A Season to Celebrate
June is Immigrant Heritage Month, and it is a season I love to celebrate.
I have been walking this road for a long time now. After my own early years finding my footing in this country, my heart turned toward the people coming behind me. Gate of Hope started by walking alongside refugees arriving from East and Central Africa, families trying to understand a new culture and settle a life in a brand new place. We helped them find their footing, because they were coming to make a home here and put down roots.
When I look back over these last twenty-some years, I see something beautiful. So many of the families who came through have grown and flourished. Their children have grown up full of life and promise. They have woven themselves into the life of this city while holding tenderly to who they are. That, to me, is the heart of what we celebrate this month.
You can see it in the food. We grow vegetables our neighbors had never seen before, African eggplant, okra, and people look and ask, "What is that?" Then they taste it, and they love it. The food we grow is shared by so many cultures, and now our neighbors are growing to love it too. And you can see it in the way our families gather. The way a child belongs to the whole community and not only to one home. It takes a village to raise a child, and our neighbors are learning, beautifully, to be part of that village.
This is the gift I hope more people will notice. When refugees and immigrants arrive, yes, they have lost much. But they also bring so much with them. They bring their culture and their traditions. They bring their knowledge, how to work hard, how to live well, how to care for one another. When we come to one another with open hearts, ready both to give and to learn, the welcome goes both ways, and we all grow richer for it.
There is a verse that stays close to my heart. Ephesians 2:19. "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household." I love this verse because it reminds us that wherever you came from, wherever God has placed you, that is your home. You are no longer a foreigner. In God's family, no one is an outsider.
So this June, I want to encourage all of us to celebrate. To truly celebrate who we are and where we have come from. We all have a home, and our truest home is heaven. In a way, we are all on a journey toward that home. So while we are here together, let us love one another, care for one another, and live up to the good potential God has placed in each of us, for the well-being of the place where He has planted us.
