I was a stranger, and you welcomed me...

Sadly, the world's population of refugees is growing at an alarming rate.  According to the UN, more than 84 million people from around the world have been forced to flee their homelands.  More than 2 million have left Ukraine in the past few weeks, and 2.6 million have left Afghanistan since August.  They join 6.7 Syrians, 2.6 million Sudanese and millions of others, largely from Africa, who have been displaced due to war, ethnic cleansing and other disasters.

I write this on a chilly, rainy evening, as I sit in front of a warm fireplace.  It is hard to image walking out my door to an unknown destination and never coming home.  Earlier today I received a text from a man in Afghanistan.  We filed paperwork to try to help him last year.  He texts via Signal, a messaging app that is particularly good at encryption.  He deletes his messages as soon as they are sent, and deletes mine as soon as they are received.  He is planning to go to Pakistan soon, and asks if I've heard anything about his case.  Unfortunately, it is stuck in a never-ending U.S. bureaucracy, in a country where most of us are fortunate to go home at night to comfortable houses, full refrigerators and warm beds.  People who are comfortable usually do not have much urgency. 

The Bible has a lot to say about exile and aliens.  It commands us to help, to love, and to accept them as our own.  “You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt," we are told.  Perhaps each of us could reach out today and do at least one thing for someone who has fled with little to eat, or who does not have a warm bed to sleep on tonight.

Holy One, we pray for those who are fleeing war and persecution. Please protect them on their difficult journeys. 

Judy is an immigration attorney and a founding member of Peach Church.