My buddy Brent accompanied me through one of the longest days of my life. “Wanna go deep-sea fishing?” he had asked. Adrift of sanity, I had answered affirmatively.

We awoke way before dawn—on vacation; that should’ve been a clue—and trekked toward the harbor. A flashing “Hot Donuts!” sign lured us off the road for a few minutes. Fortified with coffee and buzzing with sugar, we arrived at the dock on time.

Before you could say, “Bait your hook,” we paid real money to join about 120 strangers on a vessel that should’ve held half that many. The first mate lectured about all kinds of safety procedures I don’t recall. But he said one thing I’ll never forget: “If you have to throw up, throw up outside the boat.”

Compassion and concern, faith and fear, respect and resolve crackled across the country as pastors who comprise Fellowship Southwest’s ministry to asylum seekers talked on the phone March 25. They spent almost two hours telling each other about their work with refugees on the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as their concerns for those immigrants, living in the shadow of the coronavirus.

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way,
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
and the mountains quake with their surging.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Psalm 46:1-7

An intriguing and disconcerting message popped up on my telephone screen late last week.

“I just got out from the meeting in Juarez … talking about the MPP changes,” wrote Rosalio Sosa, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Tierra de Oro in El Paso and leader of Fellowship Southwest’s efforts to minister to asylum seekers clustered across the Rio Grande in Juarez and in other parts of the state of Chihuahua.

This year, one aspect of the Christmas story hovers over my heart. It’s the part where an angel of the Lord tells Joseph to take Mary and Jesus and immigrate to Egypt, so Jesus would be safe from King Herod, who was hell-bent on killing him. 

Technically, this didn’t happen at the first Christmas. If you pay attention to Matthew 2 and do the math, you’ll realize Jesus was several months old, maybe even a toddler. But if you look at almost any Nativity Scene, you’ll see wise men and most likely agree the Holy Family’s immigration to Egypt is part of the overall Christmas story.

If the photograph of Oscar Alberto Martinez and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria—her tiny body tucked under his T-shirt, arm around his neck, both drowned face-down in the Rio Grande—broke your heart, welcome to the Legion of the Brokenhearted.