Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to that Makes Total Sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian, aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same.
Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes eludes us. That makes Total Sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day.
Okay, Dorcas. I had to press record because we were having the full out podcast recording conversation offline and we were both like, oh my goodness, we're gonna have to say all of this good stuff again. So I'm pressing record now so that we can. We may not be able to rehash everything, but so that we can really start. Because I think this is something, obviously it's not the topic that we're going to talk about today for the Bible study that we, that we did together is not just on our minds, it's on everyone's minds. We were recording this at the near the end of June, summer of 2025, and migration, immigration, refugees, asylum seekers, all of this is just on everyone's minds right now, on everyone's hearts right now. And so anyway, I can't wait to dig in about this Bible study with you, but welcome back to the podcast.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me back.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: So, a few years back, we worked together on a Bible study that as a part of this series with Made for Packs and ivp. And this one is called Migration. Very simply Migration Experiencing God's Care for Immigrants.
And I am so grateful, number one, to hold this copy in my hand. It is beautiful and just well designed, so aesthetically pleasing.
The art in this is fantastic. The poetry, hearing people's stories through the QR codes in their own voices.
It took me back to writing and editing this and just like, oh, how I was so grateful for those words then, how I'm even more grateful for them now in this current political and cultural climate that we're in. Dorcas, I almost don't even know where to start, but I think that might be a good place is this Bible study is being released summer of 2025, and it's just called Migration Experiencing God's Care for Immigrants.
Talk about how. Talk about the relevance of what is in these pages, especially right now in the U.S.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Well, I think what is really fascinating about us being in this moment now, on the cusp of this Bible study coming out is that You, Alexis, actually worked on this first, and I came into the project a little bit later. And so it was probably what, maybe four years ago, something like that, that you started working on this. And while I would say that immigration has been a bit of a hot button political issue probably for the last 20 years, none of us at that time imagined that we would be where we are today. So I was just telling Alexis a story of. I have a friend who works in, in ministry with international students at the college level. And it is the most nightmarish roller coaster for those young people right now because one day their visas are being revoked, the next day it's being reinstated. One day they think they're going to get kicked out of the country, the next day they think they might be able to stay. And then, you know, there are travel bans being instituted so that they can't even go home to see their families, and their families can't come here to see them. And it's just, just brutal. I think when we have these political debates that are important to have at the policy level, I think we also have to constantly come back to this micro level of. And there are individual people, individual families, every single one of whom is made in the image of God being devastated by these policies, by these ideas are being thrown around. Just the suggestion of, hey, we might do this, and then that hits the headlines. It can strike so much fear and anxiety and stress in people, even people who have done everything right, they have taken all the correct steps and they are still being punished today just because they are not citizens.
And so it is a heartbreaking moment in our history, in our, our culture, our communities. And so I am so, so glad that this resource is coming out at this time. I hope it can play at least some small role in shaping the conversation. I think that people of faith have a huge role to play in this topic. Right. We see a lot of Christians front and center on both side the issue. And, and if we could go back to scripture and kind of root ourselves in, well, what does God say? What, what does God do?
How is migration portrayed in scripture? I would love that to be the starting point of some of these conversations.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you mentioned that about scripture while you were talking. I thought, I think one of the things that I see that this study can help with right now and one of the things that I'm so grateful that it does, especially as these conversations.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Are.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: They can be heated.
There's a lot of energy around individual policies or politicians stances on Various things. But I think what I'm grateful for about this study is that it pulls back. Like, it zooms out and looks at migration a bit more holistically.
I think that's one of the things that I'm like, what if we entered into these conversations of, look, immigration isn't something that started 20 years ago or 30 years ago or 100 years ago. It isn't something that impacts only the US and people who are traversing our borders back and forth.
This is a part of humanity's story, and that it always has been. And so US Navigating migration, in particular immigration policies now, is not new to what humans have had to traverse. This is as old as time.
And I think sometimes that that gets a little bit lost. And so I think maybe if we, like, just kind of take a breath and say, okay, we know there's, like, a whole lot of stuff that is urgent, and it feels urgent now, and it is urgent.
And at the same time, what if we just took a moment to say, okay, this isn't new. We don't have to reinvent all of the wheels. Like, this is something that humans have been doing for a very long time, and. And this is something that God has encouraged for. For God's people, particular people, individuals, groups of folks. God is present with people who are migrating and on the move from one place to another.
I think that feels really encouraging to me as we kind of talk about this, even in politics, it's kind of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're okay. We're not the first generation to have to deal with this. So what if we looked at this? Maybe not even like, oh, this is a problem, but, like, why migration and what kind of opportunities are here and how can we host well and how can we move well?
Yeah, I think those questions might yield some different conversations, which might yield some different solutions. Maybe. At least maybe if it's not even policy. But how do we interact in our own lives? Yeah.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and I think that that points to. One of the things I really love about this study is that while you and I helped put it together, we would probably both say that we are by no means experts on the topic of immigration, but there are a lot of experts who are featured in the study. So it pulls together essays, articles, poetry, art from individuals who live in this world of immigration. They are lawyers, they are advocates, they work for nonprofits and ministries. And so there's so much wisdom in here to draw from. And I think what you're saying, Alexis, is so key.
I Think we've been so fixated, at least for the more recent history on this idea of migration being a problem. And not that it's can't cause some challenges, it raises questions.
But. But I think a more maybe healthy, helpful perspective on it is the sense that migration is a reality.
You know, it's just. It's part of, like you were saying, the human experience. The human species is a species on the move, and we always have been. And that movement predates almost everything else in terms of, like, nation states and borders and politics and governments.
It is the natural state of human beings to move around and not to say, you know, it should be chaos and there's no rules at all. Nobody I know is advocating for that.
But. But there is this sense of, does it have to be seen as a problem?
Do immigrants and refugees have to be seen as people who are not wanted and need to be shut out? Because what we see in Scripture is that God very consistently works through migrants in really powerful ways. He goes with them wherever they go, and they bring oftentimes the blessing of God with them to the new places that they arrive at. And. And it's. It's beautiful, this, you know, mixing of peoples who learn from one another and grow for one another. Right. I think it's just. It's another way in which we can see, like iron sharpening iron. How are all of our cultures enriched? How are we enriched as individuals? Because of how much we get to learn from people who come from other places who have different backgrounds, who speak different languages, cook different foods. All of that is. It's a gift, I feel like, to be able to encounter that and learn from that.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was one place in this study I was going to say, I don't want to spoil everything in the study, but the truth is we can't. We can't in this conversation because it's so rich. Because of what you just mentioned, because of the contributions of so many folks who are professionally experts. And then as you were saying, that I'm also like. And personal experts in their own stories. You know, so many people in this study have shared their own stories, some of them in their own voices. Like you can hear the recordings of their own voices sharing their stories that are so meaningful and powerful. But there was a section where we ask participants in this study to basically kind of imagine, use their theological imaginations or faithful imaginations to say, to ask these what if Questions.
And you kind of started to do that. Even when you're talking, it's like what if we didn't view this as a problem? One of the examples we gave is like, what if we celebrated and honored immigrants for who they are? You know, like just that pause, say, what if this was it? Instead of looking at really people as if they are problematic or if their presence is problematic.
I. I shared this, I think maybe even in another conversation in this series I'm trying to remember, but my youngest son, every time I would take him to school in the mornings during this most recent election season, there were, of course, all sorts of political signs everywhere. I live in Texas, but I live in Houston, which is a kind of a different place inside of Texas.
It's kind of blue inside of a sea of red. But even in Houston, there's a lot of. You see a lot of mixed signs, you know, as you're driving through neighborhoods. One neighbor has this sign up, the next neighbor has another one.
And I had to drive through this little neighborhood to take him to school during election season. And there was one house that had a lot of signs up and political signs, and one of them didn't have a candidate name on it. It just read, stop the invasion at the US Border.
And every time, you know, I would say that as a. As a generationally, my mother's side is immigrated from Mexico. And so every time I see this sign, I read something that is related to myself and my family. We're a problem.
Stop the invasion. We have come in like a pest, like vermin. You know, this kind of thing, that my people presence here is problematic. We have invaded something that is sacred to the people who live in this house, and that invasion must be stopped.
What if we.
What if, you know, what if we had a conversation with people who lived in that house and say, can we imagine just for a moment, a different way to think about what's happening at our borders? What if instead of saying, stop the invasion, what if we invited someone for coffee? I mean, I don't know. Those things sound kind of silly and trite sometimes, but I think putting a pause on those problematic things, even just for a moment, and say, what's the opportunity here?
Can.
How can we practice hospitality? What if we used our imaginations? Could this conversation look like.
As opposed to this?
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think maybe an even more controversial what if question could be, well, what if, you know, what you're asking for actually happened? What if there were no immigrants?
What would our communities actually look like? So you're in Texas, I'm in California. These are both states that have been tremendously shaped by people coming in from all over the world.
And so I'm a second generation immigrant myself. So obviously it is very, very close to my family story. But I, I look around my neighborhood and we have every kind of cuisine represented. We have all kinds of grocery stores. My kids go to the local public school.
It. When I look at their friend, it's like just a rainbow collection of, of kids of all different skin tones, all different cultural backgrounds. And I just, I celebrate because in all of that, I actually feel like, you know, would we only see one slice of humanity when we only see people who look like ourselves? And honestly, I know what that's like because I lived in China for a couple years. I'm ethnically Chinese. That was my first experience, experience living in a country that was so homogeneous, where everybody looked like me and a lot of people, you know, most everyone speak the same language, eat the same foods.
It was frankly a little bit boring.
And, and I felt like it was a very limited perspective on who is God and who has God made us to be. Because God is not an American God. God is not a white God. God is not a Chinese God. God is the God of all of humanity. And every culture has some reflection of who God is and the image of imago DEI that he placed within each of us and in our communities. And we're missing that if we don't. If we don't take the opportunity to embrace the richness around us.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I was chuckling a little bit when you said that, because I'm thinking of. I've seen comedians, especially Latino comedians, say things like, if, if you have a sign like that in your yard, you don't get to eat my food. You know, like, it's like with. Especially in Texas, like, you don't get to go to Tex Mex. I'm so sorry. You know, like that. That's not it. But, but there, but there is a point there, you know, like, like you said, the representation that we get to live with.
One of the activities in the study is there's like a QR code for a website that gives statistics on migrants in each state. And I thought of you and I when I was looking through that again, because California and Texas have two of the highest numbers of migrants of any state in the country. It's actually kind of funny because it's one of those maps I encourage everyone to, when they grab a copy of the study to do this exercise because it was really cool. But it's one of those where the states are colored by by the number that they have, but it's all on the same scale. So it's kind of like on a green, blue scale. And when I looked at it, it was hilarious because most of them, I was like, is this broken? Because they all look kind of the same, except for Texas, California, I think Florida, Illinois was a bit, you know, in kind of the darker hues. But some of these, you know, I looked at. I was in Oklahoma this past weekend. That's my home state. I looked at that. You know, it's like tiny numbers. A lot of the states in that part of the country have really tiny numbers. And then I'm very similar to the experience that you're describing with your kids.
When I did the exercise for Texas, anytime I clicked on a different country, if Texas had migrants from that country, they didn't have migrants from every country but the listed, but if they had migrants from that country, our county was at the top for numbers in Houston. Houston, many people might know it's one of the most international cities in the country.
And so I have the same experience as you do, and I think that it is beautiful. I appreciate your question, though, to say, what if we just didn't. What if we said no, Even maybe further scale.
I'm not sure if you had this experience growing up. I had this experience growing up of people saying, go home.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: So maybe not even just close the borders. But what if.
Gosh, I don't like that imagination. But what if it was like we're experiencing now with the current administration, go home. And people.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Well, and I think also what's fascinating. Right. So I've been listening to this podcast in American History, and the really unfortunate thing is that xenophobia, mistrust, and scapegoating of immigrants, that has been happening over and over and over again.
It is very much a part of American history. At the same time, what's fascinating is that who is considered a foreigner and who is considered acceptable, quote, unquote, has changed radically. Right. And so this idea that, you know, there was a moment in time where the Irish were not welcome and the Italians were not welcome, and, you know, there was a huge resistance to Chinese immigrants coming. We had the Chinese Exclusion act in 1882, which the study actually covers, and begins to explore this question of, yeah, what if we closed our borders to an entire people group? What are the consequences of that? And we've tried that experiment before, and, yeah, I'll say it didn't go very well.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: So.
So.
So this aspect of it is also not New, unfortunately. Right. So migrants moving around as old as time, people resisting, migrants coming in. Also a very, very old idea at.
Right. I think that as people of faith, we have to believe that our God is a God who is constantly making things new.
And in that hope for renewal, there is a hope for can we as a nation, as a people, can we do things a little bit differently moving forward? Is there a way in which. Because just on a very sort of nuts and bolts level, right, the immigration policies, the primary immigration policies we have in the US So not, not talking about the most recent, like last few weeks, months sort of things, but the kind of bedrock immigration policies of how do you get a green card, how you apply for refugee status, all those sorts of things. Those have not changed in more than 30 years, 40 years.
And I think we would all agree that the world has changed so much in the last three or four decades. It does not make sense that we would have these polic that try to manage the flow of people the way it looked in the previous century as opposed to how it looks today.
And so I do think that there is agreement that the way, at least in the US we have managed immigration. It's not working. It's not working well. It's an incredibly inefficient system.
It actually makes it really, really hard for people to come legally. I know so many people who want to do exactly what they're supposed to do. And it is not uncommon for people to have to wait 15, 20, 25 years just to come. Like, I'm not talking about getting citizenship just to get a visa to come.
And it, I, I don't know, it sort of boggles the mind of how inefficient and broken the system is. And so I just again, to that idea of can we think about things differently? Can we hope that there is a new path forward?
We were very creative, innovative people. So I feel like if we can figure out space travel, we can figure this out.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I'm glad you brought that up because I took a class for my M. Div. On migration and it was taught by someone who had had a lot of political experience in just looking at policy, helping to shape and write some potential policies, many of them which just could not get through the Congressional Houses even, I mean, in the Obama years, even, you know, like way way back, it just wasn't, it just wasn't happening.
And that was one of my biggest takeaways from that class, is how incredibly difficult.
It's not just that the system is difficult to navigate. It's as you mentioned, I mean, the pathways to, even to immigrating and certainly to citizenship are close to impossible. For I would say, almost like most people, like the ones that we say, oh, well, their families are here or their spouse is here, or they, they have this, you know, in immigration they sometimes talk about push and pull factors. You know, maybe they have this push factor from their country, which, you know, this should make it easy for them to enter into another country that is safer for them or where they could have a better economic possibility. Those things just aren't, I think the, the general public, I will, I'll name for myself, I did not realize how inefficient and ineffective our current system was until I took this like, graduate level class on it. You know, like, I just didn't know. Just like a common citizen, I was, I was born in the U.S. i didn't, I didn't know how difficult, how difficult it was. I have a lot of friends who are immigrants and even knowing them in their stories, I didn't realize how incredibly difficult it has been A, for them and B, just in general for most people, I would even say living in Houston, which is a place with a ton of immigrants just in our communities, I really had no idea the burden that immigrants are carrying in the U.S.
you know, related to their status, how that relates to their current relationships, personal and professional, I just really didn't know. And I think that that's one of the things that's really difficult is we're having a lot of conversations when many of us just don't really understand how broken the current system is and the hardships that that creates for people who would, you know, I think that's a lot of times, again, the thing we hear we'll just come and do it the right way, and we're like, well, actually, for some people, I learned, isn't a right way. Actually.
There's actually, it's actually like legally impossible for some people to do, you know, to do that or very, very close, you know, or for, for some folks, it's so it's next to impossible that, you know, it may be decades, like you said before people could even, could even enter. And so then, you know, what do we do? How do we think about those things? How do we serve people and love people who, who are in these really hard positions. And it's not through any fault of their own. It is because migration is part of humanity's story.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think what you're saying, Alexis, is So key, this idea of.
It's almost like. And I will include myself in this. I, I feel like in so many conversations about immigration, it feels like we are all sort of just a bunch of toddlers screaming at each other. You know, there's so many feelings around it, but there is really not that much understanding and not that much knowledge and wisdom in how we are approaching these conversations with one another. Certainly conversations with our lawmakers, politicians, leaders in the community.
And so just understanding. Yeah. What is the reality of our policies? That's one aspect where I think we all could learn a lot more. What you're saying is so critical about talking to people who are immigrants or who are trying to immigrate and learning their stories, learning their experiences. And then I think this, going back to this Bible study, I think this sort of fills in a third aspect, right, of.
So we've got the policy, we've got the knowing the reality of people's lived experiences. And then this again, overarching. Like, what does scripture say? What is God's approach?
And, and what is so clear, right? It almost, it's. When you look at scripture through the lens of migration, it's really interesting. Like, then you start to realize, wait a second. Almost every single person that is featured in the Bible at some point moves to a different city, a different country, a different area, different region, right? Or they're. They're missionaries traveling all around the known world.
Jesus went all over the place, right? Like, even when he was very young, he was a refugee escaping to Egypt, right?
So this is, it's baked into Scripture. And, and it is consistent over and over again that, that God goes with. With immigrants. And oftentimes, like you said earlier, God calls people to go. It's an act of faith. It's an act of faithfulness to walk with God into these new places.
And, and, and so it's just a really helpful lens, I think, to recognize. Okay, how do we begin to reframe the way that we are talking to one another, that we are interacting with one another over this topic?
I think that that scripture, the story of migration in Scripture, you know, boils down to. And there's a lot more in the study. So please don't think that my saying this means you don't need the study. But, but it does. It boils down to God loves immigrants.
And, and that migration is an act of faith. Faith, you know, and, and that is affirmed over and over and over again, the Old Testament in the New Testament.
And, and if we genuinely believed that, if we lived that reality. How would it change, you know, the kinds of conversations that we're having, which I feel like oftentimes veer into the territory of either dehumanizing migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, or dehumanizing those who disagree with us, which is just as unhelpful and. And not what God calls us to do. So.
So if we started from that place of how do we answer God's call of love and faithfulness?
I think. I think that would. That would be a very, very different ballgame when. When we look at immigration.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: Oh, 100%. I'm. I'm so glad you brought it back to Scripture, because that's exactly where my mind was going. And some of the biblical characters, their stories that we feature, that are featured in this study are. I'm looking at this as, like, Ruth, Abram, Joseph, Paul, Jesus and his disciples. I thought of that. You, like, there's a part where it's like in the. In the study, we. We. We look at the call and they just, like, leave their nets and go, you know, like, okay, we'll just. We'll just go with Jesus, Daniel, and. And I look at these, and I'm like, how many of you, our biblical heroes and heroines, are migrants of some sort? So, like, one, like we, like we mentioned earlier, we celebrate and honor them. We look at their courage, their bravery, their boldness.
You know, Ruth. No, nobody is ever down talking Ruth. Ruth was a rock star. I mean, you know, and Ruth was a migrant in the middle of one of the hardest seasons of her life. You know, she was a hard worker. She built strong relationships. She was faithful to her family. You know, like, all of these things. We look at Ruth, and she's a heroine. We also look at migrants with compassion. We didn't even talk about in the study, like, we don't really have anything about exile, you know, in there, but I think there are people who. I mean, Daniel. But like, who were removed from their homes forcibly. And when we. When we read their stories in the Bible, we look at them with compassion and care, and we empathy. You know, we sometimes imagine what might it have been like, you know, even when the Israelites were migrating from Egypt into the promised land, this was a place where they were escaping oppression, enslavement. And we think that when we look at their story, we marvel at the strength in the people. We are so grateful for God's presence with them, guiding them.
So we're familiar with these stories. But the. The key phrase that you use, like, reading scripture through the lens of migration.
If we look at the story of the Israelites as a story of migration, that specifically changes the conversation. If we really look at Ruth through the lens of migration, if we look at Daniel through the lens of migration, or Jesus and his disciples through the lens of migration, Abraham, Joseph, another one who migrated against his will in the favor of God, was just so present in his life.
This is, and if we really believe that the story of humanity continues in these kinds of ways, then I think, I don't know, it might be, maybe it's bold to just say like, like we have Ruth's and Joseph's and Daniel's and, and Paul's and, and Abraham's among us. You know, they are our family members, they are our neighbors, they are our ancestors, they're our children.
You know, people who have experienced migration in this way and, and, and you know, we might think, oh my goodness, it would have been so cool to be Ruth's neighbor. You know, you think, well, you might be Ruth's neighbor.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great point today.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: And how are you interacting with Ruth, who is your neighbor today, who came from another country after experiencing the death of her spouse with her mother in law.
She's a hard worker trying to make her way in a new land that she didn't necessarily choose, but was better than the land that she left.
Like, how can we serve Ruth and love her and let her know that she is welcome in our neighborhood?
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
And, and I think that is the story of so many immigrants. Right. No matter their reason for coming, the vast majority of them are here or elsewhere. They go elsewhere to, to try to find a better life, to find a safer place for their families, to work hard, to seek out opportunity, to enrich and, and give to the places that, that have received them and given them these opportunities.
I, you know, as I said, I come from an immigrant family, so I know a lot of immigrants and they are among the most patriotic people I have ever.
They are so grateful. They don't take anything for granted. Right. It's like they know this has been whatever they have now as the result of God's grace and goodness as well as a whole lot of sacrifice and hard work.
And, and aren't those the kinds of people we want to be our neighbors and our friends and among our community? Right.
As I, I, I just, I think we see this, maybe it's a little bit easier to see it in scripture than sort of our, our everyday, you know, current experience. But whether or not these heroes and heroines in scripture that you're mentioning, whether or not they chose to move or migrate, we see that they.
Who they become is very much because of their experience of migration. There is this, you know, depth of faith and wisdom and empathy and leadership that I think those who, who chose, who could stay in the same spot never went anywhere. That's.
That's not really a recipe for. For growth and character development and maturity. Right. Because you're not challenged. You're not facing new and different things and learning new things.
So there is so much that God does in shaping the character of people through the experience of migration, even when it's really, really hard.
But I think there is goodness, there's always goodness that God can create in the midst of some of those challenging experiences.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's. No, that's definitely true.
I think one more thing that I want to mention, and then I'll just. I'll give it to you to what, whatever.
Whatever you want to add is when you. When you mentioned how patriotic. And I think that that's really beautiful. I've had a very similar experience.
My Mexican American grandfather always had a Mexican flag hanging from his rearview mirror. And he was the most proud person I ever knew to be from Texas, to be in the US and just. Yeah, in a very similar way. And I think it's one of those things that we can definitely hold both.
And at the same time, I think that while that is a very beautiful thing, I think it is interesting to even just mention the.
I would say how nations and borders and all of those things have been so fluid over history. And so even to think about migration as being something that has had this fluidity, especially as we think about nations and borders, we have not had. Like, I was in Oklahoma, as I mentioned, this past weekend, I saw someone's license plate. I think they got these new plates that had 46 on it. Oklahoma was the 46th state. You know, I think this is like, pretty recent that we've had, like, states added to the union. Right. Meaning, like, our geography has changed, our borders have changed, all these things have changed. And I remember it was several years ago that I was talking with a friend who is himself a Mexican immigrant who came when he. He was very young.
And when he found out that my family was also from Mexico, he asked. It was my. My great grandmother who immigrated. And he asked me the question that I hadn't heard up until that point for my whole life. And he said, did your great grandmother cross the border or did the border cross her?
Oh, yeah, right. And so for, for Mexican immigrants, this is like, or, you know, families of immigrants, descendants of immigrants.
This is a real question, you know, and then, and then I, I did the math and realized, oh yeah, she, she definitely crossed the border. This was one of the things. But had she been just a couple of decades before, that may not have been her story.
And so even just thinking about, just, even just thinking about that and not just in our part of the world, but thinking about in other parts of the world. You know, we have Russia, the uss, you know, like ussr, Soviet States, you know, different places in the world where borders have changed even more recently. You know, where the maps, when I was in grade school don't match the maps that my kids have in grade school. And again, just adding another layer to individuals and families who experience migration. But sometimes, and we talked about, sometimes migration happens to people, but sometimes migration can happen to people in a sense, even if they don't move.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: You know, the experience of migration might happen to someone who stays even in the same place, and they may have to learn how to become patriotic for a country that they weren't even anticipating, you know, living in maybe five or 50 years before. So I don't necessarily have like a real specific point on that, but just to say, just to add that layer and just to maybe reinforce again, re. Emphasize how complex this topic is that it's, you know, we haven't even talked about. One of the wonderful multimedia presentations in the Bible study is someone just sharing his story. And you can hear the emotions, just the complex emotions as he describes leaving his home country, going to a new place, place in the US that was no place that he had ever been before and like no place that he had ever been before. And what that felt like, you know, to leave those things behind, to be on a plane and, and watch his home country, the only place he had ever known, disappear.
You know, these are people who are migrants, experience the, the loss and the gain in really complex ways that it's hard for us to grasp if we haven't had those experiences ourselves or haven't allowed ourselves to listen to people who have had those really complex emotions and had to go through those complex steps in their lives that involved so much loss and in, you know, we hopefully gain as well.
[00:44:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, I, I love that reflection. I think that that is very much something like what you were saying earlier about, like, can we just pause?
Because this is not simple. This is not easy. No individual story is going to be like somebody else's story. Everybody has a different path or experience of migration. And it requires a lot of listening, understanding, being willing to learn, being willing to let go of preconceptions, to truly delve into this topic of migration and try to understand it on a policy level, on a human level, and sort of on a. A soul, you know, spiritual level. And I think what I appreciate about this migration study, I certainly found this in helping to put it together, is it's. I will say it's challenging. Like it. It challenges a lot of our ideas about what migration is. What does it look like, what are the pros and cons, the consequences, the historical context, all of those things.
But lest anyone be scared, I do feel like the challenge comes very gently and with care.
Because you mentioned it's beautiful. There's artwork, there's questions, there's scripture. We're looking at specific passages in scripture. This is not a resource that is meant to hit you over the head.
This is meant to be sort of a gentle, compassionate guide with you, with each of us as we journey through this topic. Because it's difficult, it's challenging. It will probably push us to uncomfortable places. I think just, you know, you and I talking about patriotism, it's. It's one of those funny things in which there's something really beautiful about patriotism. There's something beautiful about loving your country.
I'm. I'm not against that. At the same time, I think it's clear from the teachings of Jesus and other parts of scripture that we are kingdom citizens first, right? And our first loyalties should lie with Jesus and his teachings and what it means to love as deeply as we can possibly love.
And.
And so I think that's one of the things that I continue to be challenged by is what is it to.
Sure, I can love my country. That's great. But what does it look like to love the kingdom of God first? To have that be my utmost citizenship and the kind of.
I don't know if laws is quite the word, but you know, the. The commandments, right, that. That we follow first and foremost.
Because I think as people of faith, as Christians, that really should be kind of our starting point, right?
Especially with a topic like migration.
Because. Because if we are able to see our fellow human beings as brothers and sisters in the family of Christ first before you are a citize that country or a particular nationality or particular ethnicity, I think it. It does profoundly change the way we see one another and interact with one another and care for one another. And. And I think that, that.
That is a huge part of what it means to follow Jesus.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
I feel like in some ways, because we're both just so.
Just so grateful and also, I think, so pumped about this study, many of the aspects of our conversation have answered the question, like, what do we hope, you know, what do we hope about for this study?
And I feel like you answered that, at least partially, I'm going to ask it specifically, and maybe I'll answer first to give you a minute to think about it, because mine's short, I think. But I thought of it as you were talking because it is challenging, I think, for you said for both of us as we're putting this together, like this challenged us as we were contributing to it.
And I think for me, my hope for this study is that because I mentioned I have a lot of friends who are immigrants themselves, I have a lot of friends who are weak in the. This language, this 1.5 generation, or second or third, you know, maybe folks who immigrated when they were very young or whose parents immigrated or grandparents immigrated.
And I say that to say for people for whom the migration story is very close, as you mentioned, your parents are immigrants. This is very close to you. And so I think my hope for the study is that at the same time, this study could be one that a small group full of people who fit the description I just gave would feel encouraged and challenged and honored by this study.
And at the same time that if, you know, if there was an openness, let's pretend with the folks that had that Stop the Invasion sign in their yard, if they are a member of a local church in my area and there was an openness in their heart, if someone invited them to a Bible study that was going to do this, then my hope was that that person would also feel challenged and encouraged by what is in that study, challenged to think about things differently, challenged to.
To interact with people differently and encouraged that the God that they are loved by, that they love, that they serve, is a God who cares deeply for the migrants in their midst. And that this would be something that would.
That they would find to be helpful and that they would also find maybe that would be hopeful for them, something that would give them hope for.
For our. Our current situation that we're in. I don't know, Dorcas, what would you add to that?
[00:51:51] Speaker B: Absolutely. I love that. And I think also, especially in this political moment, there are definitely people who want to learn more, they want to get involved, they want to help. And it is really hard sometimes to know where to begin because this is such a Complex heated topic. Right. It. I mean, I.
Just looking at social media is enough to scare me away. Right. It's like I don't want to touch this with a time for poll, even though I care so deeply about this. It just seems so fraught.
People are so angry and, and I think that this is a great place to begin, have questions. If you don't know what to do, don't know where to begin, don't know even how to begin to have the conversation around this topic, then, then I think this is an excellent resource to, to work through some of that, to give you some of that language, to provide some tools, some wisdom that, that can hopefully plant some seeds of, okay, what is God doing within me, within those around me?
I would love to see. I think, at least at this moment in time, I don't know that the church, big seed church, has had a very coherent response to all that is going on with immigration. You see things here and there, and there's a lot of folks who are on opposite sides, but if there's any way in which this could begin to contribute to unity of, you know, these are the core foundational values that we will hold to, you know, of loving our neighbors, of compassion, of empathy, of listening before we act, you know, all those sorts of things, of not acting out of anger, then, then I think this, this study will have done its job. If we can just play some role in.
For individuals, for small groups, for churches, communities.
I would love, because I'm not aware of any other study like this out there. I know there are certainly a number of great books out there written by Christian authors about immigration.
I think it's a wonderful resource. I hope that it will begin to shape how people think, how they act and maybe move the needle a bit toward a more compassionate response to immigration.
[00:54:36] Speaker A: From your mouth to God's ears. Dorcas, thank you so much for being with me. This, this study was a joy to contribute to with you, and it is a joy to see this come out into the world and hopefully into the hands and churches and small groups and Bible studies of people who are, are, as you described, really interested. And where, where can we start? Um, again. And this study is a part of the IVP made for pacs partnership. It is called Experiencing God's Care for Immigrants by myself, Alexis Busetti and my guest, Dorcas Changtosin. Dorcas, thanks so much again for being with me.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: Thanks, Alexis. It's a pleasure.
[00:55:24] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show Notes music and podcast production by Seth Busetti. Be sure to give us a review on itunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also visit us at. That makes total sense.com.
[00:55:55] Speaker B: Sam.
