Day 5--HOB

I am taking a new tack in these daily entries because I discovered that Neva Rae Fox, from Episcopal Church's Office of Public Affairs, gives a daily account of what happens here. You can find that from the TEC's website: www.episcopalchurch.org.  Look for Episcopal News Service.

Instead I want to give some general impressions. Our day began as always with Bible Study led by one of our chaplains. The text was from Acts 17. She asked us how we can become blind and poor and oppressed for the sake of Christ so that we might be raised by Christ and be used by God for God's kingdom. That is, it's not so much how we can help THOSE people, but how we can enter the brokenness of the world ourselves and ask God to make us new with all of God's creation. I found this extremely helpful. Immigration is about people on the borders and people in WNC who have no documents. It is also about people like me who have all the certificates in the world to certify that I belong, but are in sore need of conversion to rely completely on God's mercy. It's about tears and letting go of our strangle hold on life to join in the resurrected life. We do need programs but we need to begin with our own orientation. We need to be the poor in spirit so that we can experience God's blessing along with all of God's children on every side of every border.

My other impression is that we cannot ignore the reality of the changing demographics. Bishop Kirk Smith said that the estimate is that 12 million people are in the US without papers and that by 2020 one third of the US population will be Spanish Speaking. Today the USA is the 2nd largest Spanish speaking country in the world only surpassed by Mexico.  If we think this is a simple problem, the CATO Institute estimates that deporting 12 million people would costs $204 billion dollars.

While the immigration is a huge dilemma, there is an enormous evangelism opportunity for The Episcopal Church.  However, we must recognize that the new person is not going to join to be like the existing members but call the whole body to change.

Of the 7,000 congregations in The Episcopal Church, presently 80 are Spanish speaking. We need to multiply that exponentially and recognize that this will be expensive.
I have copied The Rev. Mark Adams comments from Neva Rae because they are worth your reading at least once:  The Rev. Mark Adams spoke of being asked, "Do you support illegal immigration?" Calling it "a divine moment when the spirit speaks something beyond what you are saying," he replied, "I don't want to support illegal immigration, but I support illegal immigration every day: anytime I buy oranges, or eat in a restaurant, or when I travel and stay a hotel, if I play golf, or go into a building that has been built in the last 10 years, I am supporting illegal immigration," naming this situation "the complexities of our lives and how they are intertwined."

I regret I misplaced my camera (which I now have again) because I have no pictures to share.

I can tell you that tonight we will be the first draft of a pastoral letter which some bishops have been working on for months and it will be issued to the wider Church at the end of our meeting.

The gift of this meeting has been to hear from a variety of voices from Arizona. It's always the stories that move me.

Finally, I have the deep privilege of witnessing the wideness of the Church. It's so moving to remember that our diocesan pledge to The Episcopal Church makes it possible for the Native Americans to have a bishop, funds our military chaplains, supports our ministries to Latinos and Hispanics, sends missionaries to places like Durgapur, India, supports relief efforts in Haiti and enables them to have a Bishop, gives millions of dollars to relief in the Africa, supports our historically black colleges. We may not always think of the changes our contributions make but they are vitally important. Some people ask me, "why do we give 18% of our budget to the national church," and I say, "Because it changes lives in the name of Jesus Christ in ways our diocese cannot." So be proud of your Church. I am and I am proud, honored, and humbled to serve you.

Pray for us and I pray for you.
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