What a heart-warming surprise to open the Sunday Post and find an article on Casa de Paz, a non-profit run by our friend Sarah Jackson. The Casa does amazing work, picking up men and women released from immigrant detention and providing them with needed clothing, food, shelter, and a ride to bus or plane that can take them to family. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) releases people with only the clothes they were wearing at the time of arrest, oftentimes a tee-shirt and jeans. That doesn't work well on a cold or wintry Denver day.
Sarah also provides shelter for families traveling to visit mothers, fathers, sons, or daughters in the detention center. She has help from over two hundred volunteers who are continually inspired and moved by the stories of the men and women they assist. I've been lucky enough to provide some help - though I would say that the immigrants have blessed and affected me more than I have helped them. Here's the story link: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/17/ice-detention-transfers-immigrants/
I interviewed one of the individuals in the article for my Master's capstone. Shoeb Babu was imprisoned (for that's what detention is) for over two years before he was released and granted asylum. His only crime was turning himself in to the Border Patrol without papers. Shoeb is bright and funny; it's difficult to read how his long imprisonment wreaked havoc on his hopes. He's free now, but we can't restore the two years we took from him, or help him repair relationships that suffered while he was confined.
"Welcome the immigrant, the stranger" says the Bible in both Old and New Testaments. Sarah takes that directive at face value, doing the work of Christ from Casa de Paz. Her example lights a fire under me and I hope that readers of the Post will find a similar light of truth and strength to inspire them.
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