Canada

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.  Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. - Colossians 4:5-6

My family and I spent four years as missionaries in Italy, where we met hundreds of people from various countries in Africa and the Middle East who arrived in Europe seeking humanitarian protection. 

Matthew 6: 25-26 . Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns— and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"

Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. - Psalm 73:25-26 

The following story contains descriptions of abuse.  Please hold this story with tenderness.

“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name." Exodus 20:7

Being salt and light demands two things: we practice purity in the midst of a fallen world and yet we live in proximity to this fallen world. If you don't hold up both truth in tension, you invariably becomes useless and separated from the world God loves. - David Kinnaman

February 22 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day in Canada. (In the United States, January 11 is dedicated to addressing human trafficking.)

After much advocacy for its existence, members of Parliament unanimously agreed on the motion to adopt the day just last year, making this year the second annual awareness day. Awareness days provide an amplified platform and opportunity to highlight issues of great importance and concern. 

In the beginning of his ministry, Jesus tells his early followers who are poor, who weep, and who experience hunger and thirst (for real food or for right relationship) that they are blessed. He doesn’t say those who help the poor are blessed, or those who give to hungry people are blessed. It is not those who are doing outreach or good deeds, but rather, it is those who are experiencing the injustices firsthand who Jesus calls blessed; it is the poor who Jesus says the kingdom of God belongs to.[1]

Dena Nicolai, chaplain and refugee support mobilizer with the Christian Reformed Churches of British Columbia, shares the simple starting place for much of her engagement with people who have been refugees: joining them for a cup of coffee and saying “tell me how you’re doing.” Dena and Chris also talk about the ministry of sharing in lament, the importance of advocating ‘with’ and rather than ‘for’, and how the advocacy of faith communities and sponsors alongside newcomers changed government policy to provide a more “full” welcome for refugees in Canada.