I live in this overcrowded, beautiful neighborhood in Chicago called West Ridge. It’s a mosaic of refugees, immigrants, and native-born Americans. Along with a small ministry team, I have the privilege of serving many refugee and immigrant families—helping to provide for felt needs, building friendships, and sharing Jesus with them.
I don’t know about you, but I have some long-standing prayer requests. The kind you measure in years, not months. And after years of waiting for answers to those prayers, my faith can waver a bit. Sometimes I doubt whether what I’m seeking is really from God or not. Have I misunderstood desires that I thought were from the Lord? Have I been wasting time praying for the wrong things? And if not, how can I maintain faith to believe what my eyes cannot yet see (Hebrews 11:1)?
My kids and grandkids are spread around the country. Getting together has gotten more and more difficult as the grands have grown and have jobs and sports and camps. Our son and his family have a farm with pigs, cattle, chickens, and ducks—they can’t leave for an extended time.
Tijuana is a lot like where I live now, in San Diego. The sun smiles down on us daily and the temperature is almost always within a degree of perfect. We have the same dry dust, rugged plants, and we are both situated between the sea and low coastal mountains. Our cities would be one, except for the border running through them.
“You need to write.” My eyes blinked at the woman sitting next to me at the pastoral gathering. She was like me in a way, but further along the journey. We had both moved from our homes in other countries to plant our families on the black sand shores of Iceland. This island straddled across two continents that held the beautiful tension of Fire and Ice.