care, a number that is likely to continue climbing in the coming decades.
At the same time, the country faces a chronic shortage of workers to care for them. As of late 2025, forecasts indicate a shortfall of almost 60,000 nursing professionals, with estimates suggesting the system will need hundreds of thousands of additional caregivers to sustain it in the next two decades.
This has created an opening for thousands of immigrants seeking work in their new home. As of 2023–2024, nearly one in four nursing staff members in German care homes were foreign nationals. The number of employees with a migrant background in the nursing sector—not to mention in other roles at care facilities, such as cooking and cleaning—has also risen dramatically. The largest groups come from Poland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Turkey, and Romania.
In a shared apartment on the outskirts of Hannover, 29-year-old Chizoba Okafor is hoping her story soon mirrors Masih’s. Regularly stress-checking her phone for updates, she is waiting on an email from the immigration office or messages from friends with leads on jobs—anything that might bring more stability to her life.
A Christian from Enugu, a city in southeastern Nigeria, Okafor arrived in Germany in 2022. Okafor applied for asylum, and her case is now under review by the Verwaltungsgericht, or administrative court, after an initial rejection. For now, she lives in a state of legal limbo under a status known as “tolerated stay,” facing the looming possibility of deportation if her appeal is unsuccessful.
In the meantime, she has been pursuing jobs at local care centers as a possible path to a residence permit. At a weekly gathering for newcomers in Hannover, Okafor heard Germany needed caregivers. “I have a heart for people, especially older people,” she said. “In my church back home, we always visited them, prayed with them.”
Okafor volunteers at a center run by the Protestant organization Diakonie Deutschland. She is still learning German, but she speaks enough to assist with small tasks like serving tea, helping residents to activity rooms, or offering a listening ear—even if she is not 100 percent sure what residents are saying.
Similar to Masih, Okafor sees these moments as more than social interaction. “When you sit with someone who is lonely, you are doing God’s work,” she said. “Even if you don’t preach, your presence is something.”
Still, she hopes for something more formal soon, whether that be Ausbildung, which combines onsite training and vocational school education, or an entry-level position in a care home. Either could potentially stabilize her residency status.
In recent years, lawmakers have adjusted policies to make it easier for migrants to enter vocational training programs. Meanwhile some care providers, particularly church-affiliated institutions, have shown openness to candidates like Okafor—especially when supported by local congregations.
But the greatest need in Germany is for trained medical professionals. Foreign professionals have numerous pathways to get qualifications recognized and stand to earn competitive salaries.
Masih said he would encourage Christians to consider working as a caregiver, not only for the financial benefits but also for the chance to share their faith in a practical way.
When residents ask about his life, his journey from Pakistan, or especially his new baby, “I try to tell them about Jesus,” he said, “what he has done for me and what he means for them, especially when it comes to death.”
Sometimes he offers Bibles or evangelistic pamphlets. Occasionally he pulls up a sermon on YouTube and watches it with residents.
Not everyone is receptive, however, and Masih is careful not to discuss matters of faith with residents or coworkers if they are not interested. Some have expressed indifference or hesitation, he said, shaped by their own past experiences with organized religion. “One time I brought it up, and they immediately said, ‘Bitte frag mich nicht,’” he said, telling him to please not ask.
Masih respects those boundaries even as he looks for other ways to witness. He is thankful for the freedom he has found in Germany. After his experience in Pakistan, he celebrates the fact that in Germany, “it doesn’t matter if you are atheist, Muslim, Hindu, or Christian,” he said.
Even if no one accepts his offers, Masih believes his wider work is still a Christian calling.
As he serves meals and exchanges stories each day, Masih said it is important for foreign Christians working in Germany’s care homes to recognize the vocation they have to bridge generations, continents, cultures, and religions. “To serve the elderly,” he said, “is to serve Christ.”
The post Migrants Fill the Gap Caring for Germany’s Aging Population appeared first on Christianity Today.