I was in a workshop on “Trauma, Culture Care and Worship” where one of the speakers, Gabriel Salguero, told us that between the two sessions he had received 10 text messages from a fellow Latino pastor in Texas whose colleague in Texas was crying to him for help because of the recent announcements about undocumented people in the US. Ninety percent of his congregation of 2000 are undocumented Latinos. I heard speakers from Egypt, Lebanon, Pakistan who are living through unprecedented persecution. Anne Zaki, from Egypt’s Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo spoke prophetically to us North Americans about the new days of Elijah and Isaiah that are fast approaching us. It was all very humbling but also galvanizing.
It was galvanizing in that never before has there been such a need for we who experience white privilege to wake up in our places of worship and work and work tirelessly to bring the Revelation 7 vision to reality. This is difficult but beautiful work and begins one relationship at a time, one invitation, one song, one conversation, one small step toward embracing the diversity of the human family.