Over the last 10 years or so, I have felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to enter into space with vulnerable people. I live just outside of Garden City, Kansas, where we have a large immigrant and refugee population. There are many opportunities to engage, but I tended to stand in the fray and pray that God would make an opportunity so big I couldn’t miss it.
On New Year’s Eve 2018, I read Isaiah 58 during my Bible study and felt a distinct call on my heart, especially in verses 6-10: “If you do away with the yoke of oppression… and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday” (9b-10).
In August 2019, God provided the opportunity I had been praying for when I met a beautiful refugee family from Myanmar and learned how much proximity matters. As I sat long enough in the awkwardness of broken language conversations, I started to see people as image bearers and friends, rather than political rhetoric and something to be feared.
I dove into learning about the plight of refugees and immigrants and God’s heart for them. Through a podcast, I learned about Women of Welcome, a community dedicated to studying Scripture to understand God’s heart for immigrants and refugees. I began engaging regularly with the group, and my passion for caring for vulnerable people grew.
In April 2024, I visited the southern border at El Paso/Ciudad Juarez with 16 other Women of Welcome community members from 15 states. I wanted to see firsthand what was happening at the U.S./Mexico border.
The whirlwind three days included educational sessions about topics such as the basics of immigration and asylum seeking and what the Bible says about immigration, as well as immersion experiences that included visiting a shelter for women and children in Juarez and one of the largest migrant shelters in El Paso. We spent time on both sides of the border wall and spoke with current and past border patrol officers.
Here is what I learned: It is not always what you see on the news. There were no chaotic scenes on either side of the border wall. The shelters were clean and dignified places, and I did not expect to feel such a tension between the sorrow of these asylum seekers’ situations and the tangible joy as they became community within the shelters. All image bearers that we met had fled for their lives, for better opportunities for their families, for hopes of a future. They have names and faces and stories.
I often tell God that I do not want to forget the people, sights, sounds and feelings of that trip, and I pray for opportunities to extend welcome in my own community—to the Haitian family walking down the street carrying their grocery bags on their heads, to the girls in hijabs at my schools and to the man from Central America leaving Catholic Charities with a folder of information under his arm. I used to spend much of my day not “seeing” these people but now feel more confident and called to make sure they know that someone does see and love them.
Tatum Parker attends Garden Valley Church in Garden City, Kansas. She and her husband, Tim, are parents to two teenagers. She is an occupational therapist for a school district and enjoys watching KU Jayhawk basketball, gardening and building community with immigrant and refugee neighbors.
