Category: Updates

What are local Sanctuary Covenants promising to do?

Here is the sample covenant that St. John’s Presbyterian, Berkeley has adopted, October, 2014:

Scroll down to see other Covenants used in the history of Sanctuary:

AN INTERFAITH COVENANT OF SANCTUARY
“To Protect, Defend and Advocate”
The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river.
(Exodus 2:2-4)

Worship Allah and associate nothing with Him, and to parents do good, and to relatives, orphans, the needy, the near neighbor, the neighbor farther away, the companion at your side, the traveler, and those whom your right hands possess. Indeed, Allah does not like those who are self-deluding and boastful.
(An Nisa 4:36-42)

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me….
Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these you did it to me.”
(Matthew 25:35 & 40)

As people of faith, we reaffirm our love and commitment to welcome the stranger, the refugee, the dispossessed in our midst. Today, we are faced with a new context of those seeking protection in our communities and houses of worship. There are mothers sending their children into the river, not the Nile like Moses, but the Rio Grande, in hope that they might escape violence. Children have come seeking safety and to be reunified with their parents and family. If we found Moses in the water, what would we do? If Mary and Joseph fled to the United States to escape violence at home, what would we do? They seek protection from violence, economic desperation and our policies of deportation seeking to return them to harm. They seek safety and unification with loved ones.

There are many complex reasons and root causes to the violence and poverty in Central America forcing people to flee: history of wars and U.S. military intervention in the region; economic and free trade policies leaving few options for farmers, work and economic survival; US drug policy; corruption and failed political institutions; impunity and exploitation of narcotraffickers and gangs. Even as we seek to understand more deeply the cause of violence and poverty in Central America, we know for a fact that the violence is real and that thousands of children and families have fled Central America for their lives.

We are called to embrace the increasing number of Central American children and their families who have fled for their lives, many of whom are being held in detention by ICE or facing deportation proceedings. We are called to see them as God’s children, and meet them with love, compassion, truth and justice. We are called to accompany and protect them from violence and harm. As we join in compassionate relationship with real people with real stories, we believe God will guide us with wisdom to discern and courage to confront the systemic social, economic and political causes which have led to this exodus.

In the 1980s, people of faith stood with the thousands of displaced Central American refugees. We called our modern day underground railroad Sanctuary – a public, corporate stance to protect, defend and advocate for Central American refugees.

Today, we renew our covenant of Sanctuary to protect, defend and advocate for the children and their families who are fleeing for their lives to our nation. As individual congregations we join together with other congregations to bear witness and stand in solidarity with today’s refugees. We pledge the following:

1. We will stand in solidarity with an immigrant child and/or family and seek to help in any way we can:
2. We will pray for and extend the healing grace and love of God for the trauma that led them here, and seek to help them avoid further trauma.
3. We may help with food, shelter, clothing or employment opportunities.
4. We seek to help and accompany them through the immigration and asylum legal process. We will seek to help them find a safe and legal home here in the US or abroad.
5. If need be, we will offer sanctuary and protection from deportation in our houses of worship.
6. We will join with refuges to advocate for policy changes and immigration reforms that support protection of human life and family unity; and that address the root causes of the violence and the exodus from Central America.

Other info on Sanctuary 2014, including declarations and toolkit can be found here:
www.sanctuary2014.org
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Historic Sanctuary Covenants of East Bay Sanctuary Covenant Members from the 1980’s: Jewish, Buddhist, Christian versions

Chicago Declaration of Sanctuary, 1985

Thanks to the many people who donated essential items for the Post Release Accompaniment Project (PRAP)!

With the help of 9 wonderful volunteers, we were able to sort and compile-50 Bags!  We are good for the time being on most items. The only thing we are short of are Shoelaces (these can be gently used or new).

Thanks to volunteer, Kristen Vellinger who coordinated the work party and a big Welcome to Ivan Medina- who is the new PRAP Coordinator!  (see photos below!)

Saving Moses: It Takes a Village

The story of unaccompanied migrant children is as old as the story of baby Moses in the book of Exodus.

Moses’ story begins – when he is just a baby at a time and context where the enslaved Hebrew peoples had already endured years… decades of slavery. It was wearying and pressure and tensions were rising. The enslaved population was exploding causing the Pharoah to be concerned, because the race of the slaves within Egypt’s borders was the same race as the surrounding nations exerting pressure on Egypt’s borders.

I can’t help but think of the growing undocumented population in this country, now 11 million, who live in a state of uncertainty and fear, second-class citizens. For many it is a kind of slavery. Some were brought here by labor contractors. Some forced to migrate because of dangerous, dire or desperate situations back home. Some shelled out $5,000-$10,000 dollars to pay their safe passage here, and now are working to pay off their debt. Some working several jobs, day after day, – too often at sub-legal wages, sub human conditions, threatened with deportation if they speak up or complain. But they must continue to work, to provide for the most basic of necessities. To support the survival of family members here and back home.

Pharaoh said, that they were “too many” causing great fear and insecurity; a threat to the system of slavery; a threat to the empire. They were “too many” and so the Pharoah enacted laws and commandments to reduce the population. The first, being the law to make sure the babies did not survive in childbirth – that all the male babies should be killed at birth.

And like in the Pharoah’s times, the leaders of this land have said that there are “too many.” The have enacted laws to promote self-deportation, to drive people away, or back home, or further underground. The same fears of overpopulation. Fear of the other. Enacted systems of mass deportation, lucrative industries of detention of parents and children. Broken up families, kept them separated and apart – so that children and families have no chance to thrive.
In the story of baby Moses’ migration to safety, it is the midwives- Puah and Shiprah. It is not clear if they themselves were Hebrew or Egyptian, but they served as midwives to both Hebrew and Egyptian women. They were most likely managers/coordinators of the other midwives in the land with resources, people, institutions under their control. Facing orders, would they submit and accept Pharoah’s law to command their resources for harm? Bravely, the midwives chose God’s law over Pharoah’s law. They chose the protection of life….the preservation of life — over Pharoah’s law – of genocide and death.

When called before the authorities and questioned to give an account for their actions: How is it that the boy babies are living? They give a sly answer. “It is because the Hebrew women give birth so easily. The babies are arriving before we even get there.” It appears they organized a work slow down — so that the midwives would arrive late, after the babies were already born.
When laws, edicts of death and genocide lie before us, what is our personal call to conscience? How ought we to organize for the protection and preservation of life and give account for our actions?
The Pharoah, seeing that the midwives could not be coerced to follow his orders, then orders that all the male children be thrown into the Nile after their birth. Somehow believed, that if we kill all the male babies, there will be no more. No future, no more. A cruel but also shortsighted plan. If Moses’ people were no more, who would do the work? Who would help build the country?
It is hard to imagine a land so violent as to command the killing of babies at birth. Or is it? When you hear the stories of the kind of violence and brutality committed by organized crime and narcotraffickers with impunity. The kind of violence people are living amidst. Girls being raped. People forced to pay“Renta,” thousands of dollars in extortion, or be killed. Boys being mandatorily conscripted into the gangs or be killed. The involvement and corruption of local police forces or their own inability to protect the people. In either case, leaving the populace vulnerable to extraordinary and unimaginable violence. No future, no more.
Enter, Jochebed, mother of Moses and Miriam and Aaron. A women enslaved, living in a land not her own. Being a mother in a world with laws seeking to kill her babies. Like most mothers, and fathers, loved her children and would do everything she could to protect them.
She cannot and will not give up her child to death without trying everything she can. She creates a way out of no way. An act of hope and desperation, she constructs a little basket boat of papyrus so that he can float in the reeds. She sets him in the water to flow upstream wherever the waters will take him- upstream, into the belly of the beast, the seat of power and wealth, where his chances for survival would be better than the certain death if she did nothing. She knows, she hopes, perhaps that someone might see him, see her beautiful baby and choose to let him live.
Is it not the same desperate conditions, the fear of violence and certain death. An act of hope and love that would drive a parent to do the same – giving up her child, so that they might live?
She could not float or hide with the baby herself. It was too risky, too much of a liability. Too dangerous for her and the baby – if she were seen and caught. But of course, she could not send the baby completely alone. He would need a guide an accompanyer. So she sends Miriam, his sister -possibly just 8-10 years old herself- following the basket from the riverbank, to keep him from harm. Not unlike those who travel North- children sent with an uncle, a grandmother, and older brother or sister. But ICE does not recognize them as a family – but separates them at the border, calling them unaccompanied. The story doesn’t say how long the journey was – if it was one day, or even weeks in the moving current. Right under the nose of danger.
Eventually the floating basket crossed the border and was found, lo and behold, by Pharoah’s own daughter. “When she opened up the basket. The baby wept. So she had compassion for him and said this is one of the Hebrews’ children.” She picked the baby up out of the water to save and protect it. Her heart was moved by the preciousness and sacredness of every child – regardless of his status, race or people. Regardless of the edicts and laws and social constructions of the land.

She named him Moses– literally, because I drew him out of the water… and took him as her son. Saved his life, provided for him, educated him, and equipped him for the role he would later play in his life: as a leader and a liberator of his people.

It took many people willing to take risks, to cross borders, to transgress orders, to open up their hearts and homes to save baby Moses from danger:

– The Sacrificing Mother willing to do sacrifice and risk for her child’s survival;

– The Protective Sister who stood vigil – stood watch – and accompanied through the dangerous journey;

– The daring and clever Midwives – managers under the system of Empire- finding ways to not implement destructive laws – but to protect life and all children;

– The Pharoah’s daughter… the “Other” – even the daughter of the “enemy,” willing to have her heart moved with compassion; able to see the sacredness and humanity of every child beyond the categories and labels she had been taught. Willing to love another as family.
Who are you in this story? Who are you called to be?

– Rev. Deborah Lee shared with the SF Interfaith Immigration Coalition Sept. 2014 meeting