Christians are now being blamed for Trump’s executive order on refugees, with scores of people taking to social media to blast them as hypocrites who ‘don’t care’ about others. The exact opposite is true, and the example you’re about to see proves it.
Somehow, in the midst of heated political and media debate over President Trump’s executive order halting the flow of immigrants from several nations, American Christians have found themselves in the crosshairs.
A Facebook post gone viral admonished Christians to repent if they went to church on Sunday and enjoyed worship – because refugees are suffering elsewhere in the world. The admonishment was paired with this photo:
The post unleashed a flurry of attacks on Christians for being hypocrites, uncaring, and so forth. The attack is a non sequitur, having virtually no basis in reality.
Christians are among the most active on the front lines trying to help refugees, participating in unheralded ministries that have been active long before it suddenly became vogue to care about people fleeing in the Middle East.
For example, take one small group of families from a large church in Texas. When a Sudanese refugee showed up with her two small children – and pregnant – she was terrified. Her husband was stuck in a refugee camp without permission to travel. Alone and nowhere to go, she was taken in by Christians.
No headlines. No signs at the airport. Just a group of people living outside themselves, thinking of others first.
The refugee – Dyan – waited four years in that camp before finally getting permission to travel to America. Last time he saw his wife, she was pregnant. He’d never met his now 3-year-old son.
All the while, American Christians were the ones helping this family get by and survive until they were finally reunited late last yer.
And what an incredible moment it was – There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Watch:
Dyan comes home from Robert Fuqua on Vimeo.
Websites and commentators trying to make a name for themselves know that bashing Christians is a profitable market to leap headfirst into. It gives them a villain to blame for the ills of the world, sets themselves up to be the hero to take them down, and it’s also handy knowing the media generally shares similar disdain for Christians and will often echo an attack levied against them.
Christians are not perfect. They’ll be the first to admit that. But they are frequently leading the charge on issues like this – precisely because that Christian faith many despise compels them to do so.
The publisher of this beautiful video, Robert Fuqua, shared some background:
This video represents the next chapter in the now near four-year-old story of our church’s ministry to refugees in a North Fort Worth complex. A ministry that began with two of our elder wives, Mary Claire and Molly coming alongside the Sudanese woman in this video, now has over a hundred vetted volunteers serving the diaspora in our region. And, hundreds more participating annually in coat drives, back pack drives, and many opportunities through the year to engage with these families around food and fun.
For me, this video is a testament to what can happen when God’s people respond in simple, yet sacrificial obedience to God’s call on the Church, His Bride, to engage and embrace people of all tongues and tribes.
Fuqua added some more details you may have missed the first time watching the video:
There are nuances in this video most people will miss that to me signal the fingerprint of God. One of them for me is the advertising display hanging over the baggage carousel in the background of the shot when Dyan embraces his wife for the first time in four years. Though many ads were looping endlessly on that monitor, at that very moment the ad read, “Where Dreams take their Course”. Another special moment for me was when Dyan dropped to the floor overwhelmed in gratitude toward God, and my camera POV inadvertently became the POV of his three children, at times framed by the side of his son’s head. In the background of that shot you see Mary Claire and Molly’s husbands with their four sons, American playmates of Dyan’s children, transfixed on the miracle for which they themselves prayed these past years.
A reminder that no matter how ugly the political debate gets, we can always overcome the hate with good.
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