Saturday & Sunday, Jan. 21 & 22, 2012
January 21, 2012 by Sarah
It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
— Mohandas K. Gandhi
Jan. 20, 2012: Building our community takes everyone working together, by Kayla Dvorak
January 20, 2012 by Sarah
A community needs to stay strong. How else could it function if nobody worked together to make decisions for the better of the society? When making choices that will affect everyone, people need to take a walk in someone else’s shoes before they decide what would be best for that person.
Everyone has to be involved in a community. If you want a say in what happens in your community, go to a town meeting and vote in city elections. Do your part in the community; represent your town or city. Make it look like a nice place to live. When you want to buy a car, buy it from your car dealership, not from the next town over. Let your town reach its full potential.
Another important part of being involved in the community is getting to know the other residents of the town or city. You cannot feel like you belong if you do not know the people living around you. Listen to their opinions as well because what they have to say is important. Whatever decisions your community makes will affect you because everyone should work together to make their community a better place to live.
Making the community better involves doing your part. If everyone is not on the same page about helping make the town a better place then it will not work smoothly.
— Kayla Dvorak is an eighth grader at Concordia Junior High School. She is the daughter of Heath Dvorak and Sharon Klima.
Friday, Jan. 20, 2012
January 20, 2012 by Sarah
Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.
— Stanley Horowitz
Sisters bring immigration rights advocates together
January 19, 2012 by Sarah
This afternoon's meeting began with a prayer — and Mary Salazar, with the Univisión affiliate in Wichita, was there to report on it for the TV station's Spanish-language newscast.
Just days after Catholic bishops had convened a national conference in Denver on immigration policies and ways to move the issue to the forefront of political debate, a much smaller group of people from throughout central and western Kansas gathered in Salina Thursday to talk about immigrants in the state.
• • • • • • •
Nearly two dozen Catholic sisters, social service workers and other citizens took part in the “Conversation about Immigration” organized by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia. They had been invited by Cheryl Lyn Higgins, the coordinator of Neighborhood Initiatives, an office within the Concordia congregation that is working with the sisters’ Immigration Committee.
Higgins said this meeting — and a second one scheduled for March 1 in Dodge City — were designed to “develop a better picture of what is available for immigrants and what needs to be done.”
Many of the participants brought to the meeting passion and a certain level of frustration over limited services, funding cuts and a lack of understanding among both politicians and voters.
“There are a lot of people who really do know our (economic) need for the immigrant,” said Sister Therese Bangert, a Sister of Charity of Leavenworth and a longtime immigration rights advocate. “But we have to be more effective in getting that message out. Maybe, eventually, our own self-interest will move us (toward immigration reform).”
Sister Therese was among those last year who lobbied against Kansas House Bill 2372, which was authored by Secretary of State Kris Kobach and which contained provisions modeled after the Arizona law — also written by Kobach — that is still being challenged as unconstitutional. The Kansas House voted 84-40 against pulling HB 2372 from its Judiciary Committee, where the bill was tabled indefinitely.
But, Sister Therese said, that does not mean Kobach has given up his agenda on immigration. “He has said this year he’ll divide that bill into maybe nine little bills that won’t attract that much attention,” she said.
Sister Mary Ellen Loch of the Congregation of St. Joseph in Wichita said that educating laypeople of all faiths remains a crucial element.
While the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph and numerous individual church organizations and religious communities – including the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia — have called for national immigration reform, Sister Mary Ellen said, “The people (of the Church) have to see this as an issue for all of us. We’re not going to change anything until we change the spiritual attitude of the people.”
(TO READ MORE ABOUT THE SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH OF CONCORDIA’S STANCE ON IMMIGRATION, CLICK HERE.)
Cynthia Colbert, executive director of Catholic Charities in Wichita, said that after people are educated about the issue, they can apply political pressure. But, she noted, that takes money.
“We need a political action committee, we need a lobbyist,” she said. “Right now there’s no unified organization to get people calling legislators.”
Colbert added that while there are many Kansans in support of national immigration reform, there are also some who stand adamantly opposed to that position. “We’ve got to speak to those in the middle,” she said. “We’ve got to help them understand why this issue is so important to us, as people of faith and as Americans.”
Sister Judy Stephens, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia’s Immigration Committee, said that people in Wichita and other cities across Kansas need also to understand that services for immigrants are mostly limited to urban areas – despite the need for them in rural, agricultural areas where many new immigrants may work. “There is a Hispanic, Spanish-speaking family in virtually every little town, and yet there are no bilingual services outside of Salina, Wichita and Topeka,” Sister Judy said.
A Concordia resident who is fluent in Spanish, Sister Judy frequently provides informal translation services for people in the Concordia area.
Higgins said the sisters’ Immigration Committee will take all the comments and information gathered at Thursday’s meeting — and well as information from the upcoming Dodge City session — and compile it, “to see what steps we can take.” The goal, she said, is to find ways to work together collectively.
Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012
January 19, 2012 by Sarah
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
— Charles A. Beard
Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012
January 18, 2012 by Sarah
Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.
— David Lloyd George
Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012
January 17, 2012 by Sarah
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape — the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.
~Andrew Wyeth
Monday, Jan. 16, 2012
January 16, 2012 by Sarah
Saturday & Sunday, Jan. 14 & 15, 2012
January 14, 2012 by Sarah
Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour.
— John Boswell
Sisters call for compassionate immigration reform
January 13, 2012 by Sarah
In a brief but powerful “celebration” Friday afternoon, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia joined other groups across the nation in calling for compassionate and comprehensive national immigration policy reform.
• • • • • • •
The sisters took the opportunity of National Migration Week, proclaimed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to publicly release their “Statement on Immigration” that was unanimously accepted by the women’s religious order two months ago.
At the Sisters of St. Joseph Senate in November, the congregation calls for a national immigration policy that includes:
- A pathway to lawful permanent residency and citizenship for the undocumented persons currently living in the United States;
- A process to reduce the backlog of family visas in order to ensure family unity and reunification;
- A guest worker program that ensures labor protections and equitable wages;
- A border security and enforcement policy that is humane; and
- A process whereby undocumented students living in the United States can earn a college degree and become gainfully employed.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the U.S. Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, as well as numerous other religious communities, have supported similar proclamations.
TO READ THE COMPLETE STATEMENT, CLICK HERE.
Sister Esther Pineda, a member of the congregation’s Immigration Committee and director of the Justice and Peace Center in Salina, began the half-hour ceremony by noting that the theme of the national week was “Welcoming Christ in the migrant.”
“The Sisters of St. Joseph offer a welcoming hand to the immigrant in our midst,” she said. “Being concerned for the least among us is the … cornerstone of the Sisters of St. Joseph.”
TO WATCH A VIDEO OF SISTER ESTHER’S FULL INTRODUCTION, CLICK HERE.
As the ceremony continued, sisters lit candles and quoted Scripture and their congregational Constitution in support of their stance in the Enactment Statement.
A special guest for the ceremony was Ana Aquirre-Brown, whose family fled war-torn Guatemala in the early 1980s and came to Concordia as part of the “sanctuary movement.” They first arrived at Manna House of Prayer in Concordia, and were supported by the Sisters of St. Joseph while they established themselves here. Ana, who was born in the United States and now lives with her husband in Minneapolis, Kan., spoke of the sisters’ generosity and kindness to her family. “I just want to thank you,” she said, fighting back tears.
Sister Marcia Allen, president of the Concordia congregation, closed the ceremony with a short speech that recapped the sisters’ history of taking a stand to do the right thing, even when it was unpopular. She said the sisters are committed to working toward immigration policy reform, collaborating with other immigration rights advocates where appropriate and helping immigrants already in the United States.
“We know that legislation is necessary,” Sister Marcia said, “and it will take a great deal of conversation and compromise to bring about fair policies for immigrants.”
But in the meantime, she added, “We will care for those who already find themselves here and we will do what we can to see that they are welcome.”
TO WATCH A VIDEO OF SISTER MARCIA’S FULL REMARKS, CLICK HERE.
