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Mexican Christian pastor’s border shelter aids immigrants seeking asylum in the US
For 24 years, Pastor Hector Silva has been running a shelter home for refugees in Mexico who are seeking asylum or work in the United States. It was built to hold 150 people, but it often holds hundreds more than its limit, he said.
“We are the one home that does this. There aren’t any others. We help the families who are seeking refuge in the U.S.,” he said.
As refugees and migrants flee their countries in hope of finding refuge and work in the U.S., they face a difficult and dangerous journey. To help these people, Silva founded a shelter near the border, Senda de Vida Casa del Emigrante, he told The Christian Post. In English, the name means “Way of Life Immigrant House.” As part of his ministry, he gives people fleeing their home countries a place to stay and hear the Gospel.
“I founded the shelter because I have a heart for families, people and the homeless,” Silva said.
Right now, the 12,916 square foot shelter holds 540 people, Silva said.
“It’s big, it’s very big,” he said.
Thirty-five of its current residents are children. “We report the children [who arrive alone] and find all of these issues. If they’re here, we find the time necessary to help,” Silva said.
Most of the shelter’s residents are from Spanish-speaking countries including Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Cuba, he said. Others come from as far away as Uganda, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Ghana. Most want to enter the U.S.
A majority of people who’ve sought refuge at the shelter speak Spanish, Silva added. For those who don’t speak Spanish, Senda de Vida employs a translator.
While people stay at the shelter, Silva provides them with food, medicine, access to technology and child education, he said.
“Some time ago, we had 1,000 people. We would get overfilled. At 500, we’re kind of full. At 150, we’re all right with it,” he said. “At first it took a lot of patience to understand all the different cultures [in one place]. With compassion, we worked to understand each other.”
COVID-19 has made the plight of refugees even more difficult and has presented the ministry with new challenges, Silva said. Due to COVID-19, like many other countries, the U.S. closed its borders. Currently, 1,000 people who have stayed at Casa del Emigrante are waiting in Mexico to find out their U.S. immigration status.
People waiting for immigration courts to decide their cases are facing the longest immigration court backlog in history, due to the surge in new filings which reached 1,281,586 cases at the end of November, according to Border Report. For the average immigrant, getting a court decision on an immigration case now takes around 500 days.
Silva said he was unsure whether most people who’ve taken refuge at Senda de Vida Casa del Emigrante, were looking for asylum as refugees in the U.S. or seeking some other type of legal status. His ministry helps people who’ve applied to enter the U.S. legally and helps families find places to live in Mexico, he added.
Immigrants can apply for a visa to lawfully enter the U.S. if they have a job waiting for them in the U.S., are related to an American resident, win a green card lottery by coming from a country with low U.S. immigration rates, or if they are seeking asylum from violence, among other categories.
The average stay at Senda de Vida before COVID-19 was three to six months, Silva said.
To get to the U.S., people fleeing their home countries often pay cartels to transport them north. Doing so can be dangerous.
“People that pay to travel to the U.S. face danger,” said Silva. “People can be killed. Many of them are imprisoned for ransom by cartels when they get to North America. When they enter our shelter, we have seen that they face many dangers. We put them in the hands of immigration groups that can protect them.”
Recently, the number of people traveling north has increased, he said. In this wave of immigration, there are also more children than usual.
Immigration rates from Spanish-speaking countries correlate with events in U.S. politics, said Silva. After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, many people hoping to cross the border illegally believe the U.S. government will not send them back to their home countries.
“They are more confident that the government will not send them back,” he said. “I don’t really know, but that’s what they think. It’ll be better, they think.”
Silva said he also thinks the chance that more Latin Americans will be allowed to enter and stay in the U.S. will improve because of Biden’s election.
“It’s what I’m thinking too. I’m also thinking that they’re going to get an improvement to the way they enter the U.S. There’s going to be lots of change,” he said.
The number immigrants who are illegally entering the U.S. has substantially increased since the fall. In October and November 2020, U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 140,591 people. This represents the highest number of illegal immigrants found crossing the border in the last eight years, and almost 21,000 more than the average number for these two months.
In most years, illegal immigrant numbers are low from September to January, and peak in May.
Biden has promised to end many of the Trump administration’s border policies.
According to Biden’s website, his administration would not only put a stop to building a border wall within his first 100 days, but he would also give DACA recipients access to federal student loans and create “a roadmap for citizenship” for the 11 million to 14 million immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally.
In 2018, the Trump administration released a proposal to provide a pathway for citizenship to up to 1.8 million young immigrants living in the country illegally, including DACA recipients, in exchange for $25 million toward the border wall and other changes to the immigration system. That plan, however, was opposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Biden, who once supported having a barrier along the Southern border, now opposes border wall construction and said he would halt any remaining construction once he’s in office.
These policy changes will likely motivate more people to attempt border crossings illegally, Jose Luis Gonzalez, the coordinator of nongovernmental organization Guatemala Red Jesuita con Migrantes, told Bloomberg.
Gonzalez noted that the economic devastation caused by mass unemployment and hurricanes hitting Central American countries will also lead more people to join illegal mass caravans to the U.S.
“There are going to be caravans, and in the coming weeks it will increase,” said Gonzalez. “People are no longer scared of the coronavirus. They’re going hungry, they’ve lost everything and some towns are still flooded.”
“We defend the rights of immigrants on this side of the border,” Silva said, urging Christian in the U.S. to fund ways to help those seeking asylum in the U.S..
Sources:Christian Post
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സീനിയർ പാസ്റ്റേഴ്സിനെ ആദരിച്ചു
ചിക്കാഗോ: കഴിഞ്ഞ അര നൂറ്റാണ്ടോളം ചിക്കാഗോയിൽ സഭാ പ്രവർത്തനരംഗത്ത് പ്രശംസനീയമായ നേതൃത്വം കൊടുത്ത നാല് സീനിയർ പാസ്റ്റർമാരെ ചിക്കാഗോ ഗോസ്പൽ മീഡിയ അസോസിയേഷന്റെ ആഭിമുഖ്യത്തിൽ നടത്തപ്പെട്ട സമ്മേളനത്തിൽ ആദരിച്ചു.
സീനിയർ പാസ്റ്റർമാരായ റവ പി വി കുരുവിള, റവ ജോസഫ് കെ ജോസഫ്, റവ പി സി മാമ്മൻ റവ ജോർജ് കെ സ്റ്റീഫൻസൻ എന്നിവരെയാണ് വിശ്വാസ സമൂഹം ആദരിച്ചത്. സിജിഎംഎ ജനറൽ സെക്രട്ടറി കുര്യൻ ഫിലിപ്പ് യോഗനടപടികൾക്ക് നേതൃത്വം നൽകി. രക്ഷാധികാരി കെ എം ഈപ്പൻ,പ്രസിഡന്റ് ഡോ അലക്സ് ടി കോശി, വൈസ് പ്രസിഡന്റ് ഡോ ടൈറ്റസ് ഈപ്പൻ, ജോയിൻ സെക്രട്ടറി ഡോ ബിജു ചെറിയാൻ, ട്രഷറർ ജോൺസൺ ഉമ്മൻ എന്നിവർ സംഘടനയുടെ പുരസ്കാരം പാസ്റ്റർമാർക്ക് നൽകി.
എഫ്പിസിസിയുടെ ഉപഹാരം കൺവീനർ ഡോ വില്ലി എബ്രഹാം സമ്മാനിച്ചു. ജെയിംസ് ജോസഫ്, ബ്യൂല ബെൻ എന്നിവർ എംസി മാരായിരുന്നു റെവ ജോർജ് മാത്യു പുതുപ്പള്ളി മുഖ്യാതിഥിയായിരുന്നു.
Sources:nerkazhcha
us news
അമേരിക്കയെ വീണ്ടും മഹത്തരമാക്കാൻ ദൈവം എന്നെ സംരക്ഷിച്ചു: ഡൊണാൾഡ് ട്രംപ്
“അമേരിക്കയെ വീണ്ടും മഹത്തരമാക്കാൻ ദൈവം എന്നെ സംരക്ഷിച്ചു” എന്നു പറഞ്ഞുകൊണ്ട് തനിക്കു നേരിട്ട രണ്ടു കൊലപാതകശ്രമങ്ങളെ അതിജീവിച്ചതിന് ഡൊണാൾഡ് ട്രംപ് ദൈവത്തിനു നന്ദി പറഞ്ഞു. ജനുവരി 20 ന് അമേരിക്കയുടെ നാല്പത്തിയേഴാമത് പ്രസിഡന്റായി അധികാരമേറ്റ ട്രംപ് തന്റെ ഉദ്ഘാടന പ്രസംഗത്തിലാണ് ഇപ്രകാരം അനുസ്മരിച്ചത്.
പ്രസിഡന്റ് ജോ ബൈഡന്റെ കഴിഞ്ഞ നാല് വർഷത്തെ അമേരിക്കൻ ‘വിമോചന ദിനം’ എന്ന് തന്റെ പ്രസംഗത്തിൽ വിശേഷിപ്പിച്ച ട്രംപ് ഇപ്പോൾ മുതൽ അമേരിക്കയുടെ സുവർണ്ണകാലം ആരംഭിക്കുന്നുവെന്നും ഇതിനുവേണ്ടിയാണ് എന്റെ ജീവൻ സംരക്ഷിക്കപ്പെട്ടതെന്നും പങ്കുവച്ചു. “ഇന്ന് മുതൽ, നമ്മുടെ രാജ്യം അഭിവൃദ്ധി പ്രാപിക്കുകയും ബഹുമാനിക്കപ്പെടുകയും ചെയ്യും. നമ്മെ മുതലെടുക്കാൻ ആരെയും അനുവദിക്കില്ല. എന്റെ ഭരണനാളുകളിൽ അമേരിക്കയെ ഞാൻ ഒന്നാമതെത്തിക്കും” അദ്ദേഹം ഉറപ്പുനൽകി.
നമ്മുടെ രാജ്യത്തെയും ഭരണഘടനയെയും ദൈവത്തെയും മറക്കുകയില്ല എന്നും അദ്ദേഹം തന്റെ ഉദ്ഘാടനപ്രസംഗത്തിൽ ഉറപ്പുനൽകി.
Sources:azchavattomonline.com
us news
ICC Helps Provide Bible Study for Persecuted Children, Young Adults
Middle East – The harsh reality for many Christian children in the Middle East is that their lives have been marked by suffering and destruction. This is why it is vital to nurture these children and share with them the transformative love of Christ. To support this mission, ICC has partnered with a local organization to provide Bible study classes for persecuted children and young adults in the region. These classes are designed to deepen their relationship with the Lord, foster a sense of community among fellow believers, and guide them in understanding what it means to transition from childhood to adulthood through a Biblical perspective.
“The Bible study helped us to recognize things that were vague and mysterious in the Bible. For example, God’s union with mankind and how man should be impressed by the image of God’s creation,” one participant said.
The Bible calls us as believers to be united as one body in Christ, sharing in both joys and sufferings. When one part of the body is in pain, the entire body feels it. In places where the church is persecuted, it is our responsibility to respond with support and action. Trainings like this strengthen the suffering church and bring hope to our persecuted brothers and sisters.
Sources:persecution
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