I hope you enjoy this conversation with Grace (who is currently 19 and a freshman in college). Like the last time she and I did this, remember that her perspectives are her own and don’t represent all others like her (or even her siblings). But I know you will find her thoughts informative and interesting!
When you were a Tanzanian kid growing up in Tanzania with American parents, what did you know about American Black History? Did you feel any connection with it?
We read books as a family about the black struggle in America, like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and The Watsons Go to Birmingham. But I didn’t feel a connection to them. I remember thinking that Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas were really cool, but I was not African-American so they weren’t my people.
I knew about the East African slave trade because we visited museums in Zanzibar and Bagamoyo, which were places that were a part of the slave trade. It was flabbergasting to see that it really happened to people, because even now, as a history major, it’s amazing that we as a human race treated other humans like that. But East African slaves did not go to America. [They primarily went to the Middle East or were enslaved within Africa for exports of ivory or other goods.]
[We moved to the United States in the spring of 2020, shortly before the George Floyd riots that summer.] When we first moved here, I was in Target walking around without Mom, and this guy who was an older white man in a motorized wheelchair, stopped me. He said, “I just want you to know that Black Lives Matter and I believe that.”
I said, “Thank you.” But I wanted to say, “But I’m African.” Because I didn’t feel a connection with the movement at the time.
People assume that I am African-American. I don’t have an African accent; I sound like my parents. My love for other accents may have gotten me into trouble because I do use African-American vernacular all the time. So I can sound as if I’ve been raised in an African-American home. But I don’t always have the heart to explain the entire story, so I let them go ahead and believe that.
When Kisa joined my school sophomore year, that changed a lot for me. [Kisa was an international exchange student from Tanzania.] She helped me to embrace that part of myself and be proud of my identity as a Tanzanian.
How do you see the distinction between African-American and African?
If you have an ancestry of your family coming here due to slavery, then that’s what I count as African-American. African-Americans have their own culture of music and food. There’s also the impact of GI Bills and other forms of racism that have affected them. Things like gang life have been a part of African-American culture but not African immigrants.
African immigrants (like me) have a different culture. They stay much more African.
I went to church in Tanzania with Americans who worked for USAID. So when I think about foreign aid programs abruptly cut off, I think about those American families who uprooted their children to make a difference in developing countries and suddenly have no job. I think about local people employed by those agencies who suddenly have no way to feed their families. And, of course, I think about the impoverished people who benefit from those programs.
I hear Americans saying that this is justified because we need to help our own people first, that we have people in poverty here, people suffering from natural disasters. But then I consider how America’s foreign aid to other countries last year was only about 70 billion dollars. Which sounds like a lot until you consider that 70 billion dollars is less than 1 percent of the Federal Budget. Which still may sound like a lot until you realize that Americans spent 960 billion dollars on Christmas in 2024.
The United States has 4 percent of the world’s population and 30 percent of the world’s wealth. So do we have an obligation to help other countries? I think so. Especially when you consider that much of the world’s poverty contributes to our wealth — as in the cobalt industry in Congo.
On the other hand, living overseas has also made me very aware that government aid programs need much reform. I’ve read Dead Aid. I’ve read When Helping Hurts. But is drastically yanking the funding out under their feet the most effective way for reform? That just seems like a good way to create more instability and poverty.
I know hundreds of immigrants by name. I have Tanzanian friends who won the Green Card Lottery and now live in the States. As a school principal in Tanzania, some of my students were “anchor babies”—African or Asian children whose mothers flew to the U.S. to give birth solely to get their children U.S. citizenship. I’ve helped in after-school programs for children whose parents were undocumented. I’ve met refugee families who have built beautiful lives in America.
Even my children are immigrants, for goodness sake. I am intimately acquainted with the I-130, the N600K, the I-600, the I-485, and the B-2 visa applications, and I spent thousands of dollars to get them approved. I’ve scoured the instructions for these visas so carefully that I’ve sometimes known more about them than embassy consular officers or USCIS officers. The gray hairs on my head are named after visa applications.
So when I sense this mood of anti-immigration swirling around me, I take it personally. I see the faces of friends. I see the faces of my own children. And I know people would never say that my children aren’t welcome here. That my children aren’t those kind of immigrants. But that’s my point – all the clampdowns, loss of funding, and careless denigrating comments about immigrants don’t specify that there are many different kinds of immigrants. Refugees are not the same as asylum seekers which are not the same as illegal border crossers which are not the same as anchor babies which are not the same as adopted children.
Yet each has a face, a name, a story. Each is made in the image of God.
I think we all can agree, without a doubt, that we are not in favor of criminals and drug dealers and rapists immigrating to our country and that we need better ways of keeping them out. But when all the bad guys are thrown into the same pot as the vast majority of people who just want freedom and justice and a place to live without bombs and the Taliban and drug lords, I am indignant. On behalf of my friends. On behalf of my children.
As an American, I believe that strength comes from diversity of perspective and culture. With falling birthrates, the U.S. needs immigration to be sustainable. Plus, the U.S. economy is projected to increase by 9 trillion dollars in the next ten years because of the immigration surge.
As a Christian, I’m thrilled by the opportunities to live out the gospel in the lives of millions of people on our soil who might never be introduced to Jesus in their own country.
I can believe these things and still believe that an open border is not wise and that our country desperately needs immigration reform. (Trust me, I’ve experienced the dumpster fire of U.S. immigration up close and personal.)
I realize I may regret sharing these thoughts with the world. Our country has reached a frenzied pitch of political tension and the last thing I want to do is add to the noise. My prayer is to add perspective.
My fellow American Christians, I implore you:
Remember that to whom much has been given, much will be required. We are living in the most powerful, most wealthy country that has ever existed in the history of the earth. Even Americans who are struggling financially are still richer than more than 90% of the world’s population. We are the aristocracy of the world. It is true that we, as a nation and as an American Church, cannot help everyone. But when our country holds 30% of the world’s wealth, we wield an extremely powerful influence.
Let us not be flippant. Let us be sober-minded, recognizing our power and the responsibility that comes with it. Let us consider this responsibility with grave, thoughtful, careful, prayerful mindfulness. Let us not be guided by fear or by anger, by entitlement or selfishness, but let us hold the weight of what we have been given, remembering that one day, every American Christian will be held accountable for how we stewarded or squandered the vast freedom and wealth we have been given.
Let us remember that those of us who were born American and have access to a U.S. passport did nothing to deserve it. We won the DNA lottery. In God’s sovereign grace, He has chosen us to belong to this privileged country and time in history. Let us live as those who recognize the depth of the privilege we possess. And to whom much has been given, much will be required.
We may not have control over government policies or executive orders, but there is much we can control. We can cheer on reform but still speak well of immigrants, welcome and befriend them well. We can give generously and then give some more to international development projects. If we are involved in international business, we can choose justice and integrity over profit. We can advocate for America to welcome refugees – arguably the most deserving, most vetted, and the most vulnerable immigrants out there. And we can live our lives in a way that prioritizes the kingdom of God so much more than a kingdom on earth.
My friend Lucy in Tanzania sent me this text this morning: Habari za leo, dada. Nyumbani kwako ni sawa? Ninaomba kwa wewe sana. Upo wapi?
Roughly translated: How are you, sister? Is your house okay? I am praying hard for you. Where are you located?
When a friend from the other side of the world, who gets her news from local Tanzanian radio, knows about the fires in Southern California, that’s when you know you know the events happening around you are a big deal.
I woke up on Wednesday morning to the howling of sirens and the smell of smoke and looked out my second-story window to see a dark plume in the distance.
“It looks close,” I told Gil. “But I know the mountains can play tricks on you.” The mountains surrounding us on three sides had been on fire in September (over 40,000 acres in the end). Those fires had seemed close too, but stayed miles away.
I jumped onto Facebook and saw my local community groups buzzing with chatter. I was right this time – the fire was close. The Moose Lodge, not half a mile from our house, was engulfed in flames.
“One of the house church leaders actually asked me, ‘Do you know what prison is for us? It is how we get our theological education. Prison in China is for us like seminary is for training church leaders in your country.’” (From The Insanity of God by Nik Ripken)
Sometimes I wonder how persecuted Christians would feel about some of the stuff we non-persecuted folks say and sing and do.
This song came on the radio:
So I throw up my hands And praise You again and again ‘Cause all that I have is a hallelujah And I know it’s not much But I’ve nothing else fit for a King Except for a heart singing hallelujah I’ve got one response I’ve got just one move With my arms stretched wide I will worship You
I wondered what my brothers and sisters around the world would think about this song when they’ve lost jobs and gone to prison and faced threats and harassment and sometimes even death because they’ve chosen to follow Jesus. I don’t know if they would agree that all we can give to our King is our outstretched arms and singing voices.
I want to be careful in sharing my thoughts on this song. There is indeed nothing we can offer God to repay Him for our salvation. It’s a gift that cost Him everything and us nothing, and our response should be a profound and reverent sense of gratitude and awe. We are unworthy. And in moments when we grasp the depth and width of that gift, worship should be spontaneous. Which is, I assume, what this song reflects and why it resonates with so many people.
But my concern is with the narrow definition of worship that’s implied. And it’s not just this song: guys who lead the singing in our churches are called “worship” pastors, and the woman on Christian radio demands “WORSHIP NOW” and then plays a song. I wonder when it happened in our Christian culture that we began to equate worship with music.
We can worship through music, of course – it’s one of my favorite things to do. But when I hear a song on repeat that tells me that the best I can offer the king of the universe is a hallelujah and outstretched hands and singing loudly (after all, you’ve got a lion inside of those lungs!), I ask myself if we’re missing something. Is this all that worship is?
Jesus told his followers that they would be hated because of him and that obeying him may mean that they leave their families and homes. He said they would be ostracized and insulted and that anyone who wants to follow him must deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow him.
Following Jesus means our lives mirror his. And that means willingly embracing – even walking into – unselfishness, humiliation, sacrifice, and pain. Yes, resurrection is coming – that’s our daily hope – but may we never fail to remember that the cost of following Jesus is so much more than singing and lifting our hands.
When we tell ourselves that worship looks only like singing, then it’s easy to ignore that God made it clear that worship looks like:
Choosing integrity over a job promotion Fighting for sexual purity Being generous until it hurts Showing kindness to a nasty person Finally forgiving Sacrificing free time to volunteer Caring for someone who will never reciprocate Texting a neighbor Doing a job to the best of our ability Creating beautiful things: books, gardens, spreadsheets, cakes…and songs, of course Starting a Bible study Opening a home to visitors Putting down the phone or changing the channel Learning a language in order to make a friend Risking humiliation to have a spiritual conversation Intentionally embracing the messiness of community Uprooting for a workplace, neighborhood, or country that needs the gospel Praying for someone right on the spot
Every day, every decision, every action, gives us a chance to worship God. Music is a powerful tool for reminding us who we are living for, why we chose Him, and why He’s worth it. But our response to the King who gave us everything should never just be a song; it should be a willingness to lay down our lives. Just ask the Christians in China.
