Denver Seminary

Saturday, March 24^th, was the annual meeting of Hispanic Baptists in Colorado. There was representation from Brighton, of course, as well as from Aurora, Thornton, Wheatridge, Greeley and elsewhere. Perhaps there were about 150 plus in attendance. I was there as the speaker. The gathering began in the morning with coffee and doughnuts and ended around 3:30 in the afternoon.

Each church had special singing numbers. One church group was represented by a blind girl playing the piano and singing. Another church group were all Guatemalans, from the indigenous Kanjobal population in the northern part of the country close to the Mexican border! They sang in their native tongue. They know some missionaries with whom I was acquainted from our time in Guatemala. Another Guatemalan from the Denver area knows some of my former students from the seminary in Guatemala City. What a small world! What a joy and a blessing.

I was there to teach these brothers and sisters for two sessions on what the Bible has to say about immigration.  There was much that resonated with their experiences—on the job, in their communities, in schools… People are surprised about the amount of material in the Bible about immigration. For immigrants there is the realization that God loves them in a special way (Deut. 10:17-19), that people in the biblical narratives went through similar things, and that the Old Testament laws on immigrants deal with matters that echo immigrant life today.

This biblical teaching has a lot for the majority culture to appreciate about God’s concern for outsiders, but it can encourage these immigrants in a special way. God walks with them in their pilgrimage for faith.