The Secret Gift of Immigration
“And a Little Child Shall Lead Them” (Isaiah 11:6).
In every life, there comes a moment when you realize that an opportunity landed on your porch, one that makes up for all those past regrets. Bill and Suzie, a young hard working family in the U.S. breadbasket of Missouri. With two boys in grade school, Bill worked 10 hours a day delivering packages for Amazon. Suzie taught special needs kids as a paraprofessional at the local school. Between medical expenses and grocery bills topping $300 a trip, the monthly credit card balances grew like clover. Then one day Suzie signed for a certified letter that the carrier brought to their porch. She sat at the table and wept as she read the contents.
“Dear Suzie, We have never met but we know each other. We are family. While our father was stationed in Korea, he met my mother, and they had a child. I am that child. All my life I dreamed of meeting my father’s family in the United States. Today that dream has come to you. Though I am half Korean, I feel a connection with you and yours. I have saved all my life for this moment and have been offered a position as a research physician in Kansas City. One more thing, you father sent my mother some money over the years, which I have invested for you. The total now is $310,000. All that I ask is that you welcome me to the U.S. and be a friend. Should our relationship move to family, we can leave that up to God.
Your Sister,
Soo-jin
Suzie’s tears fell and ran the ink on the perfect cursive page. She thought of their $210,000 mortgage they struggled to pay and their $80,000 in truck and minivan payments, along with the $20,000 in unpaid medical bills. She texted Bill, “Call me, NOW!!!”
You may say, “Jim, anyone would be a fool to pass on Soo-jin’s offer of friendship.” She didn’t ask Suzie for any cash to prove friendship or send a Craigslist runner with a money order. No, Soo-jin’s words, as name means, “excellent truth,” echoed in the secrets Suzie’s mother shared before her death about her father’s other family in Korea.
There is an “excellent truth” hidden in the letter of the Bible to us telling us about our “other family” of immigrants:
33 When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. – Leviticus 19:33-34
13 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. 2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:1-2
Even Mary and Joseph, brought the baby Jesus to Egypt as refugees from King Herod’s slaughter of the innocents.
The Hidden Gift of the Immigrant Worker
The present cost of raising a child from infancy to an independent working adult is $310,000. For an immigrant to enter the U.S. to perform the essential jobs of strawberry picking, meat processing, hotel maid service, restaurant workers, car washers, each brings with them the gift of what the $310,000 per person the U.S. would have paid either by private funds or welfare. This is God’s gift of the stranger and the immigrant to us, the hidden blessing of following God’s guidance.
Like, Bill and Suzie, who would reject such a gift and slander it as evil?
Stay tuned for the next episode of What’s Next!? On Views of America. With you host, Jim Butler!
Deportation of the Innocents Impacts the U.S. Bottom Line Worse Than Abrams Tanks
U.S. Essential Workers Lead the Parade to Prosperity
Hands of Food, Shelter, Care Met with Force
Arrested, Beaten, Deported Father of U.S. Marines: How does this make us safer?
Parade of Immigrant Hands that Feed and Care for America
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/090415/cost-raising-child-america.asp
Discussion:
- How can churches raise the awareness of the role essential immigrant workers play in the United States economy?
- Describe various industries that benefit from immigrant workers?
- What would happen to those industries if immigrants were rounded up like cattle and shipped out of the United States?
- How would U.S. businesses be affected economically?
- Do a mental survey of how many people of color attend your place of worship? Discuss how you can widen the cultural ministry of your church.
- What types of foreign ministries could help you church in this direction?
- Discuss how your church can be involved in helping the poor and the refugee.
- If your church is struggling in attendance, discuss how you might share your building with an ethnic congregation.