Let Freedom Ring
On July 4th, while many celebrated the ideals of “freedom” and “liberty,” I found myself grieving and grappling with deeper questions about what true freedom really means.
Just weeks earlier, my family and I sat in court alongside our Afghan friends, a courageous family who crossed mountains, seas, jungles, and deserts to seek asylum in the US. What should’ve been a brief 20-minute hearing dragged into three agonizing hours. The prosecutor’s questions weren’t just cruel, they were absurd. “How do you know the bomb that destroyed your home was really from the Taliban?” she asked, insinuating the story was fabricated. My children, like me, sat shaken and angry.
Though the judge granted them asylum, the relief remains fragile because the government attorney reserved the right to appeal within 30 days. After surviving unimaginable loss and trauma, our friends must wait again. They followed every law. They trusted the process. And yet, suspicion met them instead of compassion. They’re not seen as neighbors to embrace, but as threats to contain.
Their story is far from unique. Across the country, countless vulnerable immigrant neighbors are being denied due process, stripped of legal protections, and swept into detention and deportation.
And yet, amid these harsh realities, it is within the very places often feared or overlooked —immigrant-led churches— that I’ve witnessed the kind of freedom we all ache for. Church leaders in these sacred spaces don’t have the luxury of avoiding political topics that directly target and profoundly impact their communities. However, I’ve glimpsed what the Apostle Paul described as “the peace that surpasses understanding.” It is faith lived out in the face of injustice, love proclaimed in adversity, and freedom found not in circumstance, but in Christ.
When I visited my friend Pastora Flor, who shepherds a church for asylum seekers, she shared about a father deported after a minor traffic violation. I expected her to sound the alarm during her Sunday sermon. Instead, she preached peace and challenged us all to respond with grace, even when wronged. “You show your spiritual maturity in the way you respond,” she told us. It was a gentle rebuke I didn’t know I needed.
In another corner of the valley, I listened to my friend Pastor Lamy address his Haitian congregation with calm conviction, even as hate-filled rhetoric directed toward them spiked. Preaching from Psalm 90, he encouraged us to keep praying, keep helping, keep obeying God. “Let them say what they say,” he said. “It’s not our fight. It’s the Lord’s fight. Be merciful.”
While many Christian voices have echoed fear: xenophobia, scarcity, self-preservation, these leaders point us to a higher truth—“Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18), and “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). Their faith wasn’t formed from comfort, but of trials. And this faith is reshaping mine.
As missiologist Dr. Timothy Tennent noted, “The immigrant population actually presents the greatest hope for Christian renewal in North America.” The very people some seek to shut out may be the ones God is using to re-disciple His Church in our country.
It’s very tempting in today’s culture wars to strive to be right, to be the loudest, and to drown out the other side. But my refugee and other immigrant friends have reminded me that the Church was never meant to compete for volume. It was called to be faithful.
Faithful in suffering. Faithful in sacrificial love. Faithful in walking not by sight, but by what is eternal. They’re reminding me about a freedom that liberates us from fear, that leads with mercy, and that draws near to the afflicted.
As my friend who ministers to an East African refugee church told me, “If we are in Christ, we have no reason to fear. With Him, freedom always rings.” So let’s relearn these timeless truths through our immigrant brothers and sisters and embrace again what true freedom looks like.
By: Mars Adema, with Phoenix Refugee Connections
