Imagine Opening Our Arms To Immigrants And The Disabled

Kaldi and the Dancing Goats is a story from Ethiopia. Kaldi was a goatherd, who one day was grazing his goats on a mountain side, but by the end of the day he could not find them.

Kaldi searched, and he searched, and he searched. Finally, he found them dancing around a bush whose red berries they had been feasting on. Kaldi decided to try the berries and found himself inspired to dance.

Kaldi took the red-berry treasure to some monks in a nearby monastery. One monk felt the red berries were a work of the devil and flung them into the fire. The fire brought out such an exquisite aroma from the red berries that the monks rescued the berries, ground them and made the hot, black drink we know as coffee. What they at first thought was a work of the devil, they later decided was a gift from God because coffee kept people awake during their prayers.

Some people feel that allowing a short, easy path to citizenship without economic burden for immigrants is a work of the devil. However, many immigrants are Christians fleeing from places of persecution and/or poverty to places that treasure things like freedom, equality and economic opportunity. 

Religious freedom is not a reality in northern Nigeria. Also other parts of Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, have absorbed about as many people fleeing from northern Nigeria as they can help. Nigeria is about 50 percent Islam, 40 percent Christian and 10 percent other faiths.

One tradition says that the reason Abraham of the Bible had to immigrate from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan is because he was being persecuted. God will use persecution and other situations to move us from one place to another for a good purpose. Genesis 12 records that Abraham coming to Canaan would be a part of his family being a global blessing to people.

The Brazos River flows through the middle of the American state of Texas. This river was originally named Los Brazos de Dios (In the Arms of God). Creyentes (believers) serve a big God whose arms are so big that they could never be too many people for Him to hug. Creyentes are God's physical arms on earth. Hugging immigrants is a blessing to us and to them.

Christian Minister and Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King, Jr., says, "[People] often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they do not know each other; they do not know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated." Demonic fear is designed to divide and to destroy people.

An East African proverb says, "When minds are the same, that which is far off will come." If we stay in fear, we cannot unify and do the great works God said we are to do.

Demonic fear produces irrational thinking. Imagine the extensive psychiatric problems in China due to China's one child policy with forced abortion and forced sterilization. Inflicting psychiatric problems reduces productivity. Productivity is essential for people to survive and thrive.

The idea of killing people and/or disfiguring them for social advancement is ancient and modern. In America and in other countries abortionists kill unborn baby girls and baby boys. Sometimes abortionists also kill babies born alive after botched abortions, adolescents and women. Abortionist LeRoy Carhart killed Christin Gilbert, a 19-year-old who had Down syndrome, and her baby. Gilbert is not the only woman killed by Carhart, who does late-term abortions. People with disabilities are discriminated against in the womb and out of the womb. Robert Ethan Saylor, was a young man killed in a movie theater because people didn't understand someone with Down syndrome.

We must learn to distinguish among foreign invaders/enemies and the potential friends of immigrants and people with disabilities.

Share some stories of immigrants and persons with disabilities overcoming discrimination. Write to:

Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, VA 22195

Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30. Recommend this article on Google.

Enjoy Memorial Day on Monday.

La Familia

What would you do for love? Would you go to prison? Calvin Fairbank and Delia Webster were teachers and abolitionists who helped Lewis Hayden, Hayden's wife, Harriet, and the Hayden's son escape from slavery.

The Hayden's made it safely from Kentucky to Ohio then to Canada. Fairbank and Webster were arrested and charged with slave stealing. Galatians 5:13-14 Amplified Bible says, "For you, brethren, were [indeed] called to freedom; only [do not let your] freedom be an incentive to your flesh and an opportunity or excuse [for selfishness], but through love you should serve one another. For the whole Law [concerning human relationships] is complied with in the one precept, You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself."

Calvin Fairbank, who was also a minister, agreed to plead guilty if Delia Webster was allowed to  go free. Webster was freed. Fairbank was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Black people look different from white people. The Haydens, Fairbank and Webster prove difference can be dynamic instead of a reason for hatred and abuse.

Rafael, my son who has autism, and I live in Virginia which is a state next to the state of Maryland. Even though slavery has been abolished in the United States, and Rafael, I and other African Americans enjoy our freedom, racial problems still exist in America along with conflict among all kinds of people. In Frederick, Maryland, a young man, Robert Ethan Saylor, was killed in a movie theater in January 2013 because people didn't understand someone with Down Syndrome.

God made each person different. No two people not even twins and other multiples have the same finger prints, eye prints or scent. God made us different on purpose. God even made some people with disabilities. Exodus 4:11 Contemporary English Version Bible says, "But the Lord answered, “Who makes people able to speak or makes them deaf or unable to speak? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Don’t you know that I am the one who does these things?"

Yellow (huang) was a color reserved for the Chinese Emperor and members of the imperial family. The emperor had to grant permission for other people to wear it.

Partiality puts up barriers to treating people right. James, a brother of Jesus Christ and an apostle, writes in the book of James Complete Jewish Bible, "My brothers, practice the faith of our Lord Yeshua, the glorious Messiah, without showing favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your synagogue wearing gold rings and fancy clothes, and also a poor man comes in dressed in rags. If you show more respect to the man wearing the fancy clothes and say to him, “Have this good seat here,” while to the poor man you say, “You, stand over there,” or, “Sit down on the floor by my feet,” then aren’t you creating distinctions among yourselves, and haven’t you made yourselves into judges with evil motives?"

Welcome and accept whoever wants to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and to join la familia de Dios (the family of God) this Good Friday or any other day. La familia helps each other.

Lewis Hayden raised $650.00 which through a chain of other players helped free Calvin Fairbank from prison within four years.