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Permalink Reply by Laura Scattergood on 6th mo. 2, 2014 at 10:43am

Or maybe I should call this post Calling All Mothers!  And fathers of course.  Anyone who has ever travelled with small children, even in a suburban cushy van equipped with all the latest in child- managing technology will know that this can be rather a trial.  Anyone who has ever travelled with children on a Greyhound bus will know of trials unspeakable.  Now imagine doing so, dumped in a strange country in a Greyhound bus station, without money.  Without diapers, medicine, food.  With big children old enough to get bored and cause mischief, with infants that may easily sicken and die under certain stresses.  And now imagine being in such a situation without speaking the language, not only not speaking the language of the powerful nation around you, English, but also not even speaking, Spanish, but speaking an ancient indigenous tongue. 

So, as a mother, I find this quite heavy on my heart. I know there is one humanitarian group ministering to those in the bus station.  I don't know what you Quaker mothers and fathers who read this might be moved to do.  It could be sending a donation to a humanitarian, Quaker or other religious organization that is at this moment serving these people. It could be working with the Quaker bodies that address immigration issues, or taking some other outward political action. I don't know.  I am just putting this out there because there might be several people on QuakerQuaker that have ideas or resources and are led to minister in this particular situation.

I was thinking of some of the underlying questions that we  modern Friends struggle with, questions such as, is there anything that unites us, is there anything we can agree on, as some of us are not even "Theists" these days.  But one thing did occur to me,  I imagine that every Quaker on the planet believes in the inherent dignity of human beings!

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 6th mo. 2, 2014 at 12:43pm

Dear Laura,

Just to add to your mix of imaginings.

Also imagine outward political institutions and outward political activist organizations that support outward policies that encourage illegal immigration for outward political agendas. Imagine outward poltical institutions and private political organizations working with outward private business interests that give false hope of freedom and security in this country through convoluted and unrealistic outward policies and lack of consistent enforcement of existing outward laws. Imagine these outward private and public political forces causing the pain and suffering of these people based on false hope and promises. Imagine these outward poltical forces then dumping these people, caught up the false hope and promises, being dumped and shuffled aside in bus stations and who knows where else. Then imagine these very same outward public and private political and business institutions turning around and hypocritically decrying the pain and suffering they themselves have nurtured because of the outward political policies they support.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Scattergood on 6th mo. 2, 2014 at 12:57pm

I'm a done imaginin'.  I'm a packin' diapers! I repeat, Calling All MOTHERS!
 
Keith Saylor said:

Dear Laura,

Just to add to your mix of imaginings.

Also imagine outward political institutions and outward political activist organizations that support outward policies that encourage illegal immigration for outward political agendas. Imagine outward poltical institutions and private political organizations working with outward private business interests that give false hope of freedom and security in this country through convoluted and unrealistic outward policies and lack of consistent enforcement of existing outward laws. Imagine these outward private and public political forces causing the pain and suffering of these people based on false hope and promises. Imagine these outward poltical forces then dumping these people, caught up the false hope and promises, being dumped and shuffled aside in bus stations and who knows where else. Then imagine these very same outward public and private political and business institutions turning around and hypocritically decrying the pain and suffering they themselves have nurtured because of the outward political policies they support.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Scattergood on 6th mo. 7, 2014 at 6:30pm

For those who feel called to care: 

http://americaswire.org/drupal7/?q=content/foster-care-uncertain-fu...

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