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This Weekend
Interfaith Weekend of Compassion and Prayer for Unaccompanied Migrant Children
Our Michigan Conference local churches are all invited to take part in this Interfaith Weekend of Compassion and Prayer. The UCC website has some updates about prayer and action, and the United Methodist Church has produced a special packet with many resources for this event. In Michigan, a number of our local churches are planning an action of Christian welcome and love in Vassar where the Wolverine Human Services facility is a possible site for immigrant and refugee care.
http://www.ucc.org/justice/immigration/unaccompanied-children.html
http://www.calpacumc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Interfaith-Weekend-Resource-Packet.pdf
Next Weekend
Day of Prayer for Children at the Border
We are working ecumenically with the Christian Reformed Church in offering resources of prayer and a public witness of compassion especially for immigrant children along the border. Next Sunday, July 27 our CRC and UCC congregations are invited to join together in a Day of Prayer for Children at the Border. Here are some possible introductory remarks and a prayer:
"I was a stranger and you welcomed me..."
When Jesus was a child, his mother and father took him across the Egyptian border to flee from violence. So far this year 52,000 children -- without their parents -- have crossed our southern border for the same reason. The murder rate in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala today is so dire that a teenage male becomes 10 times less likely to be murdered simply by crossing the border to the US.
These children are seeking asylum--protection from danger--and current US law requires that their cases be heard before being sent back in order to prevent them from being returned to life-threatening circumstances. This is a good and compassionate law, but the current influx of children has overwhelmed our system, as it was meant to process only 6-8,000 children per year, not 52,000. It has left leaders in Washington DC scrambling to make policy, to fund a response, and to discern next steps. Our prayer is that, in our rush to speed up the process, we will not forget our deeper national priority--to carefully protect children who are victims of violence and human trafficking.
Loving God,
For the children at our doorstep, aching with need for shelter, safety, a future, we cry out to you.
For a government system unprepared to respond, we cry out to you.
For politicians struggling to find common ground and lasting solutions, we cry out to you.
For counselors and first-responders, exhausted and horrified by the numbers, the stories, the pain, we cry out to you.
For your church -- including those in this community -- called to reach out, welcome, and love, we cry out to you.
May we be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, who knew so well what it meant to be vulnerable.
May we be motivated by love, and not by fear.
May our leaders be filled with wisdom and a spirit of compassion.
Nothing is impossible for you. Because of this, may we be filled with hope.
Amen.
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