Coming to America

6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

I grew up in an area before highway 12 became 394 and County Road 18 became 169. It was long before a patch of wildlife preserve with intertwining snowmobile tracks became Ridgedale shopping mall. My parents built a small 3 bedroom rambler located on top of the hill at the crossroads of these two highways. On the opposite side of this busy interchange sat the corporate headquarters of General Mills, the makers of the famous Wheaties and Cheerios cereal brand.

This 3 bedroom home was built by Ecklund and Swedlund home builders. They were a couple of Swedish immigrants who developed much of the land in St. Louis Park The neighbors who built their home behind my parents were Japanese immigrants who spent several years in a Japanese internment camp. This man came to America to study Engineering, marry, and raise a family. They came to America to escape the post-war ravages of Japan. 

 Across the street was a Jewish couple, immigrants from Germany and survivors of the Nazi holocaust. The husband was said to be a Nazi survivor of Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews. He spent time in a Nazi concentration camp.

These two families became good friends..I cannot imagine what it must have been like for this Japanese and Jewish couple to be forced to leave their homeland, their families and travel all the way to America to start a new life away from the memories. It is safe to say that in each case their lives were better having left those homelands.

 Although each of them spoke English, it was a broken one. I often wondered what it must have been like for each of them. Do they often have sudden terror dreams of their war-torn homeland? Does this Jewish couple have nightmares watching their family members being carted off in cattle cars and never seeing them again?  I am told that the husband of the Jewish couple actually had a concentration camp mark on him which served as a constant reminder of the horrors he once faced. I wondered if he kissed the ground as he stepped off the boat at Ellis Island as he saw the face of Liberty. Oh, what a happy moment in time for this man who once faced the certainty of death in Hitler's Germany!

Not long ago I read something interesting: Immigrants were more likely to start businesses than those born in America.  Corporations like eBay, Colgate, Kohl's, AT&T, Kraft, and Pfizer are just some of the immigrant-founded companies that have become household names.

Fast forward to 2015 and we are hearing the cries and anguish toward Somalians because people are fearful that all Somalian's are terrorists. 

One of the quickest ways of dehumanizing people is to associate them by race and nationality. Hitler did this rather successfully and he came very close to exterminating the entire Jewish race and he would have been successful had America not woken up from their complacent slumber and come to their rescue.


“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
― Emma Lazarus
Those words, found on the Statute of Liberty, serve as a reminder of what America represents to the immigrants who travel here. It is a reminder of who we are as a nation and what it represents to those coming here from lands ravaged by war, disease, and poverty. Regardless of race and nationality many of these immigrants value what America represents. Many of these immigrants risk life and limb just to try to reach our shores. Some make it while most do not.

The Hmong people group is one very recent example of an immigrant group that has successfully acclimated to the American way of life. When they first came over I remember reading stories about hardship with many Hmong extended family members living in the same household and sharing the same food and supplies just to survive. Today, many of them are college graduates, holding responsible jobs, raising families in the suburbs and doing the same things with their children as many of us did with our own.

The newer Somalian people group will be no different. In fact, I was truly inspired when a well respected representative of this group came out and strongly condemned  the statement made by
 El-Shabbad about attacking the Mall of America. So inspired were these people that they decided to have a solidarity luncheon at the MOA to show their support for the American way of life. 

It will be interesting to find out what common household names come out of Somalian run businesses in years to come!

I truly believe when it is all said and done these radical thugs that hide behind the Isis/Isil flag of evil will not survive. We have far too many people who value what America stands for to allow this to happen. Consider this Neil Diamond song posted here as an 'in your face' message to these terror groups that nothing will stop America for being who we are and what we will become in the coming generations. 

Finally, I am reminded by a famous quote from former President, John F. Kennedy: "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

As a Christian, I have a responsibility to pray for the leaders of my country and for the right decisions on how to combat this current menace that is affecting our American way of life. 

As in generations before America will survive!