Refugees

This is the first installment in the blog series "Seeing Beyond Immigration Rhetoric"

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News broke this week of an unplanned inspection of an El Paso detention center that incarcerates immigrants and the shocking disclosure of its abusive and inhumane conditions. It’s overwhelming.

Lord, hear your Easter people's prayers! We live in hope, because He lives. 

Malaysia Returning ‘Unwanted Plastic’ to Canada

As a missionary in Italy, most of my travel time was spent either walking or riding public transportation.

One day, while riding the bus, an Italian woman started a conversation with me that was quite common in my experience. “You’re not Italian—where are you from?” “Why are you in Italy?” These questions always granted me an opportunity to talk about my passion for my work as a missionary, providing for the care of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

Lord, hear your Easter people's prayers! We live in hope, because He lives. 

Lord, in this Holy Week as we walk with your Son to the cross and wait for resurrection, hear our prayers!

My great-great grandparents, Gjalt and Klaaska Heslinga, came from the Netherlands to the U.S. in 1893 under the false promise of good farmland in the San Luis Valley of Colorado.

Barely into their twenties, the two left their families and their jobs as a laborer and household servant and entrusted their future to the Holland-American Land and Immigration Company.

Political pundits and partisans often use the annual budget announcement as an opportunity to evaluate a government – to sing its virtues or to decry its follies. Many civil society organizations, like the Christian Reformed Centre for Public Dialogue and our partners, also watch the budget announcement closely to evaluate progress on justice priorities. Budgets are moral documents, after all, revealing the priorities of our nation and our leaders.

We bring our prayers to Creator God, who both "takes up our pain and bears our suffering" and will "let justice roll down like a river."

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.

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.  Psalm 22:6 (NIV)

When we announced to our family, friends, colleagues, and the congregation we were serving at the time that we were moving to Italy to serve with the Reformed Church in America, the questions began. Good questions. Thoughtful questions. Caring questions.