Of all the startling executive orders announced in the last few months, why does halting the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act scare me the most?
This is why.
It was a Sunday morning in Tanzania, we were on our way to church, and we needed gas. We pulled our rickety white van into the nearest station (which were always full-service) while Gil and I fished around for cash (which was always the only payment option).
Gil only had 50,000 shillings, which he passed to the gas station attendant. As the attendant filled the tank, I triumphantly rustled up another 30,000 shillings from the depths of my purse. “Aha! We can top up now!” I declared.
I rolled down my window. “Please add another 30,000,” I called in Swahili to the attendant.
Oddly, instead of adding extra gas to our tank, the gas station attendant pulled a large wad of receipts from his pocket. He sifted through them and handed me an old, wrinkled receipt for 80,000 shillings.
I sat there for a moment, totally flummoxed, until it dawned on me. The attendant had misunderstood me. He didn’t realize I was asking for 30,000 shillings of extra gas; he thought I wanted a receipt for 30,000 shillings more than we had paid.
Why would the gas station attendant make that assumption and then nonchalantly comply? Because people in Dar es Salaam who are wealthy enough to own cars often hire drivers. The drivers run their errands and, of course, fill the car up with gas. And if a driver can produce an inflated receipt to his employer, he gets some extra cash on the side.
So when customers left their receipts behind, the gas station attendants collected them, ready to dutifully pass them on to pilfering drivers. If I had wanted a false receipt, all I needed to do was ask. Embezzlement was that easy.
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 mom tells the story of taking my brother and me to a Christmas event at the American Embassy in Liberia. I had just turned seven and had lived in Liberia for a year. There was a Santa at that party, and he asked Paul and me what we wanted for Christmas. We sat perched on his knee, completely stumped, unable to think of a single thing. There was no question in our young minds that we wanted Christmas presents. But since a year had separated us from television, Toys R Us, and the Sears catalog, we couldn’t possibly imagine what we wanted those gifts to be.
My kids used to be the same way. But after four years in America? They can fill up an Amazon wishlist like nobody’s business.
When we moved into our new house a year after we arrived in California, I fretted over the laminate flooring, which is light brown on the bottom floor and dark brown from the stairs up, and gazed disapprovingly at the bedroom doors which look like they’ve been patched over several times by miscreant children. That is, until Gil gazed disbelievingly at me and reminded me that this house is way nicer than anything we’ve ever lived in, and what on earth had happened to me?
We’re Black Panther fans in this house, it being the only superhero movie set in Africa and all.
Then I read Cobalt Red, and I told my kids that Wakanda is a real place – it’s called Congo. This is why: the fictional Wakanda held the mythical metal vibranium, which made it the most technologically advanced country on the planet. The nonfiction Congo holds more cobalt than the rest of the world combined, which is the metal required for lithium batteries. Given the worldwide demand for rechargeable batteries, one would assume that Congo should be the most technologically advanced country on the planet. Or at least the richest. Just like Wakanda.
But Marvel doesn’t mirror real life. Despite the fact that over 70% of cobalt comes out of Congo (111,750 tons in 2021), the country languishes as the fourth poorest in the world. In this twisted fairytale, the wealth of Wakanda is raped, exploited, ravaged. In the greatest irony of ironies, only 9% of Congolese even have electricity.
And then there’s the surprise ending: I benefit from this exploitation.
He doesn’t have money for bus fare, so he walks miles every week to Tanzanian public schools to share the Story of God with teenagers.
This man is my friend. He went through our Bible School program. He is a wonderful husband and father, a faithful Christian committed to Scripture. He is an English speaker and savvy businessman with many skills, but finding regular sources of income in Tanzania can be challenging.
Yet his heart is for ministry. In Tanzania, public schools welcome outside teachers to cover religion classes. There is no pay involved, just a strategic opportunity for God’s servants to teach hundreds of kids about the Word of God.
This friend built a team to take the gospel to these schools. But he doesn’t own a vehicle and has no money for bus fare (about 25 cents a day) because any money he earns from side businesses goes towards feeding his family and sending his kids to school (which is never free). So he walks. Every week. He walks miles and miles to get to these schools.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, I watch a commercial for a luxury vehicle: A perfect man with a perfect suit drives on a perfectly smooth road in his perfect car, and the voice-over lauds the heated seats, 14-inch media screen, aromatherapy, and champagne holder.
Two men, living under the same sun. One with very little in his life to make him comfortable, yet prizing the kingdom of God. The other – epitomizing comfort.
