It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve done a book review, although I published one last month. Anyway, this review is for Start With Welcome: The Journey Toward a Confident and Compassionate Immigration Conversation by Bri Stensrud.
Bri is the director of the Women’s Christian organization Women of Welcome. I had the privilege of interviewing her for my podcast, The American Dream in Eyes of Immigrants, when I did a small segment on immigration allies. In the episode, she shared why and how Women of Welcome started and her work as an immigration advocate.
About Start With Welcome
The layout of the book’s chapters are questions:
How Did I Get Here?
Is Immigration a Pro-life Issue?
What Does the Bible Say about Immigrants?
Who is Welcome Here?
What Does Christlike Welcome Look Like?
Why Do People Come?
Have You Seen This Headline?
How Did I Miss This?
How Can I Help?
I like this layout because Bri answers the question within the chapters and in the chapter “How Did I Miss This?” Bri goes deeply and honestly about how her upbringing and culture played pivotal roles in how she missed immigration as a biblical issue versus a political one.
Alicia’s Story
In the chapter “What Does Christlike Welcome Look Like,” there is a story about a mom who came to the border with her son, who had cerebral palsy. In her home country, there wasn’t medical care for him, so she was desperate enough to leave her two younger kids with her sister and travel to the United States to get him medical care. However, she was denied entrance because that’s not how things work, and her son died in her arms three days later.
Reading that story broke my heart, and it reminded me of a mom I talked to earlier this year at Universal Studios. I was sitting down on a bench reading a book, yes, I was reading a book at Universal Studios, and the lady next to me was speaking to her son, and I was curious about her accent. I sparked up a conversation with her and came to find out she lives up north but moved to the US from Brazil eight years ago because her son is autistic. She knew there were more resources in the United States than Brazil had to offer, and her son was doing much better here. They were on vacation to Florida and taking a break.
Of course, I told her about my podcast and that I found it interesting and admorable her courage to move to another country for her son’s health. I mean, that’s what any mother would do, right?
Why Do People Come?
Which brings me to the chapter - why do people come? Bri starts the chapter with Miguel’s story and why he had to leave Honduras. She shares in the chapter different reasons why people choose to come to the US and this push and pull factor. And as a host of an immigration podcast, I hear different reasons all the time of why people choose to come to the US. Sometimes they are brought by their parents so that choice was made for them. However, there is a common denominator, which is the opportunities this country has to offer.
But regardless of why people come - we should have Christlike welcome for them and we should listen to their stories with compassion and empathy.
In Conclusion
At the end of the book Bri shares ways you can get involved if you feel called to do so. I highly recommend this book for you’re curious enough to lean into this topic from a different perspective and of course, I recommend my podcast to listen to immigrant’s stories with compassion.
With Love, Heidy
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