Advocacy

‘They treat us how they see us.’

I remember the excitement I felt when our refugee friends walked into the waiting area at O’Hare. The little group from our church did not know how to speak to them, but we had attempted some signs in Arabic and brought small gifts and flowers to try to show them a warm welcome.

As we enter the season of Lent, the period of 40 days that carries us to Easter, it is important to acknowledge the ways that we have turned away from God in our lives and remember the call to turn our thankful hearts, humble minds and serving hands back toward God. For many Christians and churches, Lent is a time to refocus and reorient ourselves to a life of prayer, sacrifice, and repentance.

From the very beginning of God’s walk with his people, the blessings they enjoyed because of their relationship with God were meant to overflow. “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you,” God promised Abraham.

“...there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

-Abraham Kuyper

This week could be a historic one for Indigenous children in Canada. The Minister of Indigenous Services, Jane Philpott, has called an emergency meeting on Indigenous child welfare, comparing the current situation to the horrors of the residential school system.

Though born and raised in West Michigan, my career over the past six years has taken me to remote areas throughout Southeast Asia. In Cambodia and Myanmar I have seen firsthand how government corruption, especially related to deals to extract valuable natural resources, falls hardest on the poorest and most vulnerable communities.

Welcoming refugees has galvanized the Christian Reformed Church for decades. On both sides of the border, churches have stood in the gap for people fleeing persecution, whether by sponsoring refugees, supporting community organizations that address refugee needs, welcoming refugees to their churches, or sharing a cup of chai. In some churches, the list of the countries of origin of the refugees they have sponsored reads like a history of the world’s conflicts of the last 50 years: Vietnam, Cambodia, Eastern Europe, Colombia, Congo, Central African Republic, Iraq, Syria.  

“The LORD loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.”
—Psalm 33:5

Justice and hope. Can these two words really go together? Where is our hope when the poor are trampled underfoot and it seems that the powerful take the day every time? Where is our hope when even our fellow Christians too often turn their faces away?

We have hope because we are not saving the world, Christ is.

It’s been quite the year! Thanks for reading and learning along with us, as we wrestled with faith with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other (Karl Barth).

Here are the top Do Justice articles (ranked by top pageviews) that got you thinking and acting in 2017: