God has called us to be urban missionaries in Minneapolis at such a time as this. Our role is to make God known and worshipped through helping bring people to Jesus and making disciples who are taught and equipped to make more disciples of Jesus. The vision statement for Luke's ministry team is, "Walking with vulnerable immigrants, internationals, and refugees toward kingdom flourishing." Therefore, I spend a lot of time with immigrants in our community, pointing them toward Jesus. This includes turning away from sin and honoring God in all things. This has been wonderful to see God using me people whose culture primary languages are different than mine. At the same time, it has been difficult to face the grief of saying goodbye to disciples and friends who are leaving for one reason or another. A few of those whom I've ministered to have been detained and others have recently chosen to move or self-deport.
My freind Ron and I do weekly prayer walks in our neighborhood. And my neighbor Donna leads a monthly pryer meeting for our neighborhood at her house. We are grateful for the people that God calls to other areas, such as government leaders who need to make difficult decisions for our society including policy making. And we pray for them a ton, that they would submit to God and that God would lead them to make policies that would be fair and helpful to all people created in God's image...and along with law enforcement, to appropriately bring justice to those who commit crimes and harm our society.
People of various legal status currently fear being harrased or detained, even if they are legal residents. Therefore, I am now experiementing with more connecting through online Bible reading plans together instead of always getting together for Bible study.
Jericho Road Ministries has been a wonderful partner in ministry! There, I get to serve many people who are in desperate situations with both pratical helps and with Spriitual leadership. (Think both Social Services and Pastoral Care) On Monday afternoons I inteview clients where I often get to pray with them and share the Gospel. Many get a Bible to take with them. They also may receive invitations for further conversations and connections to our church family.
On Thursdays, I bring a small group of neighbors to help with food distirbution and I get to lead a Bible teaching for the volunteers at Jericho Road. The volunteer base used to be 30 or so Latinos serving about 250 other Latinos in our neighborhood. Recently, because of the ICE surge, we have had only a handful of Latino volunteers but many other volunteers have stepped in to help get the resources where they are needed in our community. Going forward, I am hoping that more Latinos will return to volunteer and reconnect with neighborhood ministry.
