Refugees

What this pro-life series has taught me is that the CRCNA is deeply, unapologetically pro-life. 

ISIS has taken responsibility for three terrorist attacks that were carried out this past Thursday and Friday. On Thursday night over 40 people were killed and 250 were injured in a double suicide bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. On Friday a suicide bomber killed over 20 people and wounded about 40 attending a funeral in Baghdad, Iraq. Then on Friday night over 120 people were killed and more than 350 were wounded in six different attacks across Paris, France.

And I thought I with much moved in to bless my neighbors with little. Oh how little I understood God’s ways! He uses the least of these to bless, to teach, and to showcase His glory.

This is the 10th post in our "What Being Pro-Life Means to Me" series! What does being pro-life mean to you? Over this fall, we'll hear various writers respond to that question. Learn more and subscribe for weekly email updates. 

Refugees are in the news these days, and Christians are responding. We hear about the crisis and we want to help. Almost every day I'm asked by people who know I work with refugees, "When will the Syrians come here? And how many will we get?" They want to help...give money, make a phone call. We're good at responding to a crisis. I'm glad about that, but I also wonder how long it will last—only as long as the media keeps reporting it? And after we've responded by allowing more refugees in and helped them get started, who will be their friends?

Supporters of the new Immigrants Are a Blessing Not a Burden campaign launching today represent a community of Christians from many backgrounds committed to changing the conversation.

Could the long, slow work of voting and political action be thought of as a spiritual discipline?

How can Canadian Christians celebrate Canada Day this year in a way that rightly honours a great country without falling into either idolatrous patriotism or divisive nationalism? It all comes down to the story we tell ourselves and others in our celebrations around the BBQ and the fireworks.

How could I not be deeply dismayed on a Sunday afternoon when my friend Nahla called from a medical clinic--they wanted cash before they would give attention to her ailing son.

So the neighbourhood became a place of welcome, not an agency but a neighbourhood. We began to paraphrase the African saying, “It takes a neighbourhood to welcome a refugee."