Posted on 07/08/2014 3:28:26 PM PDT by robowombat
'Army of Christians' Ready to Help Migrant Children
By Heather Sells CBN News Reporter Tuesday, July 08, 2014
McALLEN, Texas -- Some churches in Texas are frustrated because they want to help the flood of immigrant children that have crossed the border into America this year. But they're still waiting to hear just how the federal government will use them.
Many churches in the Lone Star State, especially those on the border, have known for months about the tidal wave of immigrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Border Patrol agents have already detained more than 50,000 kids this year. Children as young as 6 years old are crossing on their own, spurred on in many cases by parents hoping they can escape chronic violence or poverty or both.
Most of the children come from three countries: Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
What will happen to these children in the coming months? CBN News' Heather Sells addressed that issue and more on CBN News Today, July 8.
At the annual meeting of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas this month, leaders from 1,100 congregations expressed concern for the safety and salvation of these children, as well as frustration over their lack of access.
Although Baptist leaders have worked with the Obama administration for weeks, they've not received any clear guidance as to what role churches will be able to play in ministering to the unaccompanied children.
Gus Reyes, director of the Christian Life Commission for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, says churches are ready to help now.
"We have an army of chaplains," he told CBN News. "We have an army of disaster-relief trained people. We have an army of children's ministers and leaders who have background checks who are ready to come. We have an army of medical physicians and nurses and dentists that are believers who are just ready to give their time."
In the border town of McAllen, Pastor Chad Mason of Calvary Baptist Church works the phones daily trying to find ways to help the immigrant children and fielding calls from churches and individuals that want to help.
He knows first-hand of the need because many Border Patrol agents worship at his church and others in the community.
"They tell us the stories of kids that are in their care who are traumatized by what they've seen or are incredibly impoverished," Mason told CBN News.
"And we wonder, 'How are you dealing with that?' because we know Border Patrol is not designed to be a childcare facility -- they're designed to be police officers," he said.
With the current surge and resulting backlog, Border Patrol agents are detaining kids for as many as 14 days, a condition that human rights activists say is unacceptable.
By law, however, agents cannot quickly return unaccompanied child immigrants from Central America to their home countries. They must screen them as potential trafficking victims or refugees.
That process leaves thousands of kids stranded in Border Patrol stations for days and later in Health and Human Services facilities for possibly months.
"That's what breaks our hearts," Mason said. "We know that there's a need and at this point we have no access to try and care for that need."
Churches in the Rio Grande Valley are cooperating to minister to adult immigrants and their children who have crossed the border.
After Border Patrol agents initially detain them they release the families at bus stations in border towns like McAllen and Brownsville. With their deportation hearings months away, they are free to go until their hearing date.
At that point, these immigrants are usually in need of food, clothing, and sometimes medical care after perilous journeys from their home countries to the border.
Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, leads the effort.
"We don't forsee this ending anytime very soon," she said.
This week, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) has begun a campaign to work with Latin American churches to warn parents not to send their children to the United States.
The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is president of NHCLC/Conela, which represents more than 40,000 Hispanic evangelical churches in the United States and 500,000 worldwide.
He warned unaccompanied children here could fall victim to the same drug gangs that threaten them in Central America.
In the meantime, Texas churches are standing by, ready to help those who have come and will come.
"In the future we'll have to figure out what's right and wrong and those kinds of things," Reyes said. "But biblically we're going to love people right now."
bfl
January 13, 2014
DALLAS—Gus Reyes, director of affinity ministries and the Hispanic Education Initiative of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, was named director of the BGCT Christian Life Commission, effective Jan. 16.
The CLC is the public policy and moral concerns agency of the BGCT, which speaks to—not for—Texas Baptists on ethical issues.
“Dr. Reyes’ work with education and immigration reform on a state and federal government level has proven his passion and ability to give a voice to those who have no voice,” said David Hardage, executive director of the BGCT Executive Board.
like American citizens and taxpayers??
This is true. Even a couple hundred seems to scare a lot of Representatives. The problem is one has to stay in permanent battle mode every day of the week. The enemies have plenty of resources and like termites if frustrated in one direction start chewing away in another. I have found pure, unadulterated concentrated rage at the vermin trying to destroy the nation to be a sort of caffeine of the spirit.
Your wife should be proud of your fiery nature and should not have shown embarrassment.
Our leadership has been determinedly abdicating responsibility to fulfill the tasks assigned to them. THEY are put in office to do the unpleasant work of facing ugly reality for us and do ‘not so nice’ things, but they refuse.
I don’t disagree with you one bit. So, what’s the solution? Take the law into your own hands or force them to do their jobs? What that looks like is anybody’s guess.
Well, term limits would be one start; then of course, something else, but I don’t know what. Truth be told, abdicating responsibility has become embedded in our culture, not just among the poor or those on welfare. Upper class parents abdicating responsibility for raising and guiding their children and spouses abdicating their religious duties (committing adultery, murdering spouses for money), and kids never learning to respect the law. Quite honestly it’s a huge mess right now. If our government did the real job it’s supposed to do, there wouldn’t be any problems to be honest with our country.
Thank you and I concur with what you posted. I had marked this article for later because I had a good idea that there would be a lot of problematic comments made. You have done well to redirect the responsibility back to those on whom it truly rests.
On another thread yesterday, I saw a comment that the illegals SHOULD be brought to military bases so they could be used for target practice.
I suppose some people need the emotional release that expressing such a murderous thought must provide.
Lay aside the spiritual bankruptcy that such a comment reveals. Obama can use all the useful idiots he can get and this thread has been the mother lode.
you
We have a Smoky Backroom. People who need to verbalize like that should be free to do so there.
People who prefer actual thoughtful observations and opinions should not have to wade through the dreck that is inundating the board. I made a vanity about profanity some time ago. I post the link from time to time
Thank you! I suspect that some of this might be the reason for the donation problem. I am going to save your reply, because it said everything that I wanted to say myself.
i
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