Dear Bishop, Members of the Cabinet, Senior and Associate Pastors, Lay Leaders, Church Committees, Brothers and Sisters;

With my heart on my hands I am pleading to PRAY FOR THE HISPANIC/LATINO/A COMMUNITY in Kentucky and around our nation. I ask you to do it with Open Minds, Open Hearts, and Open Doors. I am asking to do it RESPECTING your biblical-theological-political-legal-emotional perspectives regarding immigration issues.

Families are being separated from their children. Fear is running high among them. But we can pray for the persons executing the orders as well as for those receiving those actions.

If you received this message more than one once, I apologize.

If you choose to pray this prayer THE IMMIGRANTS CREED, please do it humbly before His very throne. He knows our hearts and hears our PRAYERS.

THE IMMIGRANTS CREED

I believe in Almighty God, who guided the people in exile and in exodus, the God of Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon, the god of foreigners and immigrants.

I believe in Jesus Christ, a displaced Galilean, who was born away from his people and his home, who fled his country with his parents when his life was in danger, and returning to his own country suffered the oppression of the tyrant Pontius Pilate, the servant of a foreign power, who then was persecuted, beaten, and finally tortured, accused and condemned to death unjustly. But on the third day, this scorned Jesus rose from the dead, not as a foreigner but to offer us citizenship in heaven.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the eternal immigrant from God's kingdom among us, who speaks all languages, lives in all countries, and reunites all races.

I believe that the church is the secure home for the foreigner and for all believers who constitute it, who speak the same language and have the same purpose.

I believe that the Communion of the Saints begins when we accept the diversity of the saints.

I believe in the forgiveness, which makes us all equal, and in the reconciliation, which identifies us more than does race, language or nationality.

I believe that in the Resurrection God will unite us as one people in which all are distinct and all are alike at the same time.

Beyond this world, I believe in Life Eternal in which no one will be an immigrant but all will be citizens of God's kingdom, which will never end.

Amen.

by Rev. Antonio Aja
PCUSA Associate for Immigrant Ministries

For His Kingdom, EVERTYHING!!

Rev. Eliseo A. Mejia-Leiva
Director of Hispanic/Latino(a) Ministries
KY Annual Conference of The United Methodist Churches