Dios Te Ama
We’ve been loving on some families in our community lately with meals, visits, and connection. These are families with kids at Beaverdam Elementary—our school, our neighbors, and in many ways, our home. There are about 23 kids among these families, which is an absolute blessing.
The majority of these families speak Spanish. The majority of our church doesn’t.
That’s not something to judge. It’s simply something to notice. And maybe even more importantly, it’s something to celebrate: God is bringing us together with people who are different from us.
That’s a pretty consistent theme in Scripture, after all. God has a way of stretching the boundaries we create between “us” and “them.” Jesus didn’t shy away from people who were different from him. He crossed cultural, religious, social, and economic boundaries all the time. Again and again, he showed us that loving our neighbors means actually getting close enough to know them.
And this week, I had one of those proud-pastor moments.
One of our leaders wanted to give the kids a small gift along with their meals. She picked out little Bluey puzzles, which seemed especially appropriate given our recent series, The Gospel According to Bluey.
But then she did something that really caught my attention.
She made a sticker to put on each gift. And instead of taking the easy route and writing the message in English, she translated it into Spanish.
The sticker said:
“¡La vida es mejor cuando estamos conectados!”
“Life is better when we’re connected!”
What a beautiful picture of what it means to live out our faith.
Because sometimes loving someone means being willing to move a few inches outside of what is comfortable or familiar so that they can hear the message in a way that makes sense to them.
It means saying, “I see you. I know you’re here. And I want you to feel at home, too.”
This is exactly the kind of culture we’re building at KUMC. Our vision is that we would serve as a heartbeat in the community so that all feel connected and worthy of love.
Not just the people who speak like us.
Not just the people who look like us.
Not just the people who already know how to navigate church.
Sometimes that looks like a meal. Sometimes it looks like a visit. Sometimes it looks like a little Bluey puzzle.
And sometimes it looks like taking the time to say, in someone’s own language:
“Life is better when we’re connected.”
From my heart,
Rev. Steph Margeson
