Sometime in January Venezuelans from Tapestry, the church that I pastor, began to tell me about a new Immigration Program that would help bring Venezuelans (and Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians) directly to the United States from their home country. Recently, Tapestry has been growing and as a community of faith, in numbers, yes, and in commitment to serving God and the neighbor!
I was asked if Tapestry could help bring family members to the United States using this program!
Before really thinking much about it, I said, “Yes!” But I knew we could not do this alone because we are a community of faith strong in faith, heart and Spirit, but not in our economy.
One of the things that I have had to learn as a mission developer (church planter) of a largely immigrant congregation is that I have to ask my colleagues, fellow members of the body of Christ, for help. I can no longer allow my pride or my own perfectionism to stand in the way of serving God and serving God’s people in love.
Other congregations have said “yes,” too, and I have had to hold on to all the patience that I really don’t have (I’m probably more impatient than prideful) while they go through their processes. They want to minimize risk to their own faith communities. We happen to be more risk-averse because so many immigrants in our community have already taken huge risks in order to feed their children and provide medicine for their ailing family members. We are hearing harrowing accounts of crossing the sea on unstable boats and crossing through jungles and being robbed of the little these migrants have, robbed by those who are supposed to uphold the law in various countries, including the United States. All so people can provide for their families. I am distressed by all of this. I am impatient, and I expressed this to some of our Venezuelans
“All in God’s perfect time,” I was recently reminded by one of the Venezuelans hoping that her daughter might be one of the beneficiaries of this process. All in God’s perfect time.
It often takes me some time to process my feelings of impatience. I know that right now, as I await answers from some potential partner congregations who are considering becoming sponsors, that there is a real possibility that this window of opportunity will soon close. This process is being opposed by a number of governors and will go to court at the end of April.
And then I woke up understanding what the real bottom line is for me. I have told this story before at least three times:
at a facility detaining unaccompanied minors in Nogales, Arizona
on my 1500+ bike ride from Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexico along the Mississippi River in memory of my beloved son Chris, as I rode through Mississippi along the highway and reflected on the love that makes one take these long and unknown journeys
outside an immigrant detention facility here in Minneapolis
I feel like I need to tell it again, because I hadn’t realized, beyond knowing the families here, why this is so important to me.
As those of you who read my blog will know, my beloved son Chris died at the age of 22 just a couple of weeks before he was set to graduate with a degree in Neurobiology from the University of Minnesota.
What I tell those who will listen about why the separation of families, and the reunification of families is so important is this:
My family was separated by death.There is nothing I can do about that
but accept that and then do my best to live every day here on this earth with that loss.
As a people, we the Church and we the United States and we wealthy countries, have made so many policies and laws and decisions that are separating people around the world from their families. In our case, there is no guarantee that family members here will ever get to see or touch or hold their family that they have had to leave behind. This is tragic.
These families are separated by injustices here in this world
and there is something we can do about that.
There is nothing I can do to change the separation that has occurred in my family, but among the many things we can do to change this separation of my friends and brothers and sisters in Christ who are part of the Tapestry family is to take these risks that are so small in comparison to what both Tapestry and our families have risked just to survive, and take steps to reunite families, right now through Humanitarian Parole and then through changing laws and other things, but mostly through changing hearts.
Our God is a compassionate and merciful God. People of God, I beg of us to show compassion and mercy to God’s people here and now in all the many ways we are able. Please pray for our families and our partner congregations, and for me, that we may be led by the Spirit in this journey.
diariesofamissiondeveloper 