Bethel Hosts Im­mi­gra­tion Sum­mit

The Coun­cil for Chris­t­ian Col­leges and Uni­ver­si­ties (CCCU) held its Re­gional Im­mi­gra­tion Sum­mit at Bethel Uni­ver­sity on March 10. The sum­mit took place in the Ro­tunda of the Ever­est-Rohrer Fine Arts Cen­ter from 2-7 p.m. 

The sum­mit fea­tured four pan­els from var­i­ous per­spec­tives in­clud­ing lo­cal im­mi­gra­tion ad­vo­cates, Bethel stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als. Matthew So­erens, U.S. Di­rec­tor of Church Mo­bi­liza­tion and Ad­vo­cacy for World Re­lief, spoke from his back­ground in prac­tic­ing law. Ac­cord­ing to the CCCU, he pre­vi­ously served as a De­part­ment of Jus­tice-ac­cred­ited le­gal coun­selor at World Re­lief’s lo­cal of­fice in Wheaton, Illi­nois. 

“It’s re­ally only been in the last few years, I would say, that [im­mi­gra­tion] has be­come this uniquely con­tro­ver­sial is­sue,” So­erens said. “For a lot of peo­ple, cer­tainly in so­ci­ety as a whole and cer­tainly in the lo­cal churches that we part­ner with, it’s not an ob­vi­ous thing that we should talk about refugees.” 

So­erens pre­sented a 2015 study con­ducted by Life­Way Re­search and spon­sored by the Evan­gel­i­cal Im­mi­gra­tion Table, re­gard­ing im­mi­gra­tion. The study based its find­ings off 1,000 com­pleted on­line sur­veys from Amer­i­can evan­gel­i­cal adults. When asked what their biggest in­flu­encer on think­ing about im­mi­gra­tion was, 12% of re­spon­dents said the Bible.  

“We do not of­ten enough spend time with what does the Bible say,” So­erens said. “For those of us for whom the Bible is our ul­ti­mate au­thor­ity, how do we re­spond?” 

So­erens said that Je­sus was a refugee, based on U.S. le­gal dis­tinc­tions. He cited Matthew 2 when God in­structs Joe­sph in a dream to flee Beth­le­hem with Mary and Je­sus. King Herod or­dered all the young boys to be ex­e­cuted, so the fam­ily sought refuge in Egypt. 

So­erens noted that the roughly 26 mil­lion refugees flee­ing per­se­cu­tion to­day can iden­tify with Je­sus. He also said that every­one is cre­ated in the im­age of God, so every­one has the po­ten­tial to con­tribute.  

The sec­ond panel fea­tured Christy Staats and Liz Dong, who both worked with the Evan­gel­i­cal Im­mi­gra­tion Table and the Na­tional Im­mi­gra­tion Fo­rum. Tony Bur­rell, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of The Wel­come Net­work, led the panel. 

Staats spoke about her ex­pe­ri­ences work­ing with her home church, Christ Com­mu­nity Chapel in Hud­son, Ohio. She helped cre­ate a refugee min­istry called Cross­ings which helps the church wel­come in refugees. 

While im­mi­gra­tion ap­pears to be ex­clu­sively a po­lit­i­cal is­sue, Staats said every­thing be­longs to God. She quoted Dutch the­olo­gian and scholar Abra­ham Kuyper about God’s do­main over hu­man ex­is­tence.  

“Bib­li­cally, pol­i­tics is about ethics,” Staats said. “How do we live well with each other and what would it look like to live in the king­dom?” 

Dong spoke from her ex­pe­ri­ences as young im­mi­grant from China to a Chris­t­ian ad­vo­cate for refugees. She en­cour­aged at­ten­dees to en­gage kindly with peo­ple from dif­fer­ent cul­tures de­spite dif­fi­cult bar­ri­ers. 

Dong came to the United States from China as a re­cip­i­ent of De­ferred Ac­tion for Child­hood Ar­rivals (DACA) with a de­pen­dent visa. At 12 years old, she lost her im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus when her im­mi­gra­tion at­tor­ney made mis­takes on her pa­per­work.  

But through her youth pas­tor’s ad­vo­cacy and World Re­lief, Dong even­tu­ally re­gained her im­mi­grant sta­tus. She en­cour­aged at­ten­dees to wel­come the stranger just as Je­sus com­manded. 

“I think the King­dom ex­tends into the po­lit­i­cal realm,” Dong said. 

The third panel fea­tured five Bethel stu­dents who ei­ther are im­mi­grants or whose par­ents are im­mi­grants. Kent Eby, as­so­ci­ate pro­fes­sor of mis­sion, gave ques­tions for each of the stu­dents to an­swer. 

A for­mer stu­dent, Stu­dent En­gage­ment Co­or­di­na­tor An­nelotte Letens, par­tic­i­pated in the panel. She said she learned a lot from the dif­fer­ent tes­ti­monies of her fel­low in­ter­na­tional stu­dents. 

“My one big take­away, as some­one who loves Je­sus, is that im­mi­gra­tion is stress­ful,” Letens said. “Even be­ing from North­ern Eu­rope, be­ing white and fe­male, makes it all eas­ier, but it’s still so stress­ful be­cause it’s not in my hands.”  

Letens is an im­mi­grant from Ger­many who grad­u­ated from Bethel last spring. She said en­cour­ages stu­dents to get in­volved with the In­ter­na­tional Stu­dent Fel­low­ship. The club pro­vides an op­por­tu­nity for U.S. and in­ter­na­tional stu­dents to learn and en­gage with dif­fer­ent cul­tures. 

“The only way to learn about peo­ple is to sit with them and lis­ten,” Letens said. “One thing I’d also say is to not be scared to share the truth.” 

The fi­nal panel in­volved a pre­sen­ta­tion with Jill Stolz­fus, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor for the As­so­ci­a­tion for a More Just So­ci­ety (AJS). AJS is a Chris­t­ian or­ga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to do­ing jus­tice in Hon­duras and in­spir­ing oth­ers to do the same.