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| Logo of Brot und Rosen (www.brot-und-rosen.de) |
My sabbatical plans have always included a service component, and I am excited today to have finalized those plans.
I am very thrilled to have made plans to work with Brot und Rosen, a community of people supporting refugees in the Hamburg Germany area. Although I'd hoped to spend all of August with them, it looks like it will be more like 3 weeks, due to the school holidays at the beginning of August. In any case I will be doing this as a service component of my sabbatical.
Brot und Rosen is modeled on the Catholic Worker movement started by Dorothy Day, and people who work there live communally along with the refugees they serve. Their service is a commitment to hospitality, room, food and shelter (they do not provide social services.)
Brot und Rosen does not receive public or corporate money; they are entirely funded by donations. I will donate my salary for the time I am with them. I urge you to go to their English language website, here, and read more about them.
I picked Brot und Rosen in part because of their ethic, which I admire, and in part because they work with refugees. Europe, and Germany in particular, has shouldered more than its share of the refugee work in the last decade, while America has put up barriers, including an extensive and difficult screening process that may leave the most vulnerable refugees out, and most recently draconian reductions in the number of refugees admitted. Lest anyone think I'm picking on a politician, this has happened under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Because we lack the will to work on comprehensive immigration reform, which is desperately needed, we leave too many people in terrible situations. God loves deeply every one of his children, and as Christians we are called to do the same. This opportunity to work with Brot und Rosen is my opportunity to express as part of my sabbatical my own commitment to see every person as a beloved child of God.
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