CHAPTER 15

A Welcome from Walter

What we do with our love will become the conversations

we have with God.

I have a friend named Walter. After the government was overthrown in

his country, he escaped from jail in a hail of bullets and fled to the United
States for safety. Now Walter helps people resettle here after they’ve
been forced from their homes in other countries. Many of them arrive at
airports in the United States straight from United Nations refugee camps
overseas. They step off the plane having experienced years of hunger and
thirst, displacement, and fear. Confused. Scared. Lonely. They come as
strangers to this new place. They don’t stop at baggage claim for luggage,
because they have no clothes. Nor do they have any idea who they’ll
meet, where they’ll live, or what they’ll do once they arrive. They’re easy
to spot when they step off the plane, because most still have UN tags
dangling from lanyards around their necks.
After getting off the plane, America’s newest guests walk awkwardly
and tentatively toward the arrival terminal, busier people edging by them
in the halls. Anxiety grows on their faces with each step. Then everything
changes for them when they see Walter standing at the gate with his huge
smile and his arms stretched wide, reaching out toward them. Walter
welcomes these beautiful people to their new lives. He treats them as if
they were Jesus Himself—because Walter knows Jesus, and Jesus said
the way Walter treats these people is the way he’s treating Him.
Walter let me come along with him to the airport to greet some
arriving refugees. I didn’t know what to bring with me, so I brought a