Benedictine College’s Intentional Culture of Inclusion

June 29, 2020

Benedictine Faculty in Atchison, Kansas, drastically appreciates the issues delivered to the faculty about issues of race on campus. We’re dedicated to responding in as forthright a method as potential.

We’re painfully conscious that the establishment and its members have typically fallen wanting the faculty’s targets, as letter-writers have made clear. Racial bigotry has no place at Benedictine Faculty. It by no means has and by no means will. On the identical time, we all know that structural contributors to racism exist even when they aren’t supposed, and that it’s tougher to be an individual of shade at a majority-white establishment than it might or ought to be.

Our dedication to fostering a group of affection, by which every particular person is valued and cherished, is deep, intensive, and firmly based on the mission and values of Benedictine Faculty. For this reason President Stephen D. Minnis thought it vital to reply straight to at least one pupil who posted on social media utilizing a pupil membership’s account (See APPENDIX ONE beneath). The current doc is supposed to assist unfold the phrase concerning the efforts of so many Ravens who’ve tirelessly labored to make Benedictine Faculty a spot of welcome and respect.

We’re grateful for the appreciative notes, calls, and letters testifying to the best way by which the Raven group supported them whereas they had been right here and ready them to achieve the varied society by which they reside and work:

Stated one be aware: “I established among the most impactful, loving, and Christocentric relationships throughout my time there. These relationships are with college students coming from many alternative ethnic backgrounds (African, Black, Hispanic, White, Center Japanese, and extra). My brothers and sisters are all talking out now in assist of the faculty and in opposition to current letters being despatched to the campus relating to racial relations and stress on campus. Throughout our time there, this was not one thing we skilled or noticed.”

“I strongly disagree with [critics’] portrayal of our Raven tradition,” mentioned one other. “I wouldn’t ever deny painful experiences described by different college students or alumni that may have been prompted from lack of empathy and inclusion of range. Training about empathy and improved discipleship is all the time a very good transfer, however I pray nobody from Benedictine is ever bullied into acknowledging a detrimental and false depiction of our group due to social or political strain. … Benedictine Faculty’s tradition of equality — a tradition that loves and values all souls indiscriminately — is likely one of the college’s Most worthy property. I imagine so strongly in that worth system that I entrusted Benedictine with my very own daughter’s schooling.

Benedictine Faculty’s Structural Efforts to Construct a Tradition of Inclusion

Benedictine Faculty’s tradition can and should be improved, and the necessity to appeal to and assist college students from all backgrounds has been some extent of emphasis for a few years, resulting in a lot of initiatives supposed to make the campus extra inclusive and welcoming.

New Strategic Plan. The school just lately accomplished an intensive, two-year strategic planning course of, centered on bringing its transformative Benedictine mission to the world. This plan was developed by the Board of Administrators working by discussions with college, employees, college students, alumni and out of doors specialists, by which hours had been spent discussing racial inclusion, in some instances with nationwide African-American leaders.

• The primary initiative within the Remodeling Tradition in America plan states that “the worldwide Catholic Church which embraces the world’s races and cultures is our mannequin for range. The school will develop initiatives to draw college students, college, and employees from all backgrounds and cultures who can profit from and contribute to its mission.”
  • Catholic Church, Mannequin of Range. Benedictine Faculty’s Catholic identification is the essential middle of its tradition of racial inclusion. The Catholic Church is probably the most various group on the earth. Greater than two thirds of Catholics worldwide are nonwhite, and Africa and South America are the dynamic coronary heart of the modern Church, locations of nice progress and thrilling developments. Benedictine Faculty strives to be extra rooted in its Catholicity, and to work to turn out to be a faculty that appears extra just like the common Church.
  • As a Catholic school, Benedictine is grateful for the historic management the Catholic Church in America has offered within the pursuit of racial justice (together with excommunicating Catholic public officers in New Orleans who supported segregation), and particularly grateful for the function of Benedictine’s sponsoring establishments in racial integration and civil rights advocacy. The Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica bravely built-in faculties right here in Atchison, Kansas, and sponsor Donnelly Faculty in Kansas Metropolis, Kansas, which serves a largely minority and immigrant pupil physique.

Latest efforts. When President Minnis made a press release calling for prayer and motion to finish racism (APPENDIX TWO beneath), what follows are the efforts he had in thoughts. Initiatives the faculty has undertaken lately to supply Benedictine Faculty college students with experiences of range embrace:

Seymour Institute Partnership – Dr. Jacqueline Rivers and Rev. Gene Rivers of The William Seymour Institute for the Black Church and Coverage Research are main specialists in race, group policing, and poverty. They spoke in Sept. 2016 on black males and violence (Hope and Wrestle: Black Males and Violence). Dr. Rivers was our Convocation speaker in 2018 and her speech was featured within the school’s Gregorian Speech Digest. In 2019, Rev. Rivers was an energetic participant in our Remodeling Tradition in America course of, which resulted in a powerful range plank in our Strategic Plan.

The Black Scholar Union – after a number of years of dormancy, the Black Scholar Union was restarted after the preliminary go to of Rev. and Dr. Rivers, and has developed right into a thriving management group on campus, offering programming for its members, the faculty group, and the broader Atchison group. This summer time, the faculty obtained a grant of $20,000 to the Black Scholar Union for programming and efforts to advertise racial understanding on campus. As well as, Benedictine Faculty has submitted different proposals for funding for BSU programming and initiatives.

Some present and pending BSU initiatives embrace:

• Lecture Collection – the group has welcomed civic, non secular, instructional and media personalities (e.g. Dr. Bernard Franklin, John Harris Sr., Cristal Watson, Dr. and Rev. Rivers, Rod Wheeler)
• Movie Collection –movies are proven on campus with guided discussions following (e.g. Roots, 12 Years a Slave, I’m Not Your Negro)
• Mentoring/Outreach – The Black Scholar Union piloted a mentoring program between the faculty college students and the choice highschool in Atchison. The BSU officers will proceed to work with the principal of the choice college to ascertain a metric for achievement for this educational 12 months, 2020-2021.
• E book Golf equipment – The Black Scholar Union will proceed their mental growth by a collection of guide membership periods. The end result of those periods will probably be higher curiosity and confidence in scholarly studying and studying.
• Skilled Workshops – The BSU is growing workshops for the upcoming educational 12 months. Working together with the Profession Providers Workplace, the Black Scholar Union will use these alternatives to develop abilities similar to: monetary literacy, interviewing, networking, discovering internships, skilled etiquette, and profession exploration.
• Social Occasions – The institution of a campus-wide cultural occasion is the objective for Benedictine Faculty’s Black Scholar Union this educational 12 months.

King Program – Dr. Jacqueline Rivers, along with her work with the Seymour Institute, is a fellow within the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Coverage at Harvard’s Kennedy Faculty of Authorities. She and her husband, Rev. Gene, created the King Tutorial Summer time Program in Boston to work with the inner-city poor. Thanks partially to a beneficiant alumnus’ donation, Benedictine Faculty has despatched college students to Boston the final a number of years to take part on this program, and two extra will take part this 12 months. The Rivers’ private witness and educating have remodeled their work within the Black Scholar Union.

SGA Range Process Power – Just a few years in the past, Benedictine Faculty’s Scholar Authorities Affiliation created a range job drive to supply cultural and social occasions that replicate the faculty’s various pupil physique. President Minnis has met with the president and vp of the SGA to debate how the SGA and different pupil teams can tackle the subject of racial injustice. The SGA helped writer and signal a press release in opposition to racial injustice with different pupil governments from a number of Newman Information establishments.

Scholar Life Mentoring – Scholar Life established a first-generation pupil peer mentoring group; lots of our minority college students are first-generation school college students.

Tutorial Focus – There are a selection of educational programs which have a deal with growing a clearer understanding of the function of race and ethnic distinction in in the present day’s world. For instance, The Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King interdisciplinary course is obtainable every fall. Extra programs on Race and Ethnicity in America to supply educational exploration of the numerous dimensions of racial points in modern society. Collegewide, every educational program assesses how and the way properly it prepares its college students to reside and work in a various and multicultural society.

Hispanic and Worldwide Scholar Outreach – To help Hispanic college students or different minority teams on campus, Benedictine Faculty hosts a Hispanic Latino Membership, an Organizacion de Alumnos Lationoamericanos (OLA) group and an Worldwide Membership.

Refugee assist. The school has additionally initiated efforts to serve refugees.

• Benedictine partnered with the Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica Monastery and the monks of St. Benedict’s Abbey to sponsor a refugee pupil fleeing the warfare in Iraq.
• Numerous campus audio system and occasions have been held to attract consideration to the plight of refugees and the wants of immigrants. For instance:
  • Campus audio system similar to Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso are on the forefront of opposing immigration restrictions. Bishop Seitz spoke on campus after celebrating a simultaneous Mass with Pope Francis on both aspect of the Mexican border.
  • The travelling exhibit “A Folks, A Face, A Newness in On a regular basis Rubble,” (documenting the plight of Syrian and Iraqi Christians fleeing ISIS) was hosted right here; the journalist who created the exhibit skyped in to debate the scenario with our college students.
  • The Gregorian Fellows sponsored the Christians within the Center East panel together with Communion and Liberation College and Catholic Reduction Providers College. The panel explores tales of persecuted Iraqi and Syrian Christians who fled their homeland and at the moment are refugees in varied camps and church buildings in Amman, Jordan and its neighboring areas.
  • Benedictine’s Knights of Columbus sponsored a Ukrainian refugee who spoke about her experiences throughout Ukraine’s civil warfare, her efforts to convey reduction there, and her travels inside the USA.
  • The Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica sponsored lectures on campus about immigration points, together with Sister Norma Pimentel, refugee advocate and Govt Director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (Texas) and Dr. Carolyn Woo, former head of Catholic Reduction Providers.
  • Social Justice Week on our campus has a major refugee/immigrant focus annually, with audio system, movies and different occasions giving our college students the chance to study concerning the challenge from the angle of Catholic Social Thought.
  • The school has featured members of the campus who serve refugees, together with Dr. Edward Mulholland who spent a summer time at a Greek refugee camp, and pupil work with Mission Uplift, Catholic Reduction Providers, Communion and Liberation, and the Knights of Columbus.

Admission outreach. Benedictine Faculty’s Admission workplace has created a number of applications to assist create a local weather welcoming to all college students.

• The school is a Nationwide Hispanic Institute associate, providing full tuition scholarships for Nationwide Hispanic Students and Nationwide Achievement Students, offering focused scholarships to high-achieving Black and Hispanic college students.
• The school supplies an Worldwide Scholar Providers Staff to assist worldwide college students.
• Benedictine recruits college students in Central and South America and SE Asia.
• The school is a member of the Cristo Rey community (an affiliation of city excessive faculties devoted to educating underserved populations) as a nationwide sponsor.
• The school has established a particular donor fund to assist scholarship help to low revenue Hispanic/Latino college students, and advantages from the Atchison Group Basis Scholarship.
• The school has centered Spanish language promoting on Univision within the Kansas Metropolis market.

Future Plans to Protect Benedictine Faculty’s Tradition of Inclusion

Benedictine Faculty just lately established a GA place for Range Initiatives, and employed Tyler Shephard (former BSU president) in that place, to assist coordinate and amplify the faculty response to points associated to race and inclusion.  The school is specializing in two normal goals for Fall Semester, 2020:

1) assist and have interaction Raven college students of shade by making a tradition the place they thrive and

2) equip white Raven college students to higher perceive and appropriately reply to racism.

Orientation presentation – The GA for Range and Dr. Joseph Wurtz, Dean of College students, are growing a presentation for all new freshmen to assist them perceive the significance of those two goals.

All year long, the GA for Range Initiatives and the Scholar Life employees will maintain periods with African-American college students, beginning early within the fall semester. Scholar Life will work with Benedictine Faculty Sociologist Karen Wooden to develop a collection of inquiries to information these interviews. 

2020 Lecture Collection:  a collection of audio system will assist all the group interact with problems with race and justice within the fall.

• William Allen is emeritus dean and Professor of Political Philosophy within the Division of Political Science at Michigan State College, and 2008-09 Visiting Senior Scholar within the Matthew J. Ryan Heart for the Examine of Free Establishments and the Public Good at Villanova College. He additionally served beforehand on the Nationwide Council for the Humanities and as Chairman and Member of the U.S. Fee on Civil Rights. He was the Ann & Herbert W. Vaughan Visiting Fellow within the James Madison Program on American Beliefs and Establishments at Princeton College. He’s an professional on liberal arts schooling, its historical past, significance and issues. He’s additionally chairman and co-founder of Towards A Truthful Michigan, whose mission is to additional understanding of the equal alternative points concerned in guaranteeing civil rights for all residents, and to supply a civic discussion board for a good and open change of views on the query of affirmative motion.
• Deacon Harold Sivers, famous writer and inspirational speaker, will make a go to to campus to talk to the Scholar Life employees, the Black Scholar Union and the group as an entire. One among his displays is titled: Constructing a Civilization of Love: A Catholic Response to Racism. One of many different subjects he’ll tackle is the life and story of Fr. Augustus Tolton – the primary black slave to turn out to be a Catholic priest in America.
• Luke’s Productions’ Tolton efficiency. Tolton is a strong multi-media reside manufacturing, stuffed with music, drama and galvanizing performances. It brings a message of hope and therapeutic for the injuries that plague America’s tradition. Benedictine plans to host a manufacturing of this efficiency in October.

Past the autumn semester, Benedictine Faculty and the Black Scholar Union will proceed to ask leaders to campus to assist them and encourage their ongoing formation. The institution of an annual Visiting Fellow, in collaboration with the Seymour Institute, is a future objective for tutorial 12 months 2020-21.

Group Policing with Atchison Police Division – In collaboration with Atchison’s chief of police, Mike Wilson, Benedictine Faculty and the Black Scholar Union have scheduled discussions/listening periods to advertise mutual understanding relating to what Atchison is doing on this space and the way college students can take part in significant motion.

Counseling Heart preparation – Tyler Shephard will meet with the Director of Benedictine Faculty’s Counseling Heart to share insights concerning the African-American perspective on campus companies and what could also be most useful. As well as, the Counseling Heart is taking the next steps:

• Its employees will yearly obtain cultural competency coaching and coaching on the influence of racism on psychological well being.
• Its employees will search to be consultant of the scholar physique inhabitants demographic by hiring employees and contracting with interns which can be individuals of shade when potential.
• The middle will present programming and alternatives for college students of shade to share their experiences and voice issues, similar to small group Compassion Circles and Brave Discussions panels.
• The middle will meet with present college students of shade in addition to alumni to realize enter on adapting psychological well being companies to fulfill their wants.
• The middle will make sure that relevant assets are seen and accessible to the black college students on our campus. 

Management coaching – A number of members of the Black Scholar Union participated within the annual Benedictine Faculty Management Seminar final 12 months, and the president of the BSU was employed as a resident assistant, which is likely one of the most selective management positions on campus. A objective of the BSU agenda is to encourage and assist extra of its members to take part within the Management Seminar and attain management positions.

In brief, the faculty’s objective is to extend the variety of African-American leaders on campus, improve the variety of African People on the tutorial honor roll, improve their retention and commencement charges, improve their non secular involvement, and improve their internship and profession placements.

Raven Athletics Efforts to Construct Benedictine Faculty’s Tradition of Inclusion

Along with the actions listed above, Raven Athletics has taken a management function in selling a tradition of inclusion, concurrently working applications of its personal.

Raven Athletics – The Benedictine Faculty Intercollegiate Athletic Division affirms a holistic method to schooling supposed to advertise mental, social, bodily and non secular progress of student-athletes, and has a protracted historical past of serving to kind the character of younger ladies and men, no matter race. The testimony of Tyler Shephard, from Chicago, is an efficient instance of the result Raven Athletics is constructed to ship:

“Out of my eighth-grade graduating class, I do know that I’m the one male to even graduate from a standard highschool setting. … [Benedictine College Athletic Director] Coach Gartenmayer got here to my highschool. The issues that he talked to me about actually stood out to me. Not like each different coach I bought a suggestion from, he talked to me about changing into a greater particular person, acquiring a high quality schooling and growing lifelong friendships. That’s what really intrigued me. … [On campus,] I felt like I used to be completely different from all people else. However as time went on and with the assistance of mentors on campus — the seniors, the teaching employees, and my professors— I used to be capable of flourish on this setting. … Benedictine has taught me that you simply’re not reaching your full potential if you happen to aren’t serving to different folks maximize theirs.”

Fr. Ryan Richardson’s work with athletes – A bunch of group leaders has been assembly biweekly with Benedictine Faculty affiliate chaplain Father Ryan Richardson on related subjects for leaders. The conferences continued in the summertime and addressed the George Floyd homicide, current riots and race relations. One Raven athlete shared how in these instances, African-American athletes on campus most wish to be listened to. It was useful for all of them to share how they’re processing this second and listen to Benedictine Faculty’s dedication to fostering unity. The core group consists of 10 black athletes.

Coaches’ check-in – Within the wake of the George Floyd homicide, Benedictine Faculty Athletic Director Charlie Gartenmayer requested all coaches to examine in with their African-American student-athletes to see how they’re doing, what they’re feeling, and so on.

Future plans in athletics – Athletic Director Charles Gartenmayer mentioned the main focus for the 12 months forward in Raven Athletics is “Consciousness, Understanding, Training, Listening and Love.” Dr. Joseph Wurtz and the graduate assistant for Range Initiatives are working to create and manage a digital roundtable dialogue with college students, employees and Atchison Group members to hear, acquire higher understanding and enact significant change the place wanted. Teaching staffs are assembly over the summer time to develop further applications.

Mission, Imaginative and prescient and Values

All these plans and applications are the fruit of onerous work, reflection and dedication to constructing a strong and inclusive group. Benedictine Faculty’s values name us to deal with every particular person particular person, each member of the Raven household and each visitor, because the picture and likeness of God. Does the group fall wanting that objective? After all it does. Benedictine Faculty is a group made up of sinful people. However the school won’t ever cease attempting to create this group of affection.

We know that folks’s experiences differ, and that these completely different backgrounds, cultures and experiences can each add richness to the faculty’s widespread life and contribute to stress and misunderstanding. If these tensions and misunderstandings manifest themselves in acts of disrespect or mistreatment — on the idea of race or another attribute — we’ll reply when the details are made recognized to accountable authorities.

However the Benedictine Faculty group nonetheless strives, and can proceed to attempt, to deal with every particular person as a uniquely useful member of the group. When somebody falls quick — which can occur sooner or later because it has prior to now — group members ought to convey incidents to the eye of school or employees. Our objective is, and can stay, to create a group by which everybody accepts the duty to comply with the steerage of St. Benedict, treating one another as in the event that they had been Jesus Christ himself (Rule of St. Benedict, 53:1).

It’s best to conclude with the phrases a pupil of shade despatched to President Minnis.

“I got here from a highschool the place racism was commonly a difficulty for me. My highschool was largely white and I used to be one in every of three or 4 folks of shade in my class. I anticipated degrading feedback referring to my ethnicity nearly day by day,” mentioned the scholar. “After I was selecting a school, I used to be very scared to go to a school the place I might relive the identical expertise. I wished a school the place the races had been equally balanced … I used to be utterly hesitant [about Benedictine] as a result of I knew nearly all of the scholar physique was Caucasian.

“Nonetheless, once I came around Benedictine Faculty my senior 12 months of highschool, I felt one thing inside me change. My coronary heart softened and I started to see that Benedictine was not a spot like my highschool. It was a spot the place I might be liked and listened to, regardless of the colour of my pores and skin or my ancestry. … I might go on and on about each college and buddies from Benedictine who’ve allowed me to be each assured and joyful in who I’m. However the easy level is that this: You had been concerned in hiring these fantastic folks. I imagine that you’ve got all the time accomplished your greatest to fight an issue that isn’t a Benedictine drawback, however a cultural one. And I imagine that you’ve got accomplished a phenomenal job. I contemplate Benedictine Faculty a second residence, a spot the place I grew to like each myself and my story.”

APPENDIX ONE

President Minnis’ Assertion on Scholar’s Traditionally Inaccurate and Offensive Submit

June 17, 2020

Stephen D. Minnis, President of Benedictine Faculty, issued the next assertion on Wednesday, June 17, 2020.

Benedictine Faculty was deeply disturbed to see {that a} member of the scholar Chapter of TPUSA posted an traditionally inaccurate and offensive graphic on their Instagram account.

This meme asserted that the primary slave-owner in America was black. That’s factually flawed. However extra perniciously, it appears to indicate that enslavement was not an establishment imposed on black folks by white folks. That is flawed in each sense of the phrase.

Very sometimes you discover references to a black particular person proudly owning slaves. This doesn’t imply that slavery was not a race-based system imposed on black folks by white folks. To disclaim it looks as if an try to deny the historic actuality that racism has prompted struggling that continues to this very day.

Even when this was not the intent of the scholar who posted this meme, it was however an act that might solely trigger useless ache, particularly to our black Raven relations. The Dean of College students is at the moment evaluating the suitable response to this membership in mild of the principles governing pupil organizations, and is working with our GA for Range Initiatives to develop applications for the autumn that can emphasize how we are able to higher tackle the unhappy legacy of slavery and racism in in the present day’s society (and on campus). Nonetheless, the true response to this isn’t about rights and applications. The actual response relies in our rules and values, and our name to every, individually, commit ourselves to embracing them and dwelling them out.

The nice promise of America—a promise obscured, however not obliterated, by the horrible stain of slavery—is contained within the phrases of the Declaration of Independence—that we’re all equal, every of us, of each race and circumstance, equally created within the picture and likeness of God. It’s to attain that promise that we should hold striving, to not divide by race however to embrace this nice problem—to elevate the burdens from all our neighbors and fellow residents, to intention towards therapeutic and peace reasonably than provocation and aggravation. 

St. Benedict reminds us that we must always deal with everybody we encounter as in the event that they had been Jesus Christ himself. Posting photos or messages which can be hurtful to our fellow college students and fellow residents is antithetical to our group. Now’s a very delicate time in our nation’s historical past, and phrases and pictures that carry unsettling implications are much more hurtful than ordinary. Allow us to not trigger useless ache with careless remarks or social media posts. Our solely hope for therapeutic and progress is love—love for these God has put in our path, by making them fellow Ravens. Abraham Lincoln exhibits us the best way: “With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the correct as God provides us to see the correct, allow us to attempt on to complete the work we’re in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…”

UPDATE

It’s a unhappy indisputable fact that slavery existed on the North American continent lengthy earlier than the inspiration of the USA, and earlier than the courtroom case that was referred to within the article in query. Listed below are some details that aren’t in dispute:

• there have been slaves in Florida as early because the 1520s; Spanish regulation, which operated in Florida on the time, enforced slavery
• there have been slaves in Virginia courting from 1619 —though with out a authorized ruling about their standing, however they had been purchased and bought and punished for attempting to run away
• there have been slaves in Massachusetts from the 1630s
• Massachusetts formally acknowledged slavery as authorized in 1641
• Anthony Johnson, whose case was heard in 1654, was undoubtedly NOT the primary slaveowner in America, nevertheless, he might extra precisely be described as the primary particular person whose standing as a slaveowner was particularly acknowledged in a courtroom choice in Virginia.

APPENDIX TWO

President Minnis’ Name for Prayer and Motion to Finish Racism

June 2, 2020

Stephen D. Minnis, President of Benedictine Faculty, issued the next assertion about prayer and motion to finish racism within the wake of the homicide of George Floyd and the next protests in American cities.

This Wednesday, June 3, please be a part of me to hope for a rise in religion, hope and love on this tough time at our weekly 7:30 a.m. Rosary, livestreamed on Fb.

June 3 is the feast of Charles Lwanga and the Ugandan martyrs. In 1964, their canonization was a well timed reminder that the worldwide Catholic Church, which embraces the world’s races and cultures, is a mannequin of range. We pray that by the intercession of Our Woman and St. Charles and companions, all folks will develop in mutual respect and love, and that our hearts will probably be touched to get rid of the scourge of racism.

Within the wake of the homicide of George Floyd, we be a part of the U.S. bishops’ plea that “Too many communities round this nation really feel their voices are usually not being heard, their complaints about racist remedy are unheeded, and we aren’t doing sufficient to level out that this lethal remedy is antithetical to the Gospel of Life.”

At Benedictine Faculty, our mission is to coach inside a group of religion and scholarship. The searing photos —of the homicide, of the violence, of the craze and ache — remind us that this mission must be embraced as each a problem and an aspiration.

As a Catholic school, we’re known as to rework tradition by honoring the infinite dignity of each human particular person and the sacredness of each human life.

As a Benedictine school, we’re known as to greet everybody we meet as Jesus Christ himself.

As a group, we are able to and we should recommit to heeding these calls, overcoming our variations and treating every particular person we encounter as a baby of God.

Be part of us in prayer and motion for hope and therapeutic in America.