Busy Day for Immigration Work

If you read my blog regularly, you know I try to save Thursdays to catch up on reading, including books, journals, emails, handouts, magazines, packets and the like. I find I need a dedicated day each week to keep up.

Today I spent about half of my day instead dealing with the current migration crisis in our world. One of today's challenges was trying to identify a community in the United Sates with established Angolan and Congolese populations where a group of 150 migrants in San Antonio could be sent. City officials in San Antonio contacted me, Bishop Briner, as well as Catholic, Episcopal, and Presbyterian leaders to help. As of this writing, I do not know where these migrant will be sent. Do you know of any concentrations of Angolans or Congolese anywhere in the country?

Also today, I asked Cristina to forward to the congregation an email of various church leaders, organized by Bishop Eaton, also dealing with immigration. The situation in Washington and along the border is consuming more and more time of church leaders at all levels.

Two realities need to be addressed.

First, migration is a global issue and needs to be addressed globally. We have more migrants now than even after World War II. Cooperation will be needed. No country should try to go it alone.

Second, in the United States, the solution to the problem needs to start, not end, with comprehensive immigration reform. The system is broken and piecemeal efforts will accomplish little.

One of the unstated but no less real realities for the church today is the need to focus more on societal issues. Our world and country are changing. My own situation of being asked not to be a full time pastor when such pastors are in short supply and instead spend time on a major moral and political issue makes it hard for me to deny our country and church have changed. This is a new day for all of us.