Thread by @JenHatmaker

With some of the warrior women from ANC, I am going to a humanitarian aid center on the border tomorrow. This suffering, on our watch and at our hands, is more than I can take. I pay attention to how the Holy Spirit moves me, and he is moving me toward this sorrow.

Every Sunday at church just before communion, we read prayer cards written by children in the detention camp, first in Spanish then in English. It shatters me. I want to share some of them with you. Pray for these kids separated from their families. Prepare to love them with us.

This is our second trip down as we determine how we can serve these children, their families, the incoming refugees, the workers on the border, and the communities already caring for them.

I want you to be a part of this, and I will have more to say very soon.

The correspondence from the kids is very bleak. But we cannot look away. When this story is told 40 years from now and our grandchildren ask us what we did while refugee children were kept in camps, separated from their families as a punitive deterrent, we better have an answer.

"I give you thanks Lord for giving me one more day of life. Father, I ask you Lord to give me your power so that I can get out of here. Father, get me out of here..."

"...Father, bless my family and my country. Cover it with your precious blood. Bless them and cover them. Bless my girlfriend and my family."

"I ask for prayer for my family in Guatemala. May God protect them and bless them. I also ask God would help and protect me. That He would place his powerful hand on my case so that I could get out soon. Amen."

"My Father and the Virgin of Miracles- I give thanks for another day of life, and I place in your hands these kids that are in the detention center. I ask that you get them out of here as fast as possible..."

"...And I ask that you would pour out your blessings on everyone and bless the food. I place in your blessed hands our family - I beg you to keep them in good health. Lord you know I only came for 3 hrs to work and not study. Amen."

From Oscar: "Hello, my good Christian friends. I am a 16 year old Guatemalan male just released from the Port Isabel, Texas refugee detention center. My refugee friends and I refer to it as the 'detention center'; the center's director calls it a prison..."

"...We were treated like prisoners, surrounded by two very high cyclone fences topped by razor sharp triple strings of wire, confined for periods in a very cold chamber by violating rules of conduct, enduring a sleepless night without even a cup of coffee or cold tortilla..."

"... before being dropped off at the Brownsville bus station, being manacled and leg chained on the trip from the detention center to the bus station."

"Yet, I am so happy despite having been jailed for 2 years and 4 months. I am free, among new friends who tell me, 'Welcome', with smiles. 'We are here to help you: we can provide you with a back-pack filled with food & hygiene items, clothes & a blanket for the cold bus..."

"...help in taking the necessary steps to obtain your bus ticket, free use of our personal cell phones to call your relatives at your destination, and a refuge where you can rest, eat, shower for a few hours, or remain overnight to travel tomorrow."

"I am so happy..I'm free! I'm smiling and laughing constantly. I want to sing and dance. I'm going to live with my brother in New York whom I haven't seen in four years. I know I have to improve my English which I began to learn these past two years..."

"...but I'm good at languages, fluent in Spanish, and two indigenous languages I learned in my beloved Guatemala. I want to become a US citizen; I can't go back to Guatemala where there's so much corruption and the threat of death if you don't join a gang."

"You asked me, friend, what my dreams are. Some day I'm going to have a wife and children; they'll be proud of their papi; I'm going to be a social worker, specializing with working with children." ~Oscar

Please pray for these children and their families, and all the folks on the border taking care of them. Pray for a miracle in our policy and in the hearts of our leadership to end this atrocity and reunite these families. God, we are begging.