Hakim* was severely persecuted in his home country for being gay. The ridicule and harassment he experienced was so severe that he was forced to drop out of school. The threat escalated and a mob, urged on by local leadership, murdered his father and his partner. Hakim himself barely escaped with his life. Hakim ended up in Indiana and that is when he sought help from the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic.

Long before he volunteered with Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic, Jerry Kelly had a relationship with Exodus Refugee, even serving on their Board for a period of seven years. After stepping down from the Board, he continued to serve as a regular volunteer in their offices. “In doing that, I got exposed to some of the immigration services that Exodus provides, like green card applications.” Soon, through this work, Jerry was introduced to the Legal Clinic.

We can live a story that says we are all alone, or a story that says we must keep all of our resources for ourselves, or a story that says to circle the wagons and stick with our tribes because the world is a dangerous place.

But God has given us a better story. The Bible tells us one that is filled with the beauty of God’s presence in the midst of the burdens of human existence. It’s a story that tells us that God has made us in his image and for a purpose. A purpose frustrated by sin and death, yes—but that is why we have him to rescue us from such powers and to restore things to their rightful place.

In case you missed it, this July, we highlighted our Immigrant Justice Program, sharing our hearts for our immigrant neighbors, focusing on compelling client stories, and clarifying the historical context for immigration in this country.

Immigration has become the signature political issue of the last few years. So often, you hear people calling for reforms of the system, but we cannot possibly know where we should go without understanding where we have been.

After suffering from a nearly fatal bout of malaria while he was in India many years ago, Raio began to understand the connection between compassion and justice. “I wanted to build a place that incorporated those values into everything we did,” he says. Over the course of his career, he often saw an imbalance of justice that disproportionately affected survivors in a negative way—and he wanted CVHR to fight against that.