Sometimes you watch a movie and you forget about what it was even about, The Red Sea Diving Resort was one of those movies that spoke to me in ways a movie hadn’t in a long time. (my review can be found on my Letterbox’d account here: https://letterboxd.com/rickygangster/film/the-red-sea-diving-resort/)

Deuteronomy 10:18-19 – “For the Lord your God…loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.  You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

This movie spoke volumes to me, it wasn’t just a movie, it was a movie based on these strong individuals that risked their life to help people get out of their awful situation. 

Often times we forget that we are all foreigners in our land, we often forget when God says to help others, he doesn’t mean just the people within your circle, within your state, within your country, He means to help everyone. 

I don’t do as much as I should, at times I try to be better, but we can all be better as a collective whole. 

This movie showed me how/why we as a collective country, as a collective world can do better to help others. No matter the color of their skin, no matter the culture, no matter the background. We need to step up and help everyone. 

Each season we are placed in can be harder than the others, but some of you that are reading this already have it better than others, you may not think you do but if you’ve got a roof over your head, food on your table, a car, be thankful for those things. It’s the little things in life that make you cherish your life. 

I remember one time I was talking to my very good friend Darnell, we were pumping gas at a gas station and he said you know how good it feels to be able to just put the gas nozzle in the car and forget about it? Because there was times when I was rustling up nickels, dimes and pennies just to put a few dollars in. 

That hit me hard, because I remember the days that I would get gas on a Tuesday or Wednesday and hit credit because it would only put a dollar on hold in my account until the final amount would hit Friday and that would work out perfect because that’s when I would get paid.

As we look around in our culture today, I am disappointed in what we have become as a country. We have for years promoted ourselves as the greatest country in the world and where we sit today is far from that. We no longer are helping our neighbors (and by neighbors I don’t just mean the person next to you), we are keeping people out, we are putting kids in prisons, separating families, trying to put up walls. 

I want you put yourself in the shoes of these parents, whose kids are forced at a very young age to become soldiers, who are fed breakfast, lunch and dinner that we as Americans are trying to kill them (which is true), or we Americans are evil. Or the woman who are forced as teenagers to marry men they don’t want to, aren’t allowed to live their live the way they want to, they are told how and what to do. 

So why wouldn’t these parents want to get their kids to the “greatest country in the world” Think about that. Land of the free, home of the brave. 

Our system isn’t perfect, this didn’t just happen now, President Trump isn’t the only president to make this awful decisions about immigration or treat these families bad but it’s got to stop. We have got to get better as a country, we have got to start loving our neighbors, and helping and assisting any way we can.