Thus says the Lord of hosts: See, disaster is spreading from nation to nation, and a great tempest is stirring. (Jeremiah 25.32)
“Please, I need your help – they can’t send me back. Everyone in my barrio depends on me. They worked so hard to save money to send me north. Don’t let them send me back. I’m so ashamed. They trusted me and I can’t I let them down. Hurricane Mitch destroyed our neighborhood. I was sent to work so I can send back money. We are so poor. God has already brought me this far.” These are the words of a young man from Honduras, 90 pounds and five feet tall, who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. One night he slipped out of the detention center, determined to find work to support his family and friends.
The Reverend Canon Mary Moreno Richardson was recently honored by Episcopal Relief and Development for her work with young people in dire situations (Central Juvenile Hall in East LA, a detention center for undocumented youth, and victims of human trafficking ). She was asked to write vignettes of her pastoral experiences and one of them (April 6) appears in their Lenten devotional, which was distributed nationally. The others will be used by ERD in future publications; we’ll be providing them to you here, so that they can be part of your Lenten journey.
