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"

Race Report: Frogtown Trail Challenge

Since going to Mount Everest in April, I've had some nagging knee problems which kept me from training for the StumpJump 50k, which I ran and loved last year.

But the weather in Georgia has been beautiful, and I didn't want the fall to go by without doing some kind of outdoors adventure. The Frogtown Trail Challenge presented the perfect solution. At ten miles, it was a perfect distance to be challenging without doing too much damage. Plus, the obstacles would add some excitement to the event.

I talked Brian Weldon, Jeremy Anderson, and Ruthie into running the race with me, and we all registered. Brian and I work at a nonprofit called She Is Safe, and they provided "Run to Rescue" t-shirts for us. R2R is an initiative we're developing where sponsored runners can free and empower women and girls against trafficking.

While Ruthie ran the four-mile course, Brian, Jeremy, and I decided to run the ten as a team. Besides being more fun that way, this allowed us to take pictures of each other throughout the race.

The first obstacle was a short drop via a rope onto a lower trail. Since the field of runners was still pretty much together, it was fairly crowded, but it got us excited for challenges to come.

While the overall elevation change wasn't that severe, whoever organized the race did a good job of designing some wicked climbs into the course. We regularly had to walk to the top of a climb, then resume running when the trail leveled out. Several times, we power-walked past runners who decided to gut it out.

While all of the race was enjoyable, we had the most fun during a mile-long portion of the race that took place in a creek. The water was cold, our shoes filled with sand, and there were fallen logs all over the place. I felt like a kid again, splashing full-speed through knee-deep water.

The final miles of the race were marked by hilly loops. Around mile 8, my legs started to feel heavy, and it was a challenge to keep up with my team. At this point, Jeremy took the lead of our little group, and Brian and I pushed the pace to keep up with him.

The final obstacle was a rope net with a drill-sargent-like volunteer yelling at you. Jeremy climbed to the top, took a snapshot of Brian and me struggling our way up, then scrambled down the other side.

We finished the race together, in a pack of three, all sprinting together for the line. I had to fight to keep from throwing up because of the final push, but I felt elated at the same time. We had run a good race together, pushed ourselves, and finished well.

Ruthie had finished her four-mile course long before us, and was waiting at the line to cheer us in.

I usually finish races one of two ways: barely able to stagger across the line and hoping to die, or wishing I had given more and done better.

With a two-hour finish time after starting in the last wave, I felt perfect at the end of this race. I had pushed hard, managed my energy well, and enjoyed a day in the woods with two of my favorite people.

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.