“Where have you felt closest to Jesus this week?” The spiritual reflection I heard today posed this question, which I initially dismissed as vague and “touchy-feely.” Then I remembered my volunteer duty on Thursday with FAITH, speaking and praying with immigrants called to the federal courthouse complex. It was a distressing day, as most of the immigration clients in the waiting room had been notified less than 24 hours earlier to appear the very next morning. That urgency seemed new and unsettling.

In the waiting area, I had numerous opportunities to speak with people and pray for them. Many seemed concerned that they might be detained that day, and some were almost resigned to being deported. A woman from Nigeria was worried about the car she’d parked nearby, having no one to move it if she were arrested. An asylum seeker from Mexico had been told previously that she could be given the choice only of being sent to Uganda or El Salvador. A tiny, aged Ethiopian mother fretted for her mentally unstable son who wasn’t reemerging after his check-in. Each one was worried; each one appreciated my prayer and concern; each one was hopeful that God would be with them.

Each one was taken into custody that very afternoon.

At the end of my shift, I was wrung out. I needed to decompress and be alone to pray and journal.

And yet, today my heart knew that this very place is where I had most clearly seen Jesus this week. To borrow from Mother Teresa, I had “seen Christ in his distressing disguise” of the immigrant, the stranger, the vulnerable, the afraid. By serving them in my feeble way, Jesus claims in Matthew chapter 25 that I was serving him! And that is indeed how it felt.

The next question posed today was “And what did you experience?” Pondering this was sobering. I had experienced pain. I’d experienced heaviness. I experienced empathy. I experienced something like power leaving me.

None of the above are pleasant feelings. And yet I felt nearest to Jesus this week in that same experience of emptying, of pouring out.

From a human standpoint, accompanying vulnerable immigrants like this feels powerless. I “fix” nothing. It’s almost a tacit admission of how little I can impact events. And yet, my fellow volunteers and I often receive effusive thanks for being willing to enter into another’s pain and anxiety, to provide an opportunity for spiritual grounding and a reminder that a loving God knows them, sees and cares. Praying with one person can also be a calming witness to anyone else in the waiting room who notices, to clients and attorneys, perhaps even to the ICE employees and contractors behind the mirrored glass.

One man was there with his aging mother (who has dementia). He told me afterwards that when he was called back for his ‘appointment’, there were six ICE agents ready to arrest and handcuff him. But, protesting that he is his mother’s sole caregiver, they eventually released him into her custody, albeit begrudgingly. Did our FAITH presence in that waiting room soften any hearts among the ICE staff?

I don’t know, but I do know that I felt closest to Jesus this week when I was serving our vulnerable immigrant neighbors. Before I came home, I’d signed up for my next shift, on Christmas Eve.

Cory

December 2025