You Welcomed Me

"Wait, Dad. Are we for them or against them?"
Kent Annan was talking with his eight-year-old son about the immigrant and refugee crises around the world. His son's question, innocent enough in the moment, is writ large across our society today. How we answer it, Annan says, will reveal a lot about what kind of family, community, or country we want to be.
In You Welcomed Me, Annan explores how fear and misunderstanding often motivate our responses to people in need, and invites us instead into stories of welcome—stories that lead us to see the current refugee and immigrant crisis in a new light. He lays out simple practices for a way forward: confessing what separates us, listening well, and partnering with, not patronizing, those in need. His stories draw us in, and his practices send us out prepared to cross social and cultural divides.
In this wise, practical book, Annan invites us to answer his son's question with confident conviction: "We're for them"—and to explore with him the life-giving implications of that answer.

Kent Annan (MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary) is codirector of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute and a senior lecturer at Wheaton College. Kent is also the cofounder of Spiritual First Aid. His previous books include Slow Kingdom Coming and Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle. Kent and his wife have two children and live near Chicago.