Up, Up, With Education!

Human beings create laws at a certain time in history with a particular understanding of the world. As time passes we must re-evaluate our laws for OUR time with a new understanding. Laws are for the good of all people. So we must listen to the voices of the oppressed and they must motivate us to justice.

People should never be called illegal. Only our actions can be illegal according to the law. And sometimes laws are unjust.

Take for example Rosa Parks. She stood up against the law to say with her actions; No! I will no longer abide by an unjust law. I am valuable. I am worth seeing. You must recognize that I am present in your society. There is a better way. The law must change!

In our after-school program we see the effect education or lack of education has in our community.

Our children attend schools that are barely able to pass kids through the system. I would say 1 out of every 5 kids in our program have failed a grade level. Teenagers going into High-school are not confident enough to read out loud. Their schools are over crowded and underfunded. Many even have to stand up during their bus ride to school because there are not enough seats. Their journey of education begins at a disadvantage. In their homes, they may be the only fluent English speaker, navigating homework, projects and forms all alone.

This is where we hope to be a presence in the neighborhood that can help.

Many of their parents left Mexico for fear of their life. There was no food and no real way to live if they stayed and there was no legal way to come. So it was a choice between death or breaking the law. So they came illegally.

In the present system, many kids who where not born here and are undocumented see no future in education. So they simply give up. They drop out. They ask, "Why push myself in school if my only options are to be a construction worker, cleaner, landscaper, drug dealer or thief?"

As many of you know we visit Nico in jail every week. He just turned 17. He dropped out of school, got mixed up in the wrong crowd and now he is in the Dekalb County Jail.

Nico spent many days helping me sweep floors for the after school program. He enjoyed playing soccer on Ian's team. But all his life he has been labeled an "illegal". He has not been afforded the luxury of having dreams for a brighter future. He feels stuck.

Some kids, despite these odds, try hard anyway. Maybe they have a mom or dad who push them to be the best they can be. Maybe a teacher, mentor or church community encourages them in the right direction.

When society calls them "illegal" we hope to be that consistent voice calling them "valuable". We must show them that they have gifts and talents the world needs!

These kids make it through high school, often with honors. Yet they find themselves in the same situation. They aren't allowed to go to college. If they are accepted they are forced to pay out of state tuition, and are ineligible for financial aid. Basically, at this point, going farther is impossible.

So what can we do? We can stand up and speak out against unjust laws.

Our friend Tim Isaacson, who started Immigrant Hope ATL, invited us to a Rally at the Georgia State Capitol for the right to in-state tuition for those kids who graduate from high school in Georgia. It was inspiring to see the courage of these young men and women chanting "undocumented... unafraid!", and "no papers...no fear...students are marching here." and "Up up with education, down down with deportation!"

Through our leadership program at the the after-school program, we are able to offer the older kids a way to give back and invest in their community in a positive way, giving them a sense of purpose.

We can create jobs that give dignity and provide resources to help them do well in school. This week I was able to give the job of making beads out of recycled magazine paper to Evangelina. We will use them to make beautiful jewelry for Refugee Beads. She is 15 and going into her freshman year at Cross Keys High School. She hopes to get a school uniform and school supplies with what she earns.

Miguel, a high school graduate that took honors courses but is stuck in limbo as he waits for the opportunity to go the college helps run the after school program three days a week. He is trying to earn a car and an education.

We would love to give more kids opportunities like this, giving them tasks and valid roles to earn their own way!

It takes all kinds of people in all walks of life, working together, to make a difference our world. We live here in the neighborhood and can help in a unique way. You are also are in a unique position, where God has you to love people. We need good teachers. We need good lawyers. We need the church! We need those who have resources to give. We need the housebound to pray!

Elie Wiesel, a novelist, holocaust survivor and political activist said,

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference"

Rethinking Radicalism: A review of my previous post

For those who haven't yet read my friend Tim Isaacson's thoughtful response to my last post, here's what he said:

Have you had any conflicting thoughts about the experience? It doesn't sound like you do - which is totally fine. I'm trying to figure my inner-turmoil out and having a difficult time doing so. I mean, the up-side was huge. I'm trying to figure out what was off-putting for me. Or, rather, what was off-about-me that had me excited about some parts and wary of others. Any thoughts?

Actually, Tim, yes.

In fact, in the days following the post, I did a lot of re-thinking. I'm going to walk through my current thinking on this and see if it gets me anywhere. It's going to sound more like an argument against a current bill, but it's moving toward a response to your question.

The Georgia House's vote in support of HB 87, while invisible to most Georgians, was felt very clearly among the kids in our neighborhood. Many of them are aware of it, and it's quite possible that whoever wrote "Fuck you, white crackers" on our door today did so partly in response to that law.

When I think about the law, I realize something: It will probably never make it to the enforcement level. The federal government will probably sue Georgia, the state will get locked up in costly litigation, and even if they win, working down to enforcement will be a massive, expensive task.

Then there's the fact that the economic forecast for a state that passes and enforces such a law is pretty bleak. Labor costs go up, raising the prices on pretty much everything, businesses shut down, tourism wanes, and a huge chunk of the populace who don't pay income tax but still pay sales tax, rent, and grocery bills, will disappear quickly. The jobs that open up are difficult jobs that pay little money.

So, practically speaking, there will probably be no economic upside to this bill, although it will cost GA millions on almost every front.

If that is so (and it pretty clearly is), then why would the politicos vote for it?

The republicans voted for this to look courageous to their constituents. And this is where this law got me to re-think my interest in engaging immigration on a political level. Politics are a big, crooked machine, far detached from the individual lives they affect.

Being one who believes in the power of the kingdom, I have become wary of throwing my shoulder into the work of a system that is corrupt to begin with, that see-saws in its decisions, and that rarely, if ever, has any space for love in its workings. Government is the exact opposite of the kingdom I claim.

Then I thought about what we do. Introducing these immigrants to the host culture. Building good will. Showing love. Defying stereotypes. Feeding the hungry. Nurturing. Treating aliens with the dignity that the kingdom demands. These are all things that have a powerful impact in the lives they touch.

So it may be that one who loves in small ways will be inclined to care about the national stuff, but working with the government and its laws is murky and can be dreadfully distracting for ground-level guys like us.

Perhaps it is good to speak when issues arise, but I for one am prone to let the grand arena of politics and ideas distract me from the work I am specifically called and equipped to do: loving my neighbor.

So I still hope to be a radical, but my focus must remain squarely on the neighborhood work. On living and loving alongside immigrants. If I do speak to the political issues of the day (an aggravating, exhausting process), I must do so out of conscience and I must quickly turn back to my neighbor, lest I lose focus on love.

I have no idea if this is what bothered Tim, but it bothers me. My thinking is like a pendulum on this issue of faith, hope, love and politics.

Any of my readers want to question or add to this conversation? I could use your help here.

Slowly Radicalized

I realized yesterday, as I sat in on a meeting of Georgia Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (GIRRC), that somewhere over the course of the last year, I have started to transform into a radical.

When I moved into this neighborhood over two years ago, I did so out of spiritual convictions, not political ones. I did not have an opinion on what should happen or what should not happen as far as immigration law. I only knew that I had been called by Jesus to care for the needy, and so I went to a neighborhood where I could do so.

Upon arriving and immersing myself in the neighborhood, I heard some disturbing stories. These immigrants are truly refugees. Life under threat from the ongoing drug war back home is untenable. The poverty, violence, and corruption that these immigrants have fled is equivalent to the situations in Bhutan and Burma.

Upon arrival in America, these survivors find themselves hatefully unwelcome. I see families with whom we work for years suddenly torn apart and left without income because a father or mother or aunt is pulled over and doesn't have proper documentation. America has internment camps for these immigrants which have worse-than-prison conditions, where women and children are held captive. I learned of these camps when people we knew were taken there.

Searching for a way to speak on behalf of these immigrants, out of love for the young people who would gain hope through the DREAM Act, I wrote a concerned letter to two of my congressmen, only to learn that they were committed to making life as hard as possible for my international neighbors. As if they hadn't already suffered enough.

So I still do the same basic work of caring for those in need and discovering with them what the Lord's love can do in our lives. But I have become actively concerned with the way we as a nation treat these people. In fact, I think of it as the deciding moral issue for our country in this generation.

It is my hope that our nation will follow the Lord's heart- I would love to see them work out His love for the aliens in our land, and to invite them to contribute to and partake in the American Dream. While I have little hope in our partisan political system, I still believe that if I love, I must use what resources I can to care for these kids and their families. So from here on out, my votes, my hands, and my speech will be offered in love for the Ends of the Earth who have come to our doorstep.

And while I cringe to count the cost, I will be as radical as I need to be in pursuit of seeing this love realized on a national level as well as in the lives in our little neighborhood.

DREAM Act

Today was one of those rare times when I engaged in a matter of policy.

Some of you may have heard of the DREAM Act. One of the kids I work with recently sent me a text asking me to speak on his behalf on this issue. This Act provides opportunity for the children of undocumented immigrants to become contributing citizens of America, but asks that they work to earn it.

After doing more reading on the issue, I was convinced that this Act could change the course of the lives of several of the young people we work with. It would also be a way to bring the Biblical values of loving my neighbor and showing kindness to aliens to life on a massive scale.

I would encourage anyone who reads this and feels like the DREAM Act is a good idea to contact their local decision makers in support of it. I wrote a message and sent it out to Georgia senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss.