Refugees - a journey out of confusion

Refugees.

The mere mention of the word conjures up emotion. Visceral News media and political pundit driven emotion. Rather than a binary choice - choose one option or the other, for or against - it is more of a spectrum, a sliding scale. Sadly, many Christians are confused, thinking it is only one or the other. While confused, they're also adamant-whatever side I'm on, the other side is evil. Weird, right? Adamant in their confusion. If someone wants to find out more information, they could turn on the news or search the interwebs - the adamant confusion then turns into a frenzy of shock and awe opinion, talking heads and either fear based commentary or guilt based commentary. Adamant confusion turns belligerent. 

There must be a more excellent way. There is an opportunity for us to listen and engage.

Christian, have you considered what God says?

Sure, we can proof-text or way on either side of the spectrum.

"Uphold the law"

from a Romans 13 vantage point.

Somewhere on that spectrum, we can point out Jesus' statement,

"I was a stranger and you welcomed me in"

on the other end.

---

What if we put political opinion aside and asked the Lord to speak to us from His Word? 

Oh, friends, I would love to invite you on a wild ride over the next few weeks. Come, journey through the Word with Precept Ministries International as we explore together what God says about the sojourner, refugee, alien, and stranger. 

One of my good friends, the talented videographer Cameron is currently visiting some African refugee camps in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia. In these camps, there is a hunger to know God, to engage the living bread of Jesus and the daily bread of His Word. I can't wait to hang out with Cameron and share some of his stories, their stories of grace and grit, with you in the future. Until then, Cam posted this glimpse:

I left Uganda today and it’s hard to put into words what I experienced in only 4 days. So this is probably gonna be long. This is Pastor Jacob. He is a South Sudanese refugee living in a camp in northern Uganda. Part of my job out here is to try and capture a bit of his story on film. A few minutes before this was filmed, he told me about the events leading up to he and his family fleeing for their lives, which I won’t even get into here. Absolutely tragic and horrific. After sharing their stories, they fed us. THEY fed US. I could go on, but the kindness, love and joy that filled this man was just unbelievable, and undeniably the work of God. He then gave me a tour of their church building, and I saw this instrument, and fortunately I had the camera rolling because... wow.

A post shared by Cameron Muilenburg (@cameronasa) on Jun 7, 2018 at 12:53pm PDT

Are you interested in coming along on this journey?

Go to Precept's Facebook page. Give it a like. Within the next few days, we'll share with you how to go on this journey with us for free.

Do you know of other folks that would be interested in learning what God says about refugees?  Get after it, share this with them, get them to join us too! 

Special thanks to Nathaniel Tetteh on Unsplash for the fantastic photo!