��͹��Ƶ

Originally published on the In All Things blog on March 24, 2015, this essay was updated on November 17, 2025.

When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were alien in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. Lev. 19:33-34; cf. Deut.10:19

My name is Rikki Brons, and I am a German and American dual citizen teaching Spanish at a Dutch Reformed university in Northwest Iowa. I know. You might have to read that sentence again to digest it. How did I go from living behind the Berlin Wall in my childhood to teaching a foreign language that is not my mother tongue at a Christian university in Iowa? The simple answer: by following God’s call. Through immigration, God brought me to faith under the most unlikely of circumstances, cementing firmly that my ultimate citizenship is in heaven, and not here on Earth.

Born in 1981, I grew up in a Christian family in former East Germany towards the end of the Cold War era, where religion was frowned upon by the government. That means that even though belonging to the church was allowed, membership was discouraged. One could also not trust that anything said or done within the church or community would be kept confidential. In fact, the pastor serving while I was growing up was later found to have been spying for the government, using confidential and very personal information of the members of his congregation against them. The same was true for some of the elementary and secondary teachers instructing us during our formative years.

To make things even more difficult, when it came to building a strong Christian foundation in my life, faith and its implications for our daily life was—and is to this day—not something that is commonly shared or discussed with family members. To this day, I have no clear picture of what my grandparents and parents truly believe—despite the fact that I was baptized as an infant, partially a gesture of defiance against the government by my parents, and confirmed the fall I turned 14. As a family, we didn’t attend church services except at Christmas or Easter. My maternal grandmother prayed with my mother during her childhood, though my mother isn’t sure whether that was a sign of dependence on God or just tradition. It probably was a mix of both. Additionally, showing faith openly could be dangerous while the Berlin Wall was still up, especially when families like mine already endured scrutiny due to their opposition to the regime. My dad, for example, had been labeled an enemy of the State after trying to escape from East Germany as a young man and serving a 2-year prison sentence. These unusual circumstances made it difficult to define faith among my family members.

After the Cold War ended, faith was tinged with even more negativity, fueled by the strong emotional response to war. My dad frequently expressed anger about an omnipotent god that allowed suffering and death through hunger, war, and other catastrophes while my grandfather stated pure contempt, viewing the church as an institution that extorted money to build beautiful buildings while the general population was starving. Those beliefs were part of every conversation I can remember having had with them about faith and religion. At the same time, I also remember my dad vaguely referring to “the man upstairs” who had control over everything and a vague sense of hope that things would turn out for the better. This left me confused about why I claimed a faith like this as my own. Was church just a tool for gaining power and hope just an illusion?

My parents also taught us to be honest, caring, and willing to help others. They were and are the most hospitable people I know, always on the lookout for improving the situation of others. Our house has always been a haven for people from different nationalities, socio-economic backgrounds, and belief systems. My parents did all these things for others not because it was the Christian thing to do, but the right thing to do. They modeled virtues like hospitality and charity despite their frustrations with the church.

God opened doors to new perspectives when I had the opportunity to spend the year as an exchange student with an American host family in Le Mars, Iowa. As the recipient of a full scholarship sponsored by the United States Congress and the German Bundestag, Steve and Kathy Ver Mulm, as well as their four children, took me in as one of their own, and showed me by their daily Christian life what being a believer and follower of Christ means to them. Their unconditional love, patience, devotion, and care of others as well as their strong belief in Christian education shaped my life in new ways.

Just as each one of their children, I attended  in Orange City, Iowa, where I was taught by Christian teachers for the first time in my life. I can’t even begin to describe the difference those academic and personal interactions made. Instead of being a number in a grade book, my teachers built relationships with me. They cared about me as a whole person made in the image of God, worthy of love, with more than just academic needs. They treated me as the complex being I am with physical, emotional, academic, and spiritual needs. By striving to satisfy all of those needs, and doing so in love, faith, and in accordance with the scriptures, I grew in my personal faith. They not only modeled the structure of God’s creation and how it is evident in every subject area but also showed a deep sense of commitment to serving me, the stranger, with integrity in their daily lives. In the spring of that year, I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and vowed to become a teacher just like them.

I returned to Germany after that influential year, finished my high school degree, and felt a longing to come back to this community to grow in my newfound understanding of this lived out faith. God continued to be faithful throughout the ups and downs that come with the difficult, confusing, and expensive immigration process.

Most people assume that because I am from a Western European country, speak English fluently, and am also married to a United States citizen, the rest was easy. It was not. Applications for various visas (first as a college student, then a work visa, and finally the green card process after I got married) were accompanied by confusing paperwork and documentation, long waiting periods with uncertain processing times, and grueling interviews that make you feel like a criminal. Add to that the financial burden, and I often found myself questioning why God was leading me down this path.

The process also forced me to make seemingly impossible decisions. As a green card holder, for example, I had legal status and was allowed to work and travel, as long as I spent the majority of my annual residency in the US. But with small children stateside and aging parents on the other side of the pond, how do you predict timelines dictated by unforeseeable circumstances? For example, one longer health crisis of one of my parents in Germany could have forced me to jeopardize legal status here, potentially separating me from my children. I ultimately became a US citizen not because I chose loyalty to one country over another, but rather because the privilege of being a US citizen would allow me to travel without constraints between my two home countries. I wanted to follow my calling in how and where I serve as a believer, a professor, a wife and mother, and a daughter, regardless of where I live or which passport I hold. I can’t imagine how tremendously more difficult this journey would have been without the support, love, prayer, and encouragement from my family, friends, and the Christian community. A community that took me, the alien and stranger, into their open arms and discipled me:

Matthew 28:18-20: Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be the German and American dual citizen teaching Spanish at a Dutch Christian Reformed university in Northwest Iowa. It wasn’t my plan to be separated from family, friends, and a language and culture I understood and fit into. But it was God’s plan. God used immigration, first temporary and then long-term, to lead me to find and ultimately fulfill my calling.