
On Sunday, a group from Mid-Atlantic CBF will join CBF staff and Field Personnel at the US Southern Border. We are going to see, learn and understand the plight of people who have given up so much to find a safe place to live. They have left homes, the people they love and all they know. They have walked away from their own cultures, customs and countries to find safety in the United States. Like Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt to save the Christ child, those on our border have escaped to the safety of our great nation.
Once at the border the running stops and the waiting begins. Waiting and hoping. Waiting with the fears of the past and hoping for the possibility of peace and welcome. I don’t know what it is like to flee home only to hope to be welcomed in a foreign land. To be caught between the horrors of the past and the uncertainty of the future. To wait with only fear and suspicion.
Things certainly don’t seem promising right now for those waiting at the border. But perhaps now is the moment they need friends and companions most of all. It is important to know that this trip was planned long before the 2024 election and not in response to it. In fact, it has been talked about for years. Mid-Atlantic CBF has long worked to bring hope and healing to the refugee, the immigrant and the displaced in our own communities and across the world. Perhaps going to the border now when things seem so hopeless for so many is where God needs us most of all. To be a friend to the displaced and a companion to the hopeless. To hear their stories of despair while we hold their hands in love. To listen, to weep, and to offer a word of welcome even when our country will not. Presence matters CBF says. I agree. Even more so when all seems lost.
Please keep our team in your prayers along with those we will meet along the way.