#LoveMakesAWay

by John Hughes

Last month I walked down an unfamiliar road and right into a police holding cell. I had spent the day in MP Jamie Briggs’ office with eight friends praying, singing songs and sharing stories. We were there hoping for an answer to our question: ‘When will the 983 children currently being held in involuntary detention be released?’ Mr. Briggs’ staff spoke with him throughout the day, but we never received an answer. After closing time we were officially asked to leave. When we refused to leave without an answer the police arrested us for trespassing. Then came the walk, the cell, the fingerprinting – booked.

Love Makes a Way is a movement of Christians who believe that the indefinite detention of children who are seeking asylum is wrong. It is a movement – not an organisation. No one is in charge, yet we are all held together by this common concern. In part, this is because we are committed to welcoming the stranger – a mandate that reaches far back into our heritage and the Hebrew Scriptures. In part, it is because Jesus offered refuge to children and people found on life’s margins. In part, it is about the recognition that all children are of sacred worth, created in God’s image and deserving of honour, love and care. We know that indefinite detention is another word for prison – and children don’t belong in prison.

We chose to raise our concerns in many ways. We wrote letters and made phone calls. We signed petitions and attended forums. We sought meetings and explanations. It wasn’t working. So we took on a different approach and put on a different mantle. We chose to ‘sit-in,’ hoping to force the issue and to raise awareness. The sit-in has long been a part of freedom movements: in India in the struggle for independence; in the US in the struggle for Civil Rights; in South Africa in the struggle to end apartheid. It is a non-violent way of resisting the status quo and those in power. A way which seeks a ‘double victory,’ to not only make right the wrongs, but also bring along everyone for the ride.[1]

The jury is still out at the moment. We got arrested, we made the front page. Hopefully it raised some awareness. Hopefully some imaginations have been sparked. Hopefully people have begun to see these children as they are – sacred. Hopefully.

Hope is a strong thing – it lies there next to the heart of God.

 

[1] ‘Double Victory’ is a term that has been used in the Civil Rights movement. See http://goo.gl/I4fSMp for some of the history of this term.