Going where the fear is: how people of faith can show up for immigrants

Pastor Juan Peña joined KGNU’s Abby O’Brien in the studio for A Public Affair, April 23, 2026.

Going where the fear is: how people of faith can show up for immigrants Abby O'Brien

Juan Peña is a founding pastor at Providence Bible Church in Denver, where he’s been for the past 18 years. Though he is an immigrant himself, he says the last few years in particular have opened his eyes to the injustices currently faced by immigrants in our community.

In December 2022, busses of immigrants started arriving in Denver from the US’s southwest border.

“Sixty immigrants showed up at our church after our church service, and when I saw them and I started talking to them, and they told me that they were from Venezuela and had walked all the way from Venezuela. It truly blew my mind,” said Peña.

He and his wife Courtney immediately began helping the immigrants find homes, necessities, and eventually legal services. Now their project has a name — Rooted with Roofs.

“We determined that if people were gonna walk to our church 3,000 miles, we were gonna take that very seriously,” said Peña.

They also started what they call the “Crazy Yes group,” to help immigrants with specific needs each week.

A Crazy Yes email might say “‘Hey, we have this mother that needs to go to the closest Ecuadorian Consulate which is in Phoenix, and can somebody take three days and just take this mom over there?’ And people are like, ‘yeah, I’ll do this. I’ll take time off,'” said Peña. “It’s one way to bring proximity to people that are not close to immigrants.”

He welcomes more people to join the Crazy Yes email group.

On Palm Sunday this year, Peña gave a speech on the capitol steps as part of an interfaith event. His main message? “Go where the fear is.” The church is not on the left or the right, said Peña, but that doesn’t mean it’s in the center, either.

“The church is from the bottom…When people of faith have truly stood at the bottom, they have always been accused of being political. So was Christ.”

Pastor Juan Peña joined KGNU’s Abby O’Brien in the studio for A Public Affair, April 23, 2026.

This story aired on A Public Affair, KGNU’s weekday morning show featuring in-depth discussions on local news issues. Click here to listen to other episodes of A Public Affair.