Kent Annan - You Welcomed Me: Loving Refugees and Immigrants Because God First Loved Us

Simone and Cormac, this book is dedicated to you.

Im grateful every day that I got to welcome you into the world

as your dad. Im grateful for who you are and

who you are becoming.

If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes... we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces.

CONTENTS

D o you remember what it means when people are refugees or immigrants? I ask my eight-year-old son.

Yes, Dad. We talked about that last week. Remember?

Im going to write my next book about this.

Okay. But wait, are we for them or against them?

For them. Remember. Being a refugee means someone had to run away from something bad, like war. They had to leave home, leave everything behind. Can you imagine if we had to leave our house and your school and move somewhere far away, where they speak another language, because we werent safe? And an immigrant is coming to somewhere new, which is usually hard too. We want to be people who help people in hard situations, right?

Sure. But some people are against, right? Why?

I think people are nervous or scared about a few things. Safety is one. They dont want any bad people to get in who could hurt them. They also think people might take their jobs. And new people can bring change with themlike a different language, culture, or religion that they dont want.

Okay, watch this move. You stand right there. Im going to jump off the couch and kick you. You try to block my kick, but you wont be able to because the crane kick cannot be defended.

Wed watched the old Karate Kid as our family movie the night before, so 95 percent of the conversation then turned to punches, kicks, not that hard! and laughter. I knew the movie might put the rest of our family in danger for a few days as my son works out his new Karate Kid techniques. But as we keep talking, in between indefensible crane kicksand in the future as he keeps getting olderI want him to recognize what is at stake:

• Love versus fear

• Who we want to be

• What home is

• How we deal with real concerns

• How we make difficult decisions about responding to other peoples suffering when there isnt enough for everyone to meet their own wants and needsin this world that gives lots to some and crushes others

• Wisdom versus naivet versus ideals

• The future of our nation

• The way ethnicity and race affect lives and relationships

How can we see those pictures of Syrian childrena boys limp body lying face-down on a beach, a boy sitting in the back of an ambulance stunned after an explosion with his face caked in dust and blood; boys just a little younger than my sonand not forfeit some essential part of being human if we dont help? There may be some risk to helping, but there is certainly risk to not helping:

• Making security such a high value that fear gains godlike power over our livesinstead of seeing security as one important consideration among others.

• Discovering that our faith is a resounding gong, a clanging cymbal, not worth much more than empty words when it comes to the rubber of love meeting the road of suffering and sacrifice.

Yes, so much is at stake in how we respond to refugees and immigrants. Working through such complexities requires open hearts, clear thinking, and practical acts. It also requires finding ways to disagree that help us all get better together rather than just making others and ourselves worse. Above all, it requires getting to know other people who we think are differentand then finding that yes, theyre different, but not so much.

I love being a dad. Besides spontaneous karate battles with my son, I keep finding that my kids expose my generosity and my hypocrisy, my love and my selfishness. They reflect myself back to me. What we model is more important than what we say.

How we answer my sons question, Are we for or against them? reveals a lot about what kind of family, community, and country we want to be. After the answer comes the work to understand the nuances and navigate the complexity. As adults, we know there is usually a cost to being our best selvesand that its ultimately worth the price.

How can we live into a vision that chooses love over fear?