Dear saints,
This weekend we celebrate Refugee Ministries Sunday at All Saints' traditionally celebrated on the Sunday closest to World Refugee Day. According to the UNHCR there are currently over 26 million refugees in the world today, the highest number on record. The total number of people in the world who have been forced to flee their homes is closer to 84 million, more than the population of the entire western half of our country. It's staggering and heartbreaking and all too easy to feel like the scale of the crisis is just too enormous for us to be able to do much of anything about. Most of the time, though, church is one-by-one movement. Your life has the opening to love another life. That's the daily choice for any follower of Jesus. Through the course of the past 30-plus years of refugee ministries, the Jesus followers of All Saints' have been loving other human lives one by one and the impact has been deep and profound. Never underestimate the difference one life can make in another's. It is often the only thing that can. So let us give thanks for the gifts of God that we all have come to know through these decades of friendship with those who first came here, and who still arrive here, as refugees. And for those of you who have given yourself to this ministry, thank you for making your one life count in this particular and wondrous way.
Peace,
Simon+
