Caring for those who serve...

Capitalism is vicious, isnt' it? My dad has a thing against Walmart because he thinks they don't pay their people well, and my response to him is give the checkout clerk a tip just to even things out. But looking at that issue a little closer, there are people who work harder but get paid less than Mr. Lin. For a job like food delivery, which has easy entry and no skillset whatsoever, the marketplace has probably set an appropriate wage. A flight attendant is on duty more hours, gets a lower effective wage, but still she does the job for other reasons. A teacher might get low wages to start, but she has summers off. A shopkeeper risks every dime he has, and the rewards are not guaranteed. Each one of us makes infinite risk/reward calculations that guide our days and lives. If the reward isn't good enough, we move on to something else. But in the end, it is God who prospers us and provides our daily bread.

I think another point which must be made, in the context of your current immigration debate, is that migrants are motivated, no matter how unskilled they are. Admittedly, I speak as a migrant (to the UK, & maybe Europe one day), so I'm a little biased, but I have seen this with many others.

Another, and much more important point, about immigration, is that it brings the mission field to you when you can't go to the mission field. This has happened in the UK, where a number (some thousands; not to be sneezed at), have come to faith from Muslim backgrounds. There's the opportunity - use it!

I second Kamilla's observation with a similar one of my own.

My wife's family immigrated from Switzerland in the mid-19th Century, settling in Illinois. Initially, two brothers came to scout out places to settle.

What they found was a vast section of Illinois that was unproductive swamp, and, therefore, exceedingly inexpensive. One brother returned to report the news, and the whole family immigrated to purchase many thousands of acres of swampland. They knew, however, how to drain it. The did drain it, and then owned many thousands of acres of extremely fertile farmland.

Those original patriarchs are still known by name among their descendants in the area around Elgin Illinois, who are still farming that fertile land.

It all started with two young men leaving their families to find a better place to live.

It makes me take less stock in the idea that we should mourn the draining of these great swamps (an idea I got from the conservationists), to understand that real families were helped by the draining.

Come to think of it, my own grandpa grew up in a farming family in Jasper county Indiana, in what used to be the bottom of a swamp. (I guess that's where my family has its bog-ginnings).

I never thought how close the Josh McBroom stories are to personal family history!