I was recently visiting our team in Colombia, and had the privilege of being with a local church ministry for a morning, as they respond to the needs of (mostly) Venezuelan migrants. I was so impressed with their core response of accompanying people in their spiritual journeys alongside their physical journeys and needs. They were able to support people through monthly food parcels for those recently arrived, as well as ongoing support in accessing medical and education systems, and encouragement in job search or getting started in small business, and yet all of that was based around a spiritual discipleship as people found God in their lived experiences of migration.
Since borders opened after COVID, the migration movements from and within Latin America have increased significantly. Nearly 7 million Venezuelans have left the country in recent years - that´s around a fifth of the population! It´s estimated that 1 million of them are in Colombia.
The Darien strait, an uninhabited stretch of impenetrable jungle on the Panama-Colombia border without roads or settlements, once under the control of guerrilla fighters and drug cartels, is now the place of thousands of Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, as well as North Africans and others, fighting their way through the jungle with all it´s dangerous wildlife and tropical disease, as well as the threat of assault, rape and attack, making their way north.
The USA border authorities have seen an overall increase in migration at their southern border, but also a change in the nationalities of those trying to enter their territory both legally and illegally. Just a few years ago, the vast majority of people crossing into the states were from Mexico and Central America, but now the numbers of Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians have overtaken them, making their ¨Safe third country¨ agreements (which allows the USA to send migrants back to Guatemala and El Salvador) irrelevant for the vast numbers they are encountering now. Article - Migration encounters at US-Mexico border
All of this brings to my mind God´s words to Habakkuk 'Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn´t believe even if someone told you about it.' Habakkuk saw war and destruction around him, and asked God was he was going to do about it. God´s replies was an encouragement to keep watching, - but maybe not towards the things or the responses that you´ve seen in the past. Expect something new! I am sure that God is not surprised by these migration movements happening in our world. He is already working in and through them.
I want to be like Habakkuk - with my eyes open, standing at my post to see what the holy spirit is doing. So I´m leaning into opportunities to be alongside migrants (of many kinds), to understand more of their experience, and see what God is doing in and through them.
