This Is Our City

The journey has not been easy, of course. While most of the fears I had moving into the Neighborhood have not materialized, the most difficult adjustment has been the loss of identity as a leader. Here at Neighborhood, the only thing that people care about is who I am in the present. My past leadership roles mean very little.

But my pain pales in comparison to that of the six families that are closest to Becky and me. Three of the families are documented, the other three are undocumented. Each family desires to walk with God, but they struggle to survive. Most of their suffering is due to painful injustices that occur regularly. Just this week, one of the undocumented families came over to our house to fill up their water jugs. Their landlord had turned off the water without giving any thought to how his decision would affect them. Things like this happen regularly.

Further, our friends tell stories of being brought here illegally by businesses to work, and then being asked to recruit others to join them. Their children were included in their choice to come, and came with no vote of their own. For virtually all of them, there is no "line" to get in and wait their turn to immigrate to America legally.

SB 1070 was a law written and passed by the Arizona Legislature in 2010, and is now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court after challenges to its constitutionality and compliance with federal immigration law. SB 1070 was drawn up in understandable anger and frustration over immigration problems in Arizona, which is now home to about 360,000 illegal immigrants. Many people I know and love supported the law. They think I am caught up in an "emotional," local situation that is an "unfortunate" but necessary casualty of much larger national issues—cartels, drugs, violence, human trafficking, and so on.

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