How The Church Should Respond To 52,000 Immigrant Children

 
Y'all.

Y'ALL.

I have tried to keep cool, take lots of deep breaths, and push to have challenging conversations about this with the people I know. But I can't keep silent anymore (online) and I have to speak out.

I cannot get my head around the responses I have seen to children. Not drug lords, not criminals, not sex traffickers...children. Protests demanding these children go back to their original countries. The shelters were these children are kept are secret, because the safety of these children is in question.

Not safety from drug lords, criminals, or sex traffickers. Their safety is in question by Joe Schmo, your neighbor, your sheriff, your dentist, just regular people who are demand the children leave immediately.

What most people don't seem to understand is this: the law requires minors be seen by a judge before a decision is made about where they will go. George Bush passed that law before he stepped out of office. The goal of the law is to protect children from sex trafficking, drug lords, and violence in their countries. So, all 52,000 of these children have to have face time with a judge who will listen to their plight and decide if their life is in danger. If it is, they are sent to live with their family in the US or put into foster care. If the judge deems the child is safe in his original country, he is sent back.

If a child is sent back to his home country, it is usually YEARS after he first arrived in the US. There is no guaranteeing that his family will be there to pick him up when he gets off the plane...so we are abandoning children but it's in their home country so it's not our problem anymore.

No matter what is decided about these children, they have to stay here until they see a judge...and with 52,000 children to see you can imagine how long it will take. There isn't enough staff to care for the children, there isn't enough room to house them all, and there aren't enough judges to see them all before a couple years pass.

What is the Church doing?
Not very much. Some churches are reaching out, quietly, and aiding these children. I am encouraged by the few reports I have heard. But mostly, the Church (I refer to the "Church" as the entire body of believers, the people, not the organized local groups) is either deaf and dumb to the whole thing, jumping into the political minefield, or worse is joining in protests.

I'm just confused where in the Bible it says we treat children this way.

Maybe someone can help me find that verse.

I'll tell you what the Bible DOES say about children:

• Children are a gift. (Psalm 113:9, 127:3)
• Jesus welcomes children (Matthew 19:13-14)
• God reveals His truth to children (Matthew 11:25)
• We must become like children to enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 18:2-5)

Despite what my conservative friends may believe, God did not call us to engage with people politically. He didn't call us to uphold the law of our country. What God did call us to, is submission to Him and that submission leads us to extend grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love that covers a multitude of sins.

This is a question I think the Church has struggled with forever...

How do you love someone when you think they are wrong?

How do we respond to these children if we believe they shouldn't be here in the first place?

Love them. Revolutionary concept, I know.

But what does loving them mean? What does it look like?

It means treating these children right where they are. It means not approaching them with signs saying "return to sender". It means bringing toiletries so they can be clean. It means bringing bins of used clothes so they can have a few outfits or shoes. It means talking to them, smiling at them, hugging their necks. It means taking time to read some stories, maybe even the Jesus Story Book Bible, and to just be there with them.

It means treating them much like you would your own children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren.

We should be on the front lines.

Living by the Gospel isn't easy. It means radical change to your life, your interactions with people. It means loving others as much as you love yourself, and let's be real...we all love ourselves A LOT. 

Please hear me Christian...your politics should not inform how you live your life...the Gospel should. The Gospel calls you to love and care for the widow and the orphan ("Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their afflication and to keep onself unstained from the world." James 1:27).

We, Christians, are still called to love these children. Do we believe our God is great? Then why do we hesitate? Why do we fear? Let's show 52,000 children how unending is His love, how His grace continually sustains us, how we have complete hope and rest in Him. Let's live the Gospel out.