Ministry to immigrants isn't just on the border
By Elijah Tanner
You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:19
This past month, nearly 200,0001 encounters occurred between Border Patrol agents and migrants seeking to enter the U.S. This is only a fraction of the number of people awaiting official entrance and sanction into the country. When accounting for every person who is awaiting their case, seeking entry, or being processed, that number easily reaches into the millions. These numbers are staggering, and yet, for me, they were easy to miss. Unless you live in a border town where those seeking asylum consistently arrive weary, confused, and often carrying little more than their children, then distance creates a barrier to experiencing this reality. While many churches and organizations have heard the news about our nation’s border, and perhaps have taken a stand on the issue, very few are engaged in the ongoing work it demands. And yet, Scripture clearly calls us to love the foreigner, and to welcome them. Although not every church is called to serve in the same way, our calling to love the foreigner is an unavoidable imperative. It is mentioned throughout the Scriptures dozens of times and is reaffirmed in the New Testament through Jesus’ own immigration story. I take this as indication that every church ought to consider how they will pursue this calling regardless of how it may differ.
My church, a central Texas church, first experienced this call when a chain of connection led a young asylum seeker to live with a member of our church. When she and her son arrived, most of us had no idea what would be required. A list of drivers was quickly thrown together because she had no driver’s license. Then, a list of friends who could practice English with her came next. After that, we began searching for childcare, jobs to apply to, government assistance, and so on until it was hard to find someone in the church who had not contributed to this ministry of hospitality. And yet, we still felt this was not enough.
Our church began to dream. Ideas of welcoming more people became incessant. We found ourselves wondering, “If we can come together around this one family, what should stop us from collectively supporting a home for more families?” The need was certainly there. What happened next, I can only describe as the movement of God’s Spirit in our congregation. With impeccable timing, a partner church presented us with the opportunity of a home for sale to any congregation that would house asylum seekers in it. The dream became a possibility, and a church that describes itself with words like “contemplative,” and “simple” was sparked to act quickly, and threw together a unique ministry for our area.
The Naomi House is based on the work of John Garland and the San Antonio Mennonite Church’s work at the Mary and Martha House. We have rented a home in a neighborhood located centrally near essential services for someone seeking asylum (i.e. public transportation, accessible healthcare, grocery store) and a couple of church members have volunteered to live in the home as “hosts.” We have established a list of service providers in the area from social work to legal aid, to ESL teachers. Beyond this, we have recruited volunteers from our church and other churches to do the rest of the work. Though it sounds complex, the idea is quite simple: There are people on our border who need help, and while they often seem out of reach, we have more than enough in our town to offer the help they need.
The necessity for this was revealed to me on an educational visit to the border in preparation for the opening of the Naomi House. In July, a group of Dayspring members visited our partners at Fellowship Southwest and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Brownsville/Matamoros. I expected to get a better picture of the journey we were entering. What I found, however, was an urgency I had never expected. The asylum process in America is long, and the reasons for entering it are always dire. It is foolish to think that anyone travels thousands of miles, uproots themselves from their home, and risks their life and livelihood to enter an uncertain process for anything trite. Perhaps one of the most perilous aspects of this process is the wait after arriving at the U.S. border. Right now, most asylum seekers are forced to wait on the U.S./Mexico border where little to no governmental aid is provided. The Mexican government simply cannot manage the number of people awaiting entry. The results are entire “colonias” on the border where shacks have been hastily constructed and families (primarily women and children) live with no immediate access to food or water, let alone electricity, sewage, or communication.
When I stepped out of the van used to transport us from the border to one of these colonias, I was greeted with the smell of stagnant sewage and gravel swept up in a gust of wind unhindered due to lack of any vegetation or firm edifice in the vicinity. I handed gallons of milk, trucked over in 90-degree weather because it was all that could be bought that day, to mothers who took the milk in one hand while holding on to their 5-year-old with the other. I thought of my own one year old son as I spoke with a mother holding her one month old and watched her return to a building that looked like it would fall in on her if someone stumbled into it.
I heard over and over from our partners: “We’re so glad you’re starting the Naomi House. It’s so important.” And yet, I thought, how could the 2 or 3 families we help in a year possibly impact the millions locked in the purgatorial trials of our border system? Perhaps the truth is that it will not. But if one church nearly 300 miles from the border can offer aid, then what is to stop the next church? God’s reach spans any distance, and perhaps this ministry will grow. I am still waiting, expectantly and hopefully, for God to show me what this ministry will become. But perhaps this is the beginning of a call that goes much further than just the border.
Our prayer at Dayspring is that the Naomi House will be a light on a hill. We pray that it will serve as a reminder that God’s love not only spans distances, but God’s church spans nations and borders too. We pray that it will be just one of many homes like it, that welcome those coming from far away. We pray that, like its namesake from the book of Ruth, the Naomi House will practice true hospitality, and will find surprising expressions of God’s character and love from those it welcomes.
Elijah Tanner is a project specialist for Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty’s criminal justice projects. He and his wife have a 1-year-old son. They live in Waco and are members of Day Spring Baptist Church.