God is working in wonderful ways through out the Detroit Conference, especially in terms of Hispanic/Latino Ministries. Last year, four new Hispanic/Latino Ministries emerged.
In Port Hope, an ecumenical group came together and started providing English as A Second Language Classes to Hispanic women and children. Several of these women are now attending Sunday Morning Worship at Port Hope UMC with their families.
In Lincoln Park, several lay missioners from El Buen Pastor have formed a faith community that is meeting at Lincoln Park First UMC. This faith community meets once a week on Tuesdays evenings.In Adrian, a Christmas gift give-away was held at Adrian First UMC. Toys were given out to around 90 children. More than 20 families attended the event. The vision is to start a faith community as well as other ministries in the Adrian area.
In Pontiac, Grace and Peace Community UMC hired a part-time Hispanic/Latino Ministry Coordinator, who is working on promoting many of their existing ministries to the Hispanic/Latino Community in the area, as well as developing new ministries, such as a Spanish Language Bible Study.
Another ministry emerged last year for the immigrant community as a whole, which includes, but is not limited to the Hispanic/Latino immigrant population. Dearborn First UMC hosted their first legal immigration clinic in January 2010. Dearborn First UMC is working with Justice for Our Neighbors-Southeastern Michigan to provide free high-quality immigration legal services, education and advocacy to the vast immigration population in Wayne County and in Southeast Michigan.
This past year brought many difficulties for the Hispanic/Latino population in our communities and this year will also bring more challenges, but God is working through our churches and our leaders to bring continued hope. The vision for our Conference is for more churches to open their doors to the Hispanic/Latino community, so that we can continue to be a beacon of Hope for the Hispanic/Latino community.
We all know the reality. Unfortunately in this country, there is has been more and more animosity towards the Hispanic/Latino community especially the Hispanic/Latino immigrant community. We were hoping that the Dream Act would pass, but that was not the plan at this time. This year new will bring more struggles for the Hispanic/Latino immigrant community. More states are proposing bills similar to the Arizona Bill and many states are also proposing bills that would deny birthright to children of undocumented immigrants.
Regardless of your political stance, we as Christians must open our eyes to the reality that the country is becoming an unwelcoming place for Hispanic/Latinos, especially Hispanic/Latino immigrants. My own husband, who is a Mexican immigrant, can testify to that. He is a lawful permanent resident, he is documented and has a right to work and live here, but he doesn’t always feel welcomed here. He has experienced discrimination and people asking him if he is here legally.
While our country is becoming more of an unwelcoming place for Hispanics/Latinos, we have a different vision for our churches. The vision is that we will continue to welcome the Hispanic/Latino population into our churches and we will continue to reach out and be in ministry with the Hispanic/Latino community. As leaders we will continue to do all we can do make that vision a reality for God is calling us to do so.
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