The plane lands in the middle of a Chicago winter. A man steps out into air so cold it burns his lungs. He does not know the city or the language. Everything he owned and everyone he loved are behind him. What greets him is not an official or a government worker but two people holding a sign with his name and a cup of hot coffee. They are volunteers from Rainbow Railroad, there to help him begin again. He has fled a country where being gay meant living under threat, and he has arrived in a place where strangers choose to love him without condition. In that moment, safety feels almost impossible to believe.

In a recent article for LGBTQ Nation, Greg Owen tells the story of Rainbow Railroad’s work helping queer refugees find sanctuary in nations like the United States and Canada. These are people who escape regimes where violence is not only permitted but commanded. They risk their lives for a chance at freedom, often arriving with little more than hope.

Yet, in America, the same government that once opened their doors now close them again. Under the Trump administration, refugee programs have been gutted, and those seeking asylum face suspicion, cruelty, and rejection. It is a cruel reversal for people who come seeking refuge in a country that promises liberty and justice for all. The same nation that once offered a (relatively) safe harbour now builds barriers against people of colour, immigrants, and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.

This is not a new story. Every generation shows how fragile progress can be. Laws can change, protections can vanish, and rhetoric can turn from compassion to contempt overnight. For those who have survived persecution, this instability is not abstract policy but a matter of life and death. The temptation is to believe that governments will learn, that they will one day hold firm in their commitment to justice. But history teaches otherwise. Justice cannot depend on the moods of politicians or the tides of power. It must take root in communities that refuse to abandon one another.

That is where the Church must find its calling again. The Church cannot stand on the sidelines, waiting for better leaders or more humane policies. We must be communities of active solidarity, not institutions of passive sympathy. When governments close doors, faith must open them. When systems fail to protect, kinship must provide refuge. To follow Christ is to welcome the stranger, to bind wounds, and to share bread at the table of belonging. Anything less is a betrayal of the gospel we claim to believe.

Faith communities have within them much of what is needed to do this work. We have buildings that can shelter, networks that can mobilize, and stories that remind us what hope looks like in practice. We can partner with organizations like Rainbow Railroad, sponsor refugee families, and offer practical support to those rebuilding their lives. We can educate our congregations about global persecution, speak out against xenophobia, and use our collective voice to press for justice. But more than any of this, we must become places where people find the safety and welcome that governments cannot guarantee.

When we open our homes, share our resources, and risk proximity to those most vulnerable, we do not only change their lives. We reclaim our own humanity. We remind the world that love does not wait for permission. The Church was never meant to mirror or cower to the power of the state but to model the power of compassionate resistance against empire. And such a resistance, when lived fully, must confront systems that privilege some lives over others.

The question, then, is not whether governments will fail the marginalized. They will. The question is whether the Church will stand in the gap when they do. The story of one refugee arriving in the cold and being met by strangers with open arms is not only a story of rescue. It is a glimpse of the world God calls us to build. It is the reminder that even when nations close their borders and hearts grow cold, there remains a place where love still chooses to show up.

That place must be us.