The Immigrant Welcoming Church
Ruben Garcia at Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, has been working with asylum seekers for nearly fifty years. He says no one would make the dangerous journey from Central America if they didn’t believe staying wasn’t an option. People leave everything behind when they believe it’s the only way to keep themselves and their children from being killed or worse. Each year, around Christmas, I think of Ruben, of the annunciation, and of the trouble that will soon befall Mary and Joseph and their newborn – the threats of death that will cause them to flee to Egypt.
The story of asylum-seeking and of becoming refugees is part of our yearly sacred story. Thank God for the Egyptians who took this little family in, people who made room for Jesus in their lives, and acted as family-of-choice to him when the rulers of his country supported by colonial powers threatened to kill him. And thank God for the people across our nation who do the same for people seeking refuge and asylum today.
This Christmas, I’m grateful to the members of Ashland UCC who have converted their church office back into a house to welcome a family seeking refuge in the United States. I’m thankful for Ainsworth UCC, who welcomed a friend and his family seeking asylum, and bought him a vehicle with the help of a UCC Global Hope grant, so he could get to work and engage in his new community. I’m grateful for Cedar Hills UCC who partnered with Hillsboro UCC and Lake Oswego UCC to apply for Global Hope funds to support the work of the Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice (IMIrJ). And I’m grateful to First Congregational UCC in Portland who are using Global Hope funds to furnish English-language tutoring for Afghan women living in east Portland throughout the coming year. This is the work of the church -- the work of the followers of Jesus of Egypt -- and it is our common work together.
A few years ago, I came across this small poster produced by the United Church of Christ decades ago. Today, we would have some things to say about the White people in the image and perhaps about the wording (I actually prefer the contemporary work of Kelly Latimore), but this poster is a reminder of the ways our UCC churches and members have been inspired by the story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus for generations, and how Americans in the UCC have regularly recognized the faces of our family in our new neighbors from other countries.
If your church is helping to welcome our neighbors from other countries, I’d love to know about it. If you’re not already connected to other Immigrant Welcoming Churches, please let me know that too, and I’ll connect you.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
