Introducing: RGBM Parish Partnerships!
Click here to download on parish partnership discernment materials!
We’re excited to announce the RGBM Parish Partnership program! RGBM partner parishes/organizations commit to working in collaboration with the RGBM leadership team to provide borderland education, support advocacy initiatives, and lead fundraising efforts in local communities.
In partnering with RGBM, parishes will make 3 commitments: Stewardship, Prayer, and Time
All partners will have the same opportunities and communications regardless of the level they pledge to give. We hope that parishes will discern what they are able to commit to. We are grateful for any level of support in prayer, stewardship, and time.
Interested in learning more about partnering with RGBM? Reach out to our development coordinator, Nellie Fagan, at admin@riograndeborderland.org.
Borderland Update - August 20, 2021
The Rev. Canon Lee Curtis, Canon to the Ordinary, Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande
The Rev. Canon Lee Curtis also brings us this week’s borderland update. In this update, Lee shares information about this most recent wave of news related to Afghan refugees, climate refugees, and our call to welcome the stranger.
Learn more about advocacy opportunities through EMM’s Asylum and Detention Ministry Network: https://episcopalmigrationministries.org/ministrynetwork/
Looking to get engaged with Rio Grande Borderland Ministries as a volunteer? Contact our Bridge Chaplain Ana Reza (areza@dioceserg.org) to learn more!
RGBM Cycle of Prayer
DREAMERS: we want to invite you to stop and take a couple minutes to pray with us for DACA recipients who dare to dream of the day they will not live in fear of deportation anymore. Will you go before God for these Dreamers?
Creator, sustainer, redeemer - you created all of us in your image and you desire for all to flourish. No one is a stranger to you for you know us all intimately and personally.
We come alongside those brought to the U.S. as children, who live in this country with uncertainty about their futures. Comfort them in their anxiety and give them peace.
Give them the ability to live, love, work, study, and serve in their churches without fear. Give them places of safety in their communities and people who can really know their full selves and hold their stories with grace and compassion.
For those who live in families of mixed-status and live in fear of separation, we pray you would protect their families and make a way for them.
Hear your people as we ask for policies and laws to protect the vulnerable. Give those in authority the wisdom to bridge the divides that keep them from working together on behalf of those in need.
We thank you for the contribution of Dreamers to this nation. Give us eyes to see their dignity and hearts to welcome them. May they know their value in your eyes and also be affirmed for the good they bring to their communities. May they feel at home. May we greet each stranger among us as our neighbors and extend your love to them. Amen!
We know the discussion about immigration is one that is so often filled with fear on all sides: fears of the unknown, of danger, of the pandemic, a lack of security, provision, or safety. The fears that fuel many to migrate are the same ones that stoke unease in many other people about immigration. Let's pray against the spirit of fear and ask God to help us be people of peace. May God help us live into our call to be peacemakers in our world.
May we boldly seek justice and follow Christ’s example of love, invitation, and generosity, especially to those who are pushed to the margins,
Home, by Warsan Shire (British-Somali poet)
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.
no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough
the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off
or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here