Learning About Mobile Loaves and Fishes
CHURCH OF THE HOLY APOSTLES, HILO (October 22, 2019) -- It was near the end of the day when the woman came to see Kathleen O’Leary, RN, at a camp south of the Arizona border with Mexico. The day had been hot. O’Leary was tired. The woman’s medical complaints were vague. She wouldn’t get to the point until the tears began to flow.
The woman had made the long journey through Mexico with her son to escape a husband who had beat her, abuse piled upon poverty, famine, proximity to drug cartel violence, and unstable government. Across the United States border, she believed, was the promise of new life. As she sobbed, her child said, over and over again, “Mama, it will be OK.”
O’Leary, an Intensive Care nurse who does not describe herself as warm and fuzzy, just held the weeping mother. “You are very courageous,” she murmured. “You are safe.” She found the small family a space in a protective shelter, shielded from further harm at the husband’s hands.
Speaking to Interfaith Communities in Action at their October 22nd meeting at Church of the Holy Apostles, O’Leary made it clear that the woman had yet more to face. Under current regulations (and they change), she would have to present herself at a Port of Entry and claim asylum using a defined set of words. She would then wait about two months in Mexico until her family’s number was called. Summoned back to the Port of Entry station, she and others might wait up to 48 hours for their “credible threat” interview to determine if they qualified for further review. If they do, they would be delivered to their refugee sponsors, but only after they were fitted with an ankle monitor and stripped of all their possessions save a single backpack. The wait for their asylum hearing could be up to a year, and they would need written documentation of their claim at that time, documentation that may or may not have survived the journey, the shelters, the wait, and the discarding of their possessions.
That, said O’Leary, is the legal process.
A canon in the Episcopal Church as well as a registered nurse, O’Leary emphasized that her work in the camps with the refugees was a spiritual calling and a fulfilling one, despite the long hours and limited resources. Cruzando Fronteras, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, the Grand Canyon Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Southwestern Conference of the United Church of Christ, provides counseling and advice for asylum seekers as well as O’Leary’s medical services. They help people navigate the confusing, shifting, and increasingly cruel process of legally entering the United States.
“I can’t spend any time while I’m there thinking about the inhumanity of it all,” O’Leary said. “I have to be present.”
At the end of her presentation, Church of the Holy Apostles pastor the Rev. Katlin McCallister asked the assembly about the way fear of the other manifests here in East Hawai’i. The answers came, slowly and reluctantly: “Those people” in church. Micronesian immigrants. People suffering homelessness.
“Once you walk up to someone and talk to them,” said a member of ICIA, “the fear disappears.”
“Yes,” said O’Leary. “When they become real.”
Interfaith Communities in Action continues its work to understand and respond to Fear of the Other as one of its primary goals for the current year. Its next gathering will be the Annual Community Thanksgiving Celebration on Tuesday, November 26, at First United Protestant Church UCC, 1350 Waianuenue Ave., Hilo.
The woman had made the long journey through Mexico with her son to escape a husband who had beat her, abuse piled upon poverty, famine, proximity to drug cartel violence, and unstable government. Across the United States border, she believed, was the promise of new life. As she sobbed, her child said, over and over again, “Mama, it will be OK.”
O’Leary, an Intensive Care nurse who does not describe herself as warm and fuzzy, just held the weeping mother. “You are very courageous,” she murmured. “You are safe.” She found the small family a space in a protective shelter, shielded from further harm at the husband’s hands.
Speaking to Interfaith Communities in Action at their October 22nd meeting at Church of the Holy Apostles, O’Leary made it clear that the woman had yet more to face. Under current regulations (and they change), she would have to present herself at a Port of Entry and claim asylum using a defined set of words. She would then wait about two months in Mexico until her family’s number was called. Summoned back to the Port of Entry station, she and others might wait up to 48 hours for their “credible threat” interview to determine if they qualified for further review. If they do, they would be delivered to their refugee sponsors, but only after they were fitted with an ankle monitor and stripped of all their possessions save a single backpack. The wait for their asylum hearing could be up to a year, and they would need written documentation of their claim at that time, documentation that may or may not have survived the journey, the shelters, the wait, and the discarding of their possessions.
That, said O’Leary, is the legal process.
A canon in the Episcopal Church as well as a registered nurse, O’Leary emphasized that her work in the camps with the refugees was a spiritual calling and a fulfilling one, despite the long hours and limited resources. Cruzando Fronteras, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, the Grand Canyon Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Southwestern Conference of the United Church of Christ, provides counseling and advice for asylum seekers as well as O’Leary’s medical services. They help people navigate the confusing, shifting, and increasingly cruel process of legally entering the United States.
“I can’t spend any time while I’m there thinking about the inhumanity of it all,” O’Leary said. “I have to be present.”
At the end of her presentation, Church of the Holy Apostles pastor the Rev. Katlin McCallister asked the assembly about the way fear of the other manifests here in East Hawai’i. The answers came, slowly and reluctantly: “Those people” in church. Micronesian immigrants. People suffering homelessness.
“Once you walk up to someone and talk to them,” said a member of ICIA, “the fear disappears.”
“Yes,” said O’Leary. “When they become real.”
Interfaith Communities in Action continues its work to understand and respond to Fear of the Other as one of its primary goals for the current year. Its next gathering will be the Annual Community Thanksgiving Celebration on Tuesday, November 26, at First United Protestant Church UCC, 1350 Waianuenue Ave., Hilo.