May Prayer Partner: Praying for the Border (Plus: A Chance to Win a Free Book)

Dear friend,

The U.S.-Mexico border has been in the news often in the past month. In March, the number of apprehensions along the border was higher than in any single month in the past two decades – but with anticipation that the numbers could continue to rise in the next several months.

Of course, the challenges at the border have become a leading political issue as well, both in Washington D.C. and in some states. The State of Texas is reportedly considering a formal determination that the situation of the border amounts to an “invasion” – a phrase which, as I explained in a recent blog post for Christianity Today, I find to be unhelpful rhetoric.

At the Evangelical Immigration Table, we’ve always insisted that we need policy solutions that both ensure secure borders – to keep out anyone who would seek to do harm – and that respect our asylum laws, ensuring that we do not casually return those fleeing harm to a risk of persecution or even death.

But whatever one’s views on the policy issues, as Christians we cannot forget that each of these border apprehension statistics represents individual human beings, each made fearfully and wonderfully by God, each a vulnerable neighbor whom Jesus commands us to love and many of them brothers and sisters in Christ.

Many local churches – on both the Mexican and U.S. sides of the border – have been faithfully living out those biblical convictions, both when “border crisis” are in the headlines and when they’re not. You can find a list of a number of organizations that partner with these churches on our website.

We’d also like to encourage you to pray – for those ministering on the ground, for migrants themselves and for governmental leaders. You’re welcome to use the prayer points below in your own times of prayer, and/or to join a call with small groups praying together over Zoom next Monday, May 16 at 4 PM ET/3 PM CT/2 PM MT/1 PM PT (click here to join then, or here to add this to your calendar). We encourage you to pray for:

• Churches and other organizations ministering to vulnerable migrants along the border, particularly for Mexican church leaders who face security threats from cartels on account of their care for the vulnerable
• Migrants themselves, that those in need of life-saving protections would find it and that all would experience treatment that recognizes them as human beings made by God with dignity
• Children in particular, including those traveling unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian, who are often among the most vulnerable
• Agents of the Border Patrol and of other parts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, that God would give them wisdom and compassion as they do their job and that He would protect them from harm
• Policymakers, that God would give them wisdom and courage to forge policy solutions to the challenges at the border that protect both the United States as well as those fleeing persecution and seeking refuge

In Christ,

Matthew Soerens
National Coordinator, Evangelical Immigration Table

P.S. With two friends, I’ve recently written a new book, Inalienable: How Marginalized Kingdom Voices Can Help Save the American Church. One of the main arguments of the book is that immigrants – rather than a threat or an invasion to be feared – could actually be God’s answer to our prayers for revival in the U.S. church. We have a few copies of Inalienable that we’d like to give away. If you’d like a chance to win a copy, just fill out this form by Thursday, May 19, then I’ll randomly select two winners.