Houston is a Welcoming and Compassionate City

 

 

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

 

 

Protestors turning back buses in Murrieta

 

 

At the recent TMO press conference dealing with the refugee crisis at our southern border,  Reverend John Ogletree, pastor of First Metropolitan Church said, “Houston is a welcoming city.  It’s a compassionate city.  When Katrina struck the Gulf coast, Houston opened itself to the plight of these displaced persons.  And again after Ike, Houston opened itself to the needs of the displaced. In times of trouble Houston has always reached out to offer aid and comfort to those who have been displaced to start a new life.”

What Reverend Ogletree could have gone on to say was that Alief is a prime example of a community that opened itself to the needs of others.  Catholic Charities, the YMCA and other organizations were responsible for helping refugees from all over the world to resettle in Houston and particularly in Alief.  Houston opened its arms to the boat people from Viet Nam and Cuba.  We opened our arms to political refugees from El Salvador.  We opened our arms to refugees from Africa and the Middle East. And without much fanfare we opened our arms to over 4000 persons from the civil war in Burma.   Alief, even though not terribly affluent,  is now one of the most vibrant communities in the Houston area.  Alief has its challenges but many of those challenges existed before the resettlement efforts occurred.  Progress exists in business, education, community development and participation.  Its citizens, in spite of their diversity have a can do spirit that is amazing to witness.

The press conference that I’m referring too was a plea to congress to keep the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2008 in place. We also advocated that anyone under the age of eighteen should have an attorney and must never be subjected to expedited processing.  Thirdly, that those who would meet the religious needs of the children and families must be allowed access to the U.S. Border Patrol detention facilities and religious, human rights and civic groups must be allowed to the U.S. Refugee Resettlement shelters for unaccompanied minors.  Community leaders can and should provide humanitarian support to the overwhelmed detention centers and shelters.  The letter was signed by 180 pastors, bishops and religious leaders in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California to show the faith community’s concern that these migrant children should be treated with compassion and respect.

Some would say that we have enough people on our shores and we don’t need anyone else except the very affluent or educationally superior.  And those are some of the nicer objections.  But I am reminded by theologian Walter Brugemann that “we must confess that the central problem of our lives is that we are torn apart by the conflict between our attraction to the good news of God’s abundance and the power of our belief in scarcity — a belief that makes us greedy, mean and unneighborly. We spend our lives trying to sort out that ambiguity.”

With thousands of children flooding our Southern border there are many who are afraid, angry or just down right prejudiced about this new horde of refugees.  Seeing the pictures of the train coming from central America can engender deep-seated emotions that many people cannot even admit they have.  Whatever the outcome is with the current border crisis, Houston will step up as it so often has and again demonstrate that we are welcoming and compassionate to the stranger among us.  Pray that a loving and compassionate outcome may occur with this humanitarian crisis.

 

Central American Children hopeful they can stay

 

 

What Kind of World Does God Want?

This is an effort by Abiline, Tx. to develop and bring the community together to live into “loving God, loving neighbor. TMO has as one of its goals to create community where people can not only develop meaningful relationships, but in the process transform their communities.

I Lift My Lamp Beside The Golden Door

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

by, Emma Lazarus

Central American Children hopeful they can stay

Since humans walked upright and decided that there was a better home than where they were, there has been migration.  Not everyone agrees on when humans began migrating from Africa but it is theorized that the first effort to move was 1.8 million years ago.  The real migration came in waves starting about 80,000 years ago and continues today.  In most cases evidence shows that if the area was inhabited, this movement was disruptive to the environment and to other humans.

Immigrant children hopeful of being able to stay

As a result of poverty, oppression and lack of resources, this disruptive migration continues today.  And with conditions throughout the world today, there is little evidence that this will change any time soon.  Whether it was the drawing of new boundaries  in the Arabian peninsula by the English and French in the early 20th century or the support of oppressive regimes in Central America by the United States, history shows that this kind of disruption has far reaching results and is often impacted by outside influences.

Our current situation on our southern border with thousands of children coming from Central America seeking the American dream seems to be a problem with no solution.  For some the solution seems easy.  As one Facebook contributor wrote, “When you see them coming across the border, have your gun ready and just tell them to turn back, and if they don’t obey just solve the problem in the “Texas way”.  When asked what he meant by that, he was unable to give an answer, saying only that he didn’t mean that he would shoot them.  This is a complex problem and is not just the U.S.’s problem.  It was born in those Central American countries that developed an oligarchy culture where the rich hid behind high fences and had personal militia that allowed the cartels to act with impunity and where the politicians and the church were in the pockets of the rich.  And when that system seemed to be threatened, the U.S. aligned themselves with the oligarchies and came to protect what were perceived as U.S. interests which resulted in keeping the peasants poor and hopeless.

As we sit here today as Americans, we see the thousands of children streaming across the border.  We know that we cannot just send them all back without a plan that is based on some kind of compassion.  Maybe they keep coming because we’ve done too good a job of selling the world that we live behind the “golden door” and that it’s a land of opportunity.  And maybe our American poverty and lack of good education and healthcare for the poor is better that what they come from.  And maybe we should tell them that there are those who would still restrict the vote to our citizens.  But I’m not ready to advocate that.  As I look at Alief I see the positive possibilities of this wonderful land of opportunity, where immigrants came to America in small boats with only the clothes on their back, where persons walked hundreds of miles in the desert after spending years in a refugee camp, or as a young child riding on the top of a train for over 1500 miles only to be raped, kidnapped, or killed. Even with the diversity in Alief, it works, which gives me hope that what exists in Alief can work elsewhere.

The challenges of human migration have been with us since our human beginnings, but I hope that in our current crisis we acknowledge that we are all God’s children and that we are able to find solutions that show compassion for the sacredness of all human life.  We will not find a perfect solution but there’s got to be something better than the “Texas way”.   As a Texan, I’m  appalled  and insulted by that characterization.  We can do better than that.

“My Mother and Yours”–In Community We Are Each a Part of One Another →

Alaba Obiri grew up in southern Nigeria.  Education in his community as in other cultures was of great importance and his pastor father and mother encouraged their son to get the best education possible.  After going to school in Nigeria Alaba attended Eastern Illinois university and received his MBA.  He went to work for Shell oil and eventually moved to Houston with his family.  Along the way he felt the call to the ministry and now is pastor of the Foursquare Fellowship in Alief.  This denomination was started by Aimee Semple McPherson in the early 20th Century.

Pastor Obiri has been working with TMO for the last year and has shown great interest in community development.  I also consider him a friend.  In our conversation, I asked him how his Nigerian cultural background had grounded him and been a positive influence in his community. Of course,  his Christian faith was instrumental but he told me a story that I have heard in one form or another before.  He said that as a child if his mother sent him to a neighbor to borrow salt, sugar or some other condiment and he would be met at the door by the neighbors child he would use the phrase “my mother and yours” has sent me to borrow some salt.  The implication was that there was a connection between all the persons in the community and that your mother was my mother and my mother was your mother.  A number of years ago Hillary Clinton made the now famous statement purportedly attributed to some African tribes.  She stated that, “it takes a whole village to raise a child”.  This philosophy of interconnectedness existed in America and has tended to be associated with rural settings.  Many of us remember growing up and that if you were caught doing something you weren’t suppose to, that when you got home you got, “what for”.  In the past, the institutions of church and school were the places where moral, relational, spiritual, and educational values were taught and practiced. Much of  this web of relational influence has been lost in our post-modern urban communities.  There are fewer and fewer spaces for connection and conversation, not only between those who are different, but also with those who share similar values and backgrounds.   Most mainline religious denominations have lost significant numbers.   Schools in lower income communities have less family engagement with an objective of helping children achieve academically while at the same time supporting our public schools.

But before I get all misty eyed about the past we need to consider the other side of this wonderful idyllic past.  Whereas for some there was a sense of connectedness and relationship, while others suffered the prejudice and isolation that drove a wedge through communities and isolated whole segments of society.  Hopefully, some of those exclusionary problems are being addressed and have been somewhat abated and we are recognizing the sacredness of all creation.  I am observing that in Alief that the diversity of race, ethnicity and national origin may hold a key to learning to work together for an organic community.  Like Pastor Obiri’s experience with  “my mother and yours”  there are other traditions that exists in other of Alief’s ethnicity’s and religions that  would be  positive experiences for producing this organic community.  In the weeks to come we will consider other traditions that can be a positive force for building community.