Author: Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity

Categories
-Updates-

Thank You to Everyone Who Joined Our Migrant Children Vigil

Listen to the Children Pray: Lifting Prayer for the Migrant Children at the Border

Migrant Children Vigil Pics

Thank you to everyone who joined us last Thursday as we demonstrated that the Faith Community stands firmly with immigrant families, refugees and children at the border.

It was a wonderful afternoon filled with prayer ribbons, ritual and singing “Our Children Are Sacred, Our Children Are Beautiful”. We had close to 100 people representing 30 different faith communities and some beautiful children in our midst. The GLIDE Memorial Church children’s choir blessed the vigil singing, “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands,” and Rev. Karen Oliveto, Sr. Pastor of GLIDE taught all of us and the children to say, “Come in! How Can I Help You?”

We were also joined by a recently arrived family member from El Salvador who had just gone through a terrible tragedy and had recently fled to join family members in the Bay Area for safety. See the news coverage below to hear more about their story. Please continue to keep this family in your prayers and consider adopting this Covenant:
Interfaith Covenant with Migrant Children at the Border:

We share with you this prayer given by Rev. Jose Ramos:

Dear Father, Creator, Giver of life and love.
Listen to the plea of your people.
Children on both sides of the border
are looking for justice and protection, O Lord.
Forgive us because we have not received
these little once who are prophesizing in your name.
Change the hearts of the politicians
so that they can listen to the message of these little ones.
In the name of the Lord of Justice and Mercy we pray. Amen

Check out the News Reports & Photos from the event!

[There was also coverage on Telemundo 48, Radio Bilingue, and SF Examiner.]

20140807_171129[1]

20140807_170455[1]

20140807_171423[1]

20140807_171546[1]

Anna+y+child[1]

Francisco[1]

Categories
-Updates-

LIFELINES: Weaving Our Stories Together for Immigration Justice

Hello everyone! Our BayUP team would love to thank everyone for gathering with us last Saturday to earnestly pray for our detainees, migrant children, families distraught by the system, and the whole immigration bureaucracy.

IMG_2827[1]

For anyone who was not able to attend, our BayUP (Bay Area Urban Project) team had the honor of leading this month’s prayer vigil. We are college students from different Intervarsity Christian Fellowship university chapters across Northern California and Nevada who convened in Oakland to learn about varying social justice issues through a faith-based perspective. Our team was assigned to work with Debbie for the summer. While we are learning about immigration issues, we are also growing compassionate hearts for those who have experienced the brokenness of the system.

Over the planning process for the vigil, we realized the importance of including people’s stories. Rules and regulations are passed left and right in legislation, and we often fail to hear or appreciate personal narratives that humanize the larger issues.

Our team thought it would be fitting to employ a theme that centers around stories and the way these stories weave in and out with others’ stories. We are all connected by threads that we sometimes do not realize, so we hoped to make those more visible to convict us to become united and interdependent. We were created to be a close-knit community. We were created to be each others’ LIFELINES.

The prayer vigil became a space for realizations, convictions, and the building of new relationships all in the name of immigration justice. We hope that it was “successful” in that it will lead us to become more pro-active in pursuing justice for our brothers and sisters who 1) are trapped within the walls of detention centers, and 2) are suffering from family separation, and 3) are in our communities and cities living with fear of being caught by immigration.

We ask that we all continue to earnestly pray for shalom, the restoration of how relationships were created to be. As the nation awakens to see immigration as an imperative issue, we pray that we all link arms to announce God’s message to the world: to love everyone with no boundaries. Power to you!

Categories
-Updates-

Thank you to all those who helped make the Footwashing Ritual a powerful event!

Media coverage from April 17, 2014 – SF Footwashing 
 
The purpose of this ritual was to restore honor, respect and solidarity with those families threatened by deportation and I-9 firings, and to call for immediate  executive action to stop the deportations, more permanent just immigration reform.
20 religious leaders of diverse traditions washed feet of impacted families and were assisted by House Dem Leader Nancy Pelosi, Sup. John Alos Supr. Jane Kim, Sup Malia Cohen, Sup. David Chiu, Sup. Scott Wiener and Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi.
 
Thanks to all the Sponsoring Organizations who helped make it happen:  ICIR-CLUE, SFOP-PIA, SFLabor Council, SEIU Local 87, SF Bay for Immigrant Justice, and FAME (EBASE).
Thanks to all the families and children for courageously telling their stories!

 

1511053_626916044051943_1652982585500439105_n[1]