Salvador Partners celebrates mission award

CBC’s El Salvador Partners Mission Group will be recognized with a Philadelphia Baptist Association Award at this year’s PBA Mission Outreach Banquet! The celebration will be part of the 300th Anniversary of the PBA and will take place on September 8th from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Drexelbrook, 4700 Drexelbrook Drive, Drexel Hill, PA. Tony Campolo will be the banquet speaker. Tickets are $29 and the Board of Outreach will subsidize the first 10 tickets at the cost of $15. Please RSVP to the church office by Tuesday, August 14th.

Advocacy on behalf of Salvadoran political prisoners

On July 2, 2007, during protests in Suchitoto against the imminent announcement by President Elias Antonio Saca of a national policy of decentralization including water and other services, the demonstrators were repressed by the police with rubber bullets and tear gas.

According to reports, around 30 protestors were arrested, including four members of the Association for the Development of El Salvador (CRIPDES) while traveling toward the location of the demonstration. Later, several of those arrested reported being subject to physical and psychological abuse during the arrest and transfer to police barracks.

A report by the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, asserted that these detainees have experienced severe abuse. The victims of this abuse were beaten during interrogation, isolated in remote places for questioning, and threatened that they would be thrown from a helicopter during a transfer between detention centers. In addition, one of the men arrested, Patricio Valladares, was hospitalized after the beating he received during his arrest. His injuries, however, have not been acknowledged to their full extent by the prosecutor's office, reportedly in an attempt to protect those who carried out this attack. (excerpt from Amnesty International report and SHARE Foundation reports on the SHARE website)


Numerous efforts are being made within El Salvador and in the international community. We encourage you to act to call for justice for the political prisoners.

• For continuing updates on the status of the political prisoners, see the SHARE website. Follow news of advocacy efforts on behalf of the detainees and get the latest reports by visiting the SHARE Foundation website action alerts
• Read Amnesty International's report
• Read Rep. Jim McGovern's letter to Pres. Saca
• Call to ask your member of Congress to sign on to a letter, sponsored by Rep. Capuano of Massachusetts and addressed to President Saca of El Salvador. (Click here to see the revised version of the letter.) Remember, the deadline for new signatures is Thursday, Aug. 2!
  

Youth Delegation reports from June trip to El Salvador

A group of seven youth and five adults from CBC spent a week in El Salvador at the end of June. Six Salvadoran young people from Shekina Baptist Church and Shalom Baptist Church traveled with the CBC youth to visit important sites around the country. and to participate in meetings to learn about the current political and economic realities of the people of El Salvador. Read reports and see photos from their visits by clicking here.

For the beginning of the trip, the delegation members were hosted by families from Shekina Baptist Church in Santa Ana. Other meetings and events during the week were coordinated by the SHARE Foundation. The itinerary included visits to women's cooperatives in Chalchuapa and the Bajo Lempa, a base Christian community and urban youth program in Mejicanos, various sites in San Salvador including Divina Providencia (where Oscar Romero was assassinated) and the UCA (where the Jesuits were martyred), and the community of Nueva Esperanza.

Prior to the trip, our CBC youth set up a blog to record some of their year-long program of learning activities and fundraising efforts at www.youthdelegation.blogspot.com.

This most recent youth delegation builds on the foundation of our first youth-focused delegation in 2004 and represents a new era in our history when a new generation of young people receives the legacy of our justice commitments and make them their own.

Microlending Consultant to meet with Salvador Partners on May 20th

We have an excellent opportunity coming up at our next Salvador Partners meeting on Sunday, May 20th, to continue our conversations about microlending as a model of economic development.

Dan Wilkins (colleague of Van Weigel's) will be joining us for worship at CBC and then will meet with the Salvador Partners Mission Group for some informal discussion about his work as a microfinance consultant. Dan graduated from Eastern with an MBA in Economic Development. He then served for 12 years with Opportunity International -- a pioneer organization in microfinance -- and was responsible for setting up microlending projects in Nicaragua, Montenegro, and Mexico.

For more information, take a look at the Latin America section of the Opportunity International website at www.opportunity.org.

We'll plan to share lunch with Dan after worship. All are welcome.

The Spirit of Accompaniment -- Multiple greetings from El Salvador friends

I regularly receive emails from several of CBC’s friends in El Salvador. Everyone we hear from sends warm greetings to the entire CBC congregation, and the messages always say that they are very eager to welcome the Youth Delegation in June!

As I have recently read a stream of Easter greetings from Susy Fuentes, Clara Luz Magana, Ruth Orantes, Eduardo Bracamonte, and Julia Carranza at Shekina, as well as messages from Deysi Cheyne at IMU, I have again been so aware of the deepening relationships among us and so grateful for their expressions of genuine companionship toward all of us at CBC. I want to share some specific messages, reflections, and prayers with you so that you, too, can be surrounded by their love. This is what we mean when we talk about "accompaniment." And it is very real.

Susy responded with great joy to the news I shared with our Shekina friends about Ezra's baptism on Maundy Thursday. She remembers Ezra and Ken from her time at CBC in March 2006 and passed on the news to the others at Shekina who were part of that same delegation:

I am so happy for Ezra, his father and the whole CBC community. You are definitely a very special community. I am sure it was a very special ceremony. I told Julia about it and we were crying of happiness and gratitude to our loving Father. Please send our regards and good wishes to Ezra and his father.

Susy also sent encouragement to CBC for our own discernment process for new directions, responding to what I had told her about our progress at CBC towards the new Spirituality and Justice Center and the Churches Supporting Churches / New Orleans Task Force. She shared these thoughts about Shekina's prayerful process of reorganizing some of their committees and setting priorities earlier this year:

I think all churches needs to renovate and adapt to the changing world... I think it is just a matter of praying and asking God, what way should you go, based on your principles and beliefs. The important thing is that you keep working with the young kids as they need a lot of support to keep going on the right track. It is so sad when we hear of churches where there are no children, no youth, like in Europe. I am sure you will be able to come out with a beautiful plan to keep working hand in hand with the people in your community.

In an email from Clara Luz, she was also remembering the Shekina delegation's visit at CBC in March 2006: "We will always be grateful to God and to all of you." She sent word of some very sad news for Ruth Orantes whose cousin died unexpectedly in an accidental drowning in a lake. "This was very hard for them as a family and for us as a church." And Clara Luz expressed thanks for all the ways that we share Shekina's joys and also their sorrows, like the recent robbery of their sound equipment. "But there are beautiful things, too, like the 15th anniversary of our church in May, which remind us to be grateful to God and to CBC for all the ways you help us."

And finally, from Deysi, a message of hope from El Salvador in the wake of the tragedy in Virginia:

Today we are deeply affected by the news from Virginia. I have a friend there -- a professor of political science -- but he wrote me that he is fine. We do not lose hope that this world will be better than the one that we have today.

In that same spirit of hope,

CAROLINE

News and Events from Romero Interfaith in Philly

These were sent to us from a couple of folks who are active with the Romero Interfaith group in Philly. FYI -- Tabernacle is organizing a delegation to Las Anonas in August.

FRIDAY April 20th-- Romero movie at Tabernacle United Church in Philly at 7:30 if anyone at CBC might be interested.

FRIDAY May 18th -- Movie night fundraiser at Tab on Friday, May 18th, for the RIC delegation. They will be showing Voces Inocentes - the autobiographical movie dealing with child soldiers in El Salvador that came out about two years ago. We will have fliers shortly with more information.

For information about Voces Inocentes, go to http://www.innocentvoicesmovie.com.

Push and Pull: Free Trade and the Immigration Debate

Monday, April 3oth, 5:30pm at AFSC
1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia

The dramatic debate over immigration that played out in America's streets and the halls of Congress last year has returned to the national stage with increasing raids against immigrants and the introduction of the STRIVE Act legislation. David Bacon and Juan Manuel Sandoval,
two leading scholars and activists, one from each side of the border, will help us grapple with the complex and controversial issues surrounding free trade and immigration using photos and stories from their years of organizing.

Sponsored by:
SEIU District 1199P, American Friends Service Committee, Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, AFSCME District Council 47, Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women

Easter Greetings from our friends at Shekina

Dear Friends,

Please take a look at some of the latest events from our church. (Here's a link to the complete photo album.) Some are part of the Intercultural Bible Study that we had with a church in Holland. We also received a group from Costa Rica. And the last but not the least -- our celebration of Resurrection this Sunday, April 8.

God Bless you all.

Love,
Susy Fuentes
Shekina Baptist Church
Santa Ana, El Salvador

More about micro-lending

Nicholas Kristof wrote about micro-enterprise in his March 27th New York Times op-ed column. He says small loans to entrepreneurs in poor countries are now widely recognized as an important tool against poverty. Kristoff tells about his personal experience making several small loans through the www.kiva.org website that allows people to make direct loans to entrepreneurs in poor countries.

Read the full text of Kristof's March 27th column You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor in which he tells about visiting a baker in Kabul to whom he had made a loan of $25. Watch a brief video clip about Kristof's encounter with the Afghan baker at D.I.Y. Foreign Aid.

Thanks to Ron for sharing this information.

Death of Maria Julia Hernandez, Salvadoran Human Rights Advocate

Almost immediately following our wonderful visit with Maria Silvia Guillen to learn about her work as a human rights attorney in El Salvador, we received news of the death of her friend and another leading Salvadoran figure in human rights advocacy -- Maria Julia Hernandez. As director of Tutela Legal, a human rights group sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church, Maria Julia Hernandez gathered evidence of massacres, interviewed survivors, and exposed abuses and atrocities committed by wartime death squads. She died this morning, Friday, March 30th, of a heart attack.

We received the following email this afternoon from Tara at SHARE:

I'm sorry to have to share the news with you today that Maria Julia Hernandez passed away early this morning. I don't know if CBC had ever met with Maria Julia, but I'm sure you know her story. And I'm thinking that Ron and Maria Julia may have been fellow SHARE board members in the late 1990's.

Tara also forwarded Maria Silvia's personal reflections about Maria Julia Hernandez:

Aqui estoy compartiendo con ustedes mi profundo sentimento de tristeza y de esperanza, pues nuestra querida MARIA JUILA HERNANDEZ, esa mujer ejemplar, tan cercana a Monsenor Romero, tan en el comino que el nos senalo, tan cercana al dolor y la pobreza de nuestra poblacion, fallecio hace unas horas; como era de esperarse, hasta en el momenta de su muerte, fue tan cercana a lo que ella creia, a lo que amaba; muere en el mes de Monsenor Romero, de Rutilio, de Rufina, de tantos y tantos acontecimientos fundamentals para la vida de las y los salvadorenos que creemos en la justicia, en la paz, en la reconciliacion. Ahora lo que nos queda, es sequir su ejemplo, tenerla siempre entre nosotras/os como la foraleza, la sabiduria y la nobleza que siempre fue; lo gue nos queda es seguir en nuestra lucha, con la tenacidad y la esperanza con la que ella trabajaba. (Maria Silvia Guillen / Directora de FESPAD)

For more, read the L.A. Times obituary, which quotes Maria Silvia Guillen as saying: "[Maria Julia's] death is a huge loss for those of us who work in human rights and it leaves us with the continuing responsibility."