An illegal sanctuary

McCain and Romney battle over their devilish pride






At the CNN YouTube Republican candidate debates on Wednesday, front-runner Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney battled it out over who has held the “holiest” sanctuary for illegal immigrants, Giuliani’s city of New York or Romney’s own back yard, dueling over the right to a self proclaimed devilish approach to immigrant control. Even Anderson Cooper couldn’t control the shots fired back and forth over the heads of the thousands who reside in the United States illegally.



Yet as Giuliani and Romney seemed to be content with redundant accusations of shepherding the flocks, it took candidate John McCain to remind them that these are humans they are talking about, not dumb sheep.

"We must recognize these are God's children as well," McCain said. "They need our love and compassion, and I want to ensure that I will enforce the borders first. But we won't demagogue it."

Mike Huckabee also defended his position on respecting those illegally residing in the US, especially their children and his support for allowing these children to be eligible to apply for college scholarships.

Both McCain and Huckabee have been criticized by the GOP for their “soft” approach to immigration policies.

Romney proved his concern to appeal to the mainstream inhuman approach to illegal immigrants by responding, "Are we going to say kids who are here illegally are going to get a special deal?" Romney asked.

Huckabee objected, saying that scholarships would be based on merit, as for all applicants. "We are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did," he said

Hopefully we are also a better country than to vote for candidates who punish the parents for wanting a better life for their children. While the issue of illegal immigration must be addressed, the issue is one of helping these people to become safe, secure, and capable of providing for their families, legally in the United States or in an improved economic condition back at home.

Death Penalty? What would Jesus do?

In response to a question from Tyler Overman on the CNN YouTube debate, Republican Candidate Mike Huckabee was confronted with his position, as a Christian, on the death penalty – an interesting question for all followers of Christ.

“You know, one of the toughest challenges that I ever faced as a governor was carrying out the death penalty. I did it more than any other governor ever had to do it in my state. As I look on this stage, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person on this stage that's ever had to actually do it.
“Let me tell you, it was the toughest decision I ever made as a human-being. I read every page of every document of every case that ever came before me, because it was the one decision that came to my desk that, once I made it, was irrevocable.
“Every other decision, somebody else could go back and overturn, could fix if it was a mistake. That was one that was irrevocable.
“I believe there is a place for a death penalty. Some crimes are so heinous, so horrible that the only response that we, as a civilized nation, have for a most uncivil action is not only to try to deter that person from ever committing that crime again, but also as a warning to others that some crimes truly are beyond any other capacity for us to fix.
(Applause)
“Now, having said that, there are those who say, "How can you be pro-life and believe in the death penalty?"
“Because there's a real difference between the process of adjudication, where a person is deemed guilty after a thorough judicial process and is put to death by all of us, as citizens, under a law, as opposed to an individual making a decision to terminate a life that has never been deemed guilty because the life never was given a chance to even exist.”

But when faced with the question again, Huckabee’s response needs no further commentary, What would Jesus do? Would Jesus support the death penalty?
Huckabee’s response? Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office. That's what Jesus would do.

Amen!

Across the Universe – Or right here at home

A musical twist of artistic social commentary set to the familiar tunes of the Beatles cannot even begin to describe the film Across the Universe. Set in the 1960’s during the Vietnam War, the film depicts a time when the innocence of America was radically shattered one young drafted male’s life at a time.



A depiction of passionate free love that defined the 1960’s in America, yet realistically portrayed in the bondage of passionate devotion to a cause…a cry…for true freedom from a world defined by a war across seas and a war within her own boarders. Passionate love in a bondage that forced protest to bring the violence from across the universe, to right here at home.

As I was memorized to the point of speechlessness by the film, I couldn’t help but believe that we live in a time of similar devotion. A time when we no longer see the why or how of the fighting, only the blood and body bags. A time when we soon will believe that enough is enough.

If they instituted a draft, that time would already be here. But if we continue the way we are, that time is coming soon.

The Season of Good Cheer?

Before the turkey could even be digested, avid shoppers across America began plotting and planning their strategy for the following day. Over one hundred million Americans were said to have hit the malls on the biggest shopping day of the year, black Friday—“black” to morn the death of true values and the birth of our material consumerism. By four o’clock am lines had formed outside Kohl’s awaiting the can’t-live-without bargains inside, while others were already finished with their first and even second bargain achievement pausing only long enough to refuel at the nearby Starbucks before checking the next purchase off the list.

What is supposed to be the season of good cheer some how got crossed with the season of good buys. By the looks of the shopping malls, high housing prices and gas costs have caused consumers to only cut one thing out of their budget this holiday season, forgetting one simple craze in the holiday book of catch phrase—to spread the cheer.

This year marked record low thanksgiving dinner food donations for those in need. As the holiday season is now entirely underway, food banks are reporting the emptiest shelves in 20 years.

Along with gas and housing costs, food prices are also up 3.3 percent from last year in Southern California, and the increase in cost of living is having drastic effects for everyone.

But when looking to cut back, donations should be the last to go.

In Orange County alone 190,000 people struggle to buy food for themselves and their families. They rely on help from the federal government and donations from those who don’t have to worry about where the next meal will come from.

Many of these families also rely on the two meals available for kids of low-income families at school. When school is out for winter break, those two meals are extremely costly and for many, impossible to compensate.

The holidays are not a season of good cheer for those who are hungry. While everyone is feeling the burden of raised prices and higher living costs, those of us who still hit the malls with Starbucks in hand and Christmas wish lists, must seriously consider the necessities we take forgranted and the necessities we can help provide for others. The holidays are the season of good cheer—but only when it is spread.

A Red light in the Red district

Charu was sold into prostitution after a friend promised her a job selling saris at a distant fair. The friend disappeared after they exited the train and a man approached who claimed he had purchased her. The man brought her to a brothel where Charu was beaten, assaulted and raped. Charu had lost everything. Her husband, her children, her dignity.

Early summer 2007, a source informed an International Justice Mission staff member of Charu’s brothel. IJM investigators arrived at the brothel and covertly documented evidence of her imprisonment. After presenting the evidence to a local authority, the police accompanied the IJM staff member back to the brothel and removed Charu from her imprisonment. IJM not only reconnected Charu with her family, they assessed her condition and found rehabilitation services that would adequately address her individual needs. IJM has also facilitated action against the brothel owner and helped Charu testify as part of the prosecution process.

Human trafficking is tied for the second largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world. Between 600,000 and 800,000 recognized victims are transported across international boarders against their will, in a form of modern day slavery which dictates the lives of over 12.3 million people in every country throughout the world. More than 80 percent of these victims are women and girls, most of which are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. Known as sex trafficking, this 21st century form of slavery promises a better life—a paying job, a secure marriage, profit from the sale of a family member, transportation to a country with better opportunity—yet in return only pays in physical and psychological harm.

South East Asia is a region of origin, destination and transit countries for an estimated quarter million currently trafficked women and children. A recent study published in August 2007 strongly emphasized a connection between sex trafficking and the increasing spread of HIV/AIDS within South Asia.

The global problem of sex trafficking is impacting lives throughout the world, from poverty-stricken third world nations to the United States and Europe. Victims who are rescued and released from bondage have suffered greatly physically and psychologically from beatings, traumatic brain injury, drug/alcohol addiction and STDs. Physical suffering from miscarriages or forced abortions lead to psychological harm which includes Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, depression, insomnia, suicidal thoughts/suicide attempts, mind/body separation, shame, grief, fear distrust, hatred of men and self-hatred. Many women also suffer from traumatic bonding in which they feel gratitude or indebted to the perpetrator for being allowed to live. Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have taken the role of establishing rehabilitation and recovery opportunities for these victims.

The United States along side the United Nations have attempted to define the adequate responsibility of a countries government to address this issue of international human rights, but the action and implementation of these standards varies from country to country. The underground nature of the trade and corrupt and instable governments allow thousands of women to live enslaved with no hope of a future.

With ineffective government action, victims do not have the opportunity to reach these resources and the UN and US have not done enough to ensure governments uphold their commitments.

But the International Justice Mission (IJM) is an NGO that not only provides resources for recovery and rehabilitation but is also actively devoted to bringing the victims to them. IJM is a human rights agency comprised of lawyers, investigators and after-care professionals, who work with local governments to rescue victims, prosecute perpetrators and strengthen the public justice systems. Focusing on these three aspects, IJM works not only to respond to the humanitarian crisis but effectively reduce the profitability of the enterprise and increase the risk to those involved. The goal is simple, help these governments to legitimately uphold the standards of legislation set forth by the UN to effectively rescue victims and prosecute perpetrators. A red light in the red district.

War in Iraq

Sin City: Where sin abounds, grace abounds.

Las Vegas, Nevada: An oasis of over stimulating entertainment amists a dessert, quenching a thirst for physical momentary pleasures.




Entertainment.


Money.


Sex.



The forces that drive this city, and the forces that rightfully earn it the name, the City of Sin.

Nevada is the only state that still has legalized prostitution in the forms of brothels, escort services and “independent entertainers.” About 140 pages in the Nevada Yellow Pages are devoted to such “entertainers,” and over 30 licensed brothels employ upwards of 300 women.

According to the Decriminalizing Prostitution Now Coalition, prostitution is legal in Canada, most of Europe (including England, France, Wales, and Denmark), most of South America (including Mexico), Israel, Australia, much of Asia and South East Asia (including the Philippians and Thailand) and Iran.

The problem is that with a room, a bed, a condom and a red light, many women, especially in developing countries, have the opportunity to make 10 times what they would make as a factory worker. And as a parent, selling a child into the sex industry could earn them more than they would make in their entire life.

While I am deeply saddened by a world that has nothing more to offer these women and children than a bed and some cash, my question is this. While for many, the decision to sell your body for sex is the decision to find a way to eat, America is not a developing nation. We are a stable, organized, democratically lead nation which guarantees life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet the life of these sex slaves, in Nevada, is anything but free or happy and while it often physically kills the body, no women’s heart can survive emotionally or spiritually when she is selling herself.

Aside from trying to understand how a man can find pleasure in a body he not only must pay for but one that despises him, how can we as Americans allow this to take place anywhere in the world, let alone in one of our own states. These are American women and children. Regardless of where they are from, regardless of how they got here. These are American women and children who deserve life—one of liberty and happiness.

A city of sin within a sinful state left alone by a sinful nation.


But where sin abounds, graces abounds even more. But only if the redeemed step out in faith with a passion and a purpose to spread the kingdom of grace and the waters of righteousness across the desolation of a dessert.

The Human Behind the Bean

On a campus that knows all to well the early morning hours devoted to writing papers and studying for mid-terms, the lines at Cornerstone Coffee Shop and the nearby Starbucks also prove that as college students we know all to well the benefit and necessity of the caffeine found in coffee to make those early morning hours productive.

Yet on a campus that boasts social consciousness and awareness, the importance of acting on that, which is seen, as socially debilitating is crucial.

It is easy to indulge in a cup of coffee without thinking of the human behind the bean. The hands that planted and picked, the mouths that must be fed by the income.

Ethiopia is the birthplace of the rich, dark, earthy bean that is roasted and brewed to create a robustly flavorful awakening experience for millions throughout the world every morning with breakfast, as an afternoon “pick-me-up” or a rich compliment to decadent desserts. Ethiopians have been growing and drinking coffee for over 3,000 years and sending it out throughout the world since the 16th century currently making up over half the countries total export earnings.

With approximately 1.2 million Ethiopian coffee bean farmers and 15 million Ethiopians in the industry, the country is highly dependent on this small dark brown bean.

Yet the life of those dependent on the coffee bean industry throughout the world is not quite one of relaxing with a good cup of Joe in the morning.

The collapse of international coffee prices dropped the average coffee farmer earning from $1.20 per kg to $.40 per kg.
So how does a college student practice what we preach in light of the well-known less than humanitarian acceptable conditions of the coffee bean farmer?

It is possible to indulge in a stimulating cup of coffee without the guilt of supporting the cycle of poverty stricken coffee bean farmers. The Fair Trade certified sticker guarantees coffee from farmers whose bean prices and living conditions are protected.

Fair Trade is a market-based network of trade connecting over one million farmers in 58 developing countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. The democratically organized farmer groups receive a guaranteed minimum floor price and an additional premium for certified organic products. They enjoy freedom of association and regulated safe working conditions that strongly prohibit child labor. Middlemen are reduced and importers purchase the beans as directly as possible to keep any profit or revenue directly within the farming community investing in social and business development projects including scholarship programs, quality improvement training and organic certification. Genetically modified organisms are strictly prohibited and integrated farm management systems to improve soil fertility, limit harmful agrochemicals and support sustainable farming methods protect the health of the farms as well as the farmer.

So next time you take an invigorating sip of your cup of Joe in the morning, remember that there is story on every farm, a face to match every story and a human behind every bean.

Religious Division Devastates

I spoke with a man from the Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary (JETS) the other day and he told me a story about one of the Sudanese pastors he worked with about the persecution of the Christian Church in Sudan. It got me thinking. While international attention on Africa has finally been drawn to the atrocious genocide of the native Sudanese people, as I have commented on prior, attention has been focused primarily on the bloody genocide in Darfur. Yet while media attention is focused to the west, a deeply-rooted religious partition has continuously divided the Islamic north and Christian south with much more deadly, yet less recognized, implications.

“Government soldiers came into the village [located] in the Nuba Mountains, a significant bridge between north and south, and burned all the Christian homes, burned the churches, and demanded the pastor denounce Christ,” Daffron said. “In front of the whole village they removed a finger each time they asked and he wouldn’t renounce. Then they dragged him behind a van through the village.”

Daffron believes that only by the grace of God was the life of this pastor spared, to spread a message, not of retaliation, but of hope.

The atrocious genocide of the native Sudanese people in Darfur, a region the size of France in western Sudan, has taken the lives of an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 since the most recent uprising in 2003. Yet while this uprising is the most recent and prevalent, it is one political conflict within a deeply seeded religious civil war between the minority Islamic Arab population and ruling party in the north and the majority native Christian Sudanese population in the south. A religious civil war that has taken the lives of over 2.2 million people in the past 50 years.

The minority Islamic Arab ruling party in the north, and the majority native Christian Sudanese population in the south, have stained the sand of the Sahara over border conflicts, oil revenue and humanitarian aid, for the extent of the country’s independent history.

The conflict is complex with multiple key parties and, even more, angry players. But while it is a political conflict between the National Congress Party, Sudan’s Arab ruling party of the north, and the “Rebel” liberation parties in the south, it is a political conflict with deep religious roots.

Cliff Daffron sees the root of the conflict as “one of an Islamic Arab-led government imposing Islam and all of its systems on the south and the Christian people.”

An Islamic North against a Christian South.

“Islam is not just a religion but a social, political and economic system,” Daffron said.

He said he has seen the Muslim population impose Islam within all aspects of society from banks to school curriculum on the Christian people.

I also spoke with another man directly involved in fighting within the war zone of Sudan. Reverend Sam Childers has lived in the bush of Sudan for 11 years and founded an orphanage in south Sudan for children orphaned by the war. He fights on the front line as a third entity for these children before they are displaced or either side can recruit them as soldiers.

Childers is pessimistic that the hybrid United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission to be deployed sometime before Jan 1 will succeed due to the harsh ethnic and religious partition. He believes the mission will consist of primarily Muslim peacekeepers whose deep-seeded religious bias will detract from a fair protection of the native Christian population.
He also attributed his pessimism to the fact that a peacekeeping mission is to “keep” peace, a peace that cannot currently be found in the country of Sudan.

This conflict is between an Islamic north against a Christian south that has been overshadowed by strong political language that the west is used to using to describe civil conflict. Unfortunately until the international community recognizes the religious aspect of this conflict peace efforts will not address the true conflict and therefore not be successful.

Cliff Daffron left me with this to ponder, which I leave you with.

“I’m all behind [the peacekeeping troops] to stop the slaughter, but that is an external peace, imposed on the country,” Daffron said. “It’s not an internal peace, and that’s what is needed.”