Speaker 0 00:00:00 <inaudible> hi and welcome to that makes total sense. The podcast where we talk about faith, finance and everyday life in a way that makes total sense. I'm your host, Alexis obesity on this podcast, you'll hear the personal stories of friends I'll be interviewing, who are doing familiar things in new and innovative ways. We'll answer questions specifically about money and our relationship with it. And we'll explore faith and Bible teaching together in all of these. It's not about changing our convictions as much as it is about messing with our methods. We'll have a lot of moments here together where we pause and say, that makes total sense.
Speaker 0 00:00:44 Hi, I'm Alexis Piseti and you're listening to that makes total sense today. I am bringing you a conversation I had with Sarah Jackson. Sarah is the founder of Casa de Paz in Denver and Casa de pause is an organization. I say, it's an organization. Now it started in 2012 with Sarah and her one bedroom apartment. And she will get into that. But it's incredible what God has done through her faithfulness and the faithfulness of others who chose to get involved today. Casa de paws provides visits and shelters and meals and transportation, and most of all, emotional support to individuals and families of individuals who have someone in immigration detention. Sarah has written an incredible book called the house that love built, why I opened my door to immigrants and how we found hope beyond a broken system. I am not kidding. When I tell you this book through this book, I received an education in immigration.
Speaker 0 00:01:50 I just kept thinking over and over. This is like a one Oh one course for me. Um, if you're anything like me and really anything like Sarah prior to this, you know, maybe 10 years ago, she really had no concept for what the immigration system looked like in America. And through a trip that she'll talk about in this conversation, God opened her eyes and she began doing work in this arena because it needed to be done. And so this book, the way Sarah shares her story did the same thing for me. It really opened my eyes to, um, the plight of immigrants in our country, what the system looks like and how we can love others through the love of Jesus that we've experienced. And so I know you're going to enjoy this conversation. The book releases on July 14th. And so get your hands on a copy of it. Um, if you are listening to this and the first couple of days that this podcast releases, then you might have a chance to win a copy. Um, just head over to my Instagram at Alexis Buceta SETI, and I will be giving away a couple of copies of this incredible book by Sarah Jackson. Enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 0 00:03:03 Hi, everybody. Welcome to that. Makes total sense. I am Alexis Piseti and I am sitting across today from author of the brand new book. The house that love built Sarah Jackson. Hey Sarah. Hey, thanks for having me. Oh, I am so excited to have you on and I'm going to let you introduce yourself, but first I have to say, you are living in my husband's old stomping ground in Colorado. So tell us where you are and, um, and what you do in Colorado.
Speaker 1 00:03:36 I live in Denver, Colorado. I moved here when I was 15 years old from Austin, Texas, my state. Yes. And I run a hospitality home called Casa de pause. That means house of peace in Spanish. And we provide hospitality for immigrants who are released from the ice detention center, as well as for the families of immigrants who are locked up.
Speaker 0 00:04:05 Oh my goodness. This is like, when I read that, like that description of the book, um, I felt, I felt like, okay, like, I mean, I don't know that I thought I was going to be blown away like I was, but I will tell you one of the things that got my attention and that is the subtitle of this book, which is why I opened my door to immigrants and how we found hope beyond a broken system. And the reason that caught my attention is because there's a lot of talk right now, and a lot of different arenas about the broken system in America. So I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but why is that? Why was that key in your story?
Speaker 1 00:04:56 Well, I never thought it would be key in my story immigration or, um, you know, learning as a Christian, what my faith commands of me, you know, when response to immigrants, um, coming to a country that I live in, it was a total accident. Um, I didn't go online and Google immigrant detention or immigration Bible verses. That was not what I woke up one morning with like this burning desire to do. I was actually working at a church in Colorado Springs, which is about an hour and a half away from Denver. And I was the senior pastor's assistant at the time. And I loved my job. I loved it. I, when I went into the office every day, I had my list of things to get done. I'm a list maker. I would cross things off my list at the end of the day, and then I'd go home and I do it all again.
Speaker 1 00:05:52 The next day I loved my job. So one morning I go into the office and I open up the email for our pastor. I was actually the, the gatekeeper for his email. So I would read all of his emails and delete the junk email and respond to the ones that I could respond to. And then when he got to the office, he'd have maybe five emails to respond to like what a life, right? Like I wish I had someone responding to my email. Well, one morning there was an email invitation from Catholic charities and they were putting together a group of pastors from Colorado Springs to go down to the Mexico, Arizona border and spend a few days there and to learn, learn about the history of immigration, learn what our different nonprofits and ministries doing on both sides of the border to alleviate some of the suffering occurring.
Speaker 1 00:06:45 But the, the main point that the trip was trying to convey was as people of faith as Christians, what is our response when immigrants come to this country that we live in. And so I was looking at the invitation. It didn't really peak my interest, but I was like, huh, I might as well ask our pastor if he can go. So I asked him, are you available this week to go on the trip? And he said, no. You know, he had already had something planned with his kids that week. So I was about to respond to Catholic charities, telling them thanks, but no, thanks. And then at the very bottom of the email, these words jumped out at me and it said all expenses paid trip to Mexico. Yes, definitely. I was very intrigued suddenly. I just had to go down there and learn and reverse myself and just be a sponge and soak it all in really. I wanted a vacation. I thought, Oh, I'll be able to go on an adventure and travel. You know, I'd never been to Mexico before.
Speaker 2 00:07:51 So I ended up going on that trip
Speaker 1 00:07:53 Instead of our pastor. And that's where my eyes were opened to the reality of the broken immigration system that our country has. And not just the political aspect and the laws and the policies, but meeting real people who were really affected by those policies by the border, by detention, by separation, by isolation. And that's when it changed for me because no longer was it someone that I read about or heard about it was someone that I sat next to had dinner with and had a conversation with. And, and I, and when I came back from that trip, after meeting folks, I met folks who had been deported. I met folks who were coming to the United States for asylum. Um, and I could not forget that experience. I couldn't because you, you know, you close your eyes, you see their faces, you open your eyes, you see their faces.
Speaker 1 00:08:53 That's when it all changed for me. Oh my goodness. Can you, can you tell us just a portion of one of those stories that you heard when you went on that first trip? Like what, you know, something that, a story that, that impacted you in that way? Cause, cause we didn't go, we didn't get the all expenses paid trip to Mexico, which was not exactly like you thought it was going to be. Yeah, I think, uh, the, the, and I, how I wish I could have gone back that trip was about 10 years ago. I wish I could have gone back on that trip and understood how significant person this man ended up being in my life. His name is Al bell and I met him on the Mexico side of the border. So when we went down on that trip, we spent two or three days on the Mexico side and then two or three days on the U S side this particular day, we were at a homeless shelter for folks who had just recently been deported to Mexico.
Speaker 1 00:09:59 Um, because oftentimes when folks are deported to Mexico, they don't have any family or friends in the city that they are deported to. That's just where they happen to get deported to. And so if you get deported and you have no money, you have no food, you have no phone, you are stranded in a city that you've never been in before. And so this, this shelter was, uh, you know, just stayed there for two or three nights as someone was deported and trying to figure out their next steps. So we went there and we didn't serve a meal to the folks who were staying at the shelter. We had a meal with them, which was different than me growing up. You know, we would go to a shelter and we would make the food and we would serve the food, but we never sat down next to someone and talk to them.
Speaker 1 00:10:49 And so this was a different experience where we were, we were invited into the dining room, we sat down and I was initially drawn to Ebell because he spoke English. And at that time I, well, I still don't speak very good Spanish, but back then it was even worse. And so I thought, Oh, I could have a conversation with this guy. And so we just started chatting, you know, first about the dinner that we were eating. And then he started telling me a little bit about his family. And he told me that he had just been deported. He grew up basically in the United States. His parents had brought him here as a young child. So it was not his decision. His parents brought him here and he grew up in Washington state growing up through preschool, middle school, high school. And when he was 15, 16 years old, he went to his parents and asked them if he could have his birth certificate because he wanted to get his driver's license.
Speaker 1 00:11:49 And that's when his parents sat him down and had that conversation. And they said, we brought you here, you know, 15 years ago as a little baby. Um, your dad got a job and we were, we came here because we needed money to put food on the table to keep you alive. And so that's what we did. And you are actually undocumented and there is not a possibility for you to get your license. And they had that whole conversation about what living in the shadows means as a 16 year old. And so Ebell accepted that, that was his reality. And he graduated from high school. He ended up getting married to a woman, a us citizen woman. They ended up having a couple of kids together. He started his own construction business. They bought a house, they went to church on Sundays. You know, they paid taxes.
Speaker 1 00:12:42 He was a contributing member of society. One day, he was driving to school to the school where his kiddos were at to pick them up after school. And I don't know about you, but I've done this multiple times and gotten tickets for them, but I've sped in a school zone. Right. And for me, it's an annoying, fine. I have to pay like fine. They double it. And then they put more points on your record, blah, blah, blah. Well, for our bell, if he was pulled over in a school zone, that was the difference between him potentially, you know, having to, um, be deported because immigration would find out he was undocumented or for him to be able to remain in the country with his family. So he was actually driving under the speed limit when he was going to pick up his kids from school, just to be double sure that he would not have any interaction with the police.
Speaker 1 00:13:36 He was just pulling up to the school yard and he saw a police officer pull him over in the rear view mirror. He saw the lights and he pulled over and the police officer asked him to roll down his window and asked for his driver's license and registration and insurance, and about did not have a driver's license. So the police officer arrested him, put him in the back of the police car, uh, yeah, right outside the school where his kids were with it, you know, he could have, it was a split second, you know, thing that changed the outcome of that, of his life really, because what ended up happening is our bell was put into one of these immigrant detention centers. And he was held there for almost a year while he was going back and forth with the judge and his attorney and trying to win his case to stay in the United States with his family.
Speaker 1 00:14:33 And at the end of the day, he ended up losing his claim and he was deported to Mexico. He didn't speak any Spanish because he grew up in the United States. This is his home. Um, he didn't know anyone in Mexico, his whole family basically had made this, this, their, their country, their home. And so when, when you told me that story, that he was held in this basically prison, this for-profit prison as well. So every day that he was detained, this, this business was making money off of his imprisonment. And then he was eventually deported and separated from his wife who was a us citizen hid. And at that time, his three children, because his wife was actually pregnant when he was pulled over. And so he was deported without ever being able to see his daughter. That was, that was born. Um, and when he told me this story, to be honest with you, there was this part in the back of my brain that was like, this cannot be true.
Speaker 1 00:15:38 Right. He he's 3% like he's, he's not telling me like a huge part of the story, right? Like there's something else. There's absolutely no way that as a, you know, a young woman growing up in this country, or I always heard like the value of families, right. And, and community and, and how we could do this to someone like there's something off about this. And while he told me that story, even though I had that little voice in the back of my brain, the other very interesting thing that happened is that he was, I was looking into his face. I'd never met him before. And as he was telling me the story, somehow I started seeing my dad's face instead of all Bell's face. And I wonder to myself, if this was my dad, because you know, I've got a brother and a sister, so three kids, mom, and a dad, I mean, similar family structure.
Speaker 1 00:16:40 And I started thinking if this was my dad who was just deported from my mom and us kids, is this how I would want him to be treated? Even if he had done something, you know that in my mind, at that time, would've thought, Oh, well, that, that makes sense. Like, even if he would have done something like that, is that, is that how I would want to him to be treated? No, I'm absolutely not. So why am I okay. Listening to our bell story and forgetting about it because it just wasn't my dad it's someone's dad. Right? Right. I mean, this is, this was the story in the book. I'm so glad you chose him because this was the strain, the book that, I mean, I, I like my husband comes home from work and I had, I had just torn in it to your book and he comes home from work. And I'm like, Hey, you are never going to believe this. Right. And so I start with this story and then I go on to, to what maybe we can come to next, because I think there's, there's so many preconceived ideas that I say, we, because at least
Speaker 0 00:17:50 It's you and I, and there's probably one or two other people who are listening, who are going to fit this category as well. But there's these preconceived ideas that we have as Americans of what immigration looks like, what documentation looks like, what status should look like and what, um, and what the legal portion of that really is. So I'm saying that to say, I'm, I'm, I'm not going to put you on the spot for exact stats, but, but I am going to throw it out there. When I say, I feel like the story that it either we're born with or we're raised with, or often in, in, especially in this time is presented to us is we have a place that is so wonderful and amazing that so many people are pushing down the borders trying to get here. But the people pushing down the borders trying to get here are going to cause us harm a that's, that's one of the stories that we get, they're going to cause us harm, or they're, they're coming here.
Speaker 0 00:19:04 And, and the detention centers that you speak of are full of people who jumped the fence, right. They jumped the fence or they, or they swam the river or, and, and Jewish, and they're all Mexicans. And you know, like this is kind of the, this is kind of the story that I feel like we get, that we are told. And we kind of grow up with, which leads us to that, that feeling that you had in the back of your head of like, well, you're not telling me the full story. Cause listen, I know the full story. And the full story is that, I mean, you're saying all this, but your dad's probably a drug dealer, right? Or you're, or you're, you're saying all of this, but in real life, you know, something else happened. So at least at the time of, of you're writing this book, which is, which is very recent and maybe now it's updated, but what is the real life population of people who are in detention right now in America for violating our immigration laws?
Speaker 0 00:20:05 I mean, does our bell fit the bill? Is he the exception to the rule or do a lot more people there look like him. When I came back from the border trip, I asked all of those questions and I was really surprised by what I was learning. And I was thankful. I'm very grateful to have a group of people around me, who I could ask some of those questions too, like, wait a minute. So they're not ultra dealers, wait a minute. So they're not all rapists, you know? And, and knowing that I had a couple of folks in my life who
Speaker 1 00:20:48 Weren't going to judge me for those questions, because, you know, like you mentioned, we are, you know, inundated with a specific message. And me growing up, I grew up in a very, very, very conservative Christian home where we were getting our news from one source where immigration wasn't never talked about in our church. Well, maybe it was talked about, I just maybe fell asleep that Sunday, but I don't remember ever hearing it ever. You know? Um, and so I think one of the things that really surprised me the most is this, well, first of all, asking for asylum is an internationally recognized law. Every single person has the right to at least ask for asylum. Does it mean they will win? No, it does not. It may actually the vast majority of asylum seekers coming to the United States will be denied and will eventually be deported.
Speaker 1 00:21:52 But here's the thing that blew me away 10 years ago and still blows me away. You can ask you, okay. Um, w you meet Winston in the book and he's a young man from Cameroon, Africa, Africa, Cameroon right now is going through a basically genocide. It's a war, a full out war. Um, it's, it's very complicated, but long story short, the government of Cameroon is run by the French speaking governments. They were colonized awhile ago. Uh, within Cameroon, there are certain provinces of English speaking Cameroonians. So these are folks who were born in Cameroon. They just happen to speak English instead of French. And the English speaking Cameroonians have always been oppressed by the French speaking government. They don't have the same rights as their fellow, French speaking Cameroonians. And a few years ago, when Cameroonians began to uprise and protest against the government, the government didn't like that the president has been in power for decades.
Speaker 1 00:23:03 And if you protested that put a target on your back, they were coming after you to either kill you or to kidnap you and to disappear you, to rape you and leave you for dead on the street. I mean, it is. And then who do you turn to if that's your government doing that to you? So Winston made this really difficult decision to pack his bag and leave Cameroon because he knew because he was protesting against the government, that he was a dead man. So he packed a bag. He came to the United States. Um, he threw, you know, he flew to South America and then by foot, he started walking. He took taxis buses, boats by horse by, I mean, anyway, by train, which people die along that journey every day, thousands of people perish along the tracks just to get to the United States. So three months after Winston made the decision to leave Cameroon Africa, he found his way to the California Mexico border.
Speaker 1 00:24:13 He put up his hands in the air, voluntarily presented himself to a border patrol agent. And he said, my name is Winston. I am coming from Cameroon Africa. I am fleeing my country because there is a war and I will die. I'm asking for asylum. He followed all the steps in the law that our country has laid out. The way that we received Winston is by handcuffing him by putting him in a, for profit detention center for almost an entire year where he was held without being able to go outside and breathe fresh air. He could not even look outside because the windows in the detention center are all blacked out. He was held in his pod 24 seven for almost a year until finally the judge granted him asylum. And he won his case. That is not the happy ending though that the most asylum seekers receive most asylum seekers are denied and eventually deported.
Speaker 1 00:25:32 But for Winston, he was able to afford an attorney folks back home, gathered up enough money to be able to hire, uh, an immigration attorney to represent him in, in, in court. Uh, but, but Winston did all of the things that he was supposed to do. And still we put him in a prison and separated him from any kind of community, his family, his, for anyone that he knew on the outside of those four prison walls, 100% isolated. That's how our system is set up. And I mean, there's, there's a lot of ways that we could take this conversation, but I just would want, I want to point out something that, that these most of the immigrant detention centers are actually for profit prisons. So I immigration and customs enforcement, the, when, when Winston turned himself in voluntarily lawfully presented himself at the border, he became, um, arrested by ice immigration and customs enforcement.
Speaker 1 00:26:39 So ice has these contracts with these, for profit prisons to detain immigrants who are here seeking asylum, or are undocumented. And these for profit prisons are paid by us by taxpayers. And so we are spending billions of dollars every year to detain folks like Winston who have come to the United States, seeking asylum, who have ties to the community, who they have places where they could actually go, they've got sponsors. They have places that will support them as they, you know, make the United States their, their new home. Uh, but, but, but nobody's going to get rich that way. No one will we'll make these gross profits of millions of dollars every year. If, if we had a more humane way to process folks who are coming to the United States, um, for safety for life. And I am actually my both sides of my family, my mom's side, and my dad's side, both of us have, uh, family members who were persecuted in the Holocaust, held in concentration camps murdered, um, because they, they were Jewish.
Speaker 1 00:27:59 And what I know is that my grandma and my mom's side fled Poland when the Nazis invaded Poland, and she made a new home in France, had it not been for the ability for her to go somewhere safer, she would be dead. She would be dead. And I'm very grateful that that was not the way that her story ended up, because then she was able to meet my granddad. They fell in love. They had my mom, and now I'm here. Um, but this is not something that is so far removed. This is, this is the story of my family. And, you know, never forget, like, okay, I get that because that's very near and dear to my heart. It's my heritage as a, as a Jewish person. Um, and so I cannot this happen again. I just, I can't, I won't, I don't care what it ends up costing me. There's nothing that's worth staying neutral right now.
Speaker 0 00:29:03 This, this brings me to one of the things that really stood out to me in a profound way in your book, because one of the things that you and your organization do is you visit you visit detainees when they're in those for profit prisons. Um, you're in Denver. We had this conversation just before we started recording that my husband's from the Denver area, and I'm telling him, you've probably driven by this place. And you probably didn't even know that it was there or what it was, um, because it's not well advertised that this is a place where they're processing and detaining, um, people who have come across the borders. But, um, one of the things that I, and I wrote it down because I wanted to, it just stuck in my mind so much, but there's this quote that says you, you say we have visiting, we were God's eyes and ears witnessing and listening to the broken, the abandoned people, mostly forgotten by a world that hid them there in reference to jesus' words.
Speaker 0 00:30:22 This is like, like, I think that's the end of the quote, but I'm looking at, like, in reference to jesus' words about visiting prisoners, I have always had this switched in my mind, like we're doing this for the sake of the prisoner, and I'm not saying that you're not doing this for the sake of the prisoner, but I'm saying what you said. Is there something profound about seeing the person about hearing their story like you did with Winston and Ebell like witnessing what is happening to them and in that witness being Jesus to them, can you talk about that witness? Because I think that for those of us who did grow up in Christian homes, there is the give a cup of cold water to someone, visit them when they're in prison and give them your cloak and it's, and it's like a, um, it's a take on generosity, right?
Speaker 0 00:31:28 Or it's a take on, uh, meeting someone's physical needs. Well, when did I ever do that? Well, when you did this to the least of these, you did this to me. When you, when you visited, you visited me. And I have always thought about that in terms of meeting the needs of someone else. And I'm not saying that that's not what you're doing, but there's something that I'm, that I'm, that I'm gathering from reading this story, that there's something profound about witnessing, witnessing their stories, witnessing what's happening to them, witnessing who they are, and being able to respond in a Christ like way, because you have borne witness. Yeah. One of our visitation coordinators, Greg, he constantly reminds the folks on his team, the folks that are visiting inside the detention center, um, that the, the visitation is actually a practice of suffering alongside yes. And not reaching down and grabbing someone's hand and pulling
Speaker 1 00:32:40 Them up, not being the white savior that goes into comfort and pray. And actually, it's interesting because we do not lead at all with, I mean, a lot of the volunteers do have a faith perspective or background, but some of us don't. And, um, a lot of times at the end of the visit, the person who is detained says, can I pray for you? And when you, and I kind of like blows you out, or, you know, cause we have this modality sometimes, sometimes, right? Like I'm going to go in and, and, and maybe cheer someone up or remind them they're not forgotten. Um, but really what this kind of work is, is a company mint. We're walking alongside each other, even though they're, you know, at this particular detention center in Denver, there is the, the visits are non-contact visits. So when you go and visit someone in detention, it's through a glass window and you have a telephone, uh, so that there's no way for you to actually be able to give them a hug or to shake their hand or anything like that.
Speaker 1 00:33:52 Uh, which is always very confusing to me because about five minutes down the street from the detention center, there is a prison where women are held and I'm not trying to compare a group of people who have maybe committed a crime and a group of people who have not committed a crime. I'm not trying to make distinguish mints there. What I'm trying to say is pointing out in consistencies because in the prison where women are held for a criminal offense, when you go to visit them, it's a contact visit. So at the end of the visit, you get to hug your mom goodbye, or you get to hug your daughter or your son, goodbye, five minutes down the street at the immigrant detention center. If your mom is being deported, you don't get to give her one last hug. Goodbye. There was an experience. Sorry, I still, it just, uh, you know, it could, because even though I'm in my mind, I'm thinking someone else's mom the same time I am imagining what if that was my mom?
Speaker 1 00:34:58 And I didn't get to give her what, I mean, I haven't hugged my mom in a couple of months because of the Corona virus. Um, but I know that I'll be able to hug her again one day, right? Like what if I didn't know that I would ever be able to hug her again? I would be, I would be angry. I am angry and it's not even happening to my mom. I remember this one day, many years ago, five or six years ago, right? When the visitation program, I mean, it wasn't really a visitation program per se. At the very beginning, what was happening is that I opened up Casa de pause, this one bedroom apartment where I chose to live in. And I opened up the doors initially for families who were coming in from out of town to visit their family, locked in detention, kind of like the Ronald McDonald home.
Speaker 1 00:35:51 But for family separated by detention, not for families who had a loved one who was sick. So what ended up happening is families would come in from Oklahoma or Texas or California to visit their family in detention. They'd stay with me in my apartment. You know, it was free shelter. We had food, we had clothing, toiletries, whatever they needed. And then at the end of the visit, maybe it was three or four days. They'd leave, they'd go back home. And then I just wait for the next family to show up. And so around the fourth or the fifth family that stayed with me, it kind of clicked where I thought, Oh my gosh, they're leaving behind their dad. At that time, it was all moms and their kids coming to visit. So I'm like, ah, they're leaving behind their father or their dad. Who's locked in this detention center, like talked about like, can't even look outside.
Speaker 1 00:36:44 He's completely isolated from the world. So I began asking the families, Hey, do you want me to just go visit your dad maybe once a week, just to see how he's doing. Maybe I can relay some information, you know, because when you're in these detention centers to make a call out, you have to pay money and they're expensive calls. And so families run out of money. Oftentimes. So sometimes they don't even get to talk on the phone. And every single family said, yes, please we'd love it. Just go say hi to him. Like get him out of his pod. Because in these pods where people are held, they eat in their pod, the food is brought to them in their pod. They, they, they read in their pod, they watch TV. It's all in this little room, 24 seven. And so for even one hour of the day, they get to leave and have a change of scenery and see someone who's not another detained immigrant or not another guard or not another judge or not another ice officer.
Speaker 1 00:37:38 You know, it's just a break from the monotony of the day. And so that's what I started doing. I just started visiting people in detention. And at that time it was, um, the, the fathers of the families that had come and stayed in my apartment with me. And there was this one set. It was a Friday or a Saturday afternoon. I'll never forget, uh, the guard who was checking me in. Right. So I give him my ID. I tell them who I'm there to visit. He was the same guard who was checking me in the past three or four days. And each day that I went and visited was a different guy, because it was a different guy from a different family.
Speaker 3 00:38:16 The guard takes my ID. He looks at it. Then he looks at me. Then he looks up,
Speaker 1 00:38:21 I got my ID and he's just so confused. I can see the wheels spinning in his brain. And then he just, he I'm glad that he asked and he just asked me, he was like, you know what? Like, I'm really curious, like, who are you? And I said, well, my name is Sarah. I live across the street. My apartment is open for families. They can stay with me when they come in to visit their family. And then once they leave, I come and visit their family that they, you know, just left
Speaker 3 00:38:49 Behind. And he had this,
Speaker 1 00:38:52 This, this sign of relief that you can tell, like just relief, like washed over his face. He visibly was like, or he could hear him. He was like, Oh, okay. And I'm like, what, what did you think? And then he's like, we, so it clearly, it wasn't just him. Other people were talking. He said, we thought you were dating all these guys. And I'm like, Oh no, no, no, no, no. That's not what is happening here. And then I would bring, you know, the next time I went to visit, I'd bring my friends. So I brought Preston and I'm like, Preston, you're coming with me to visit. You're going to visit Jose Antonio and you're going to like it. And then you're gonna come back next week too. And then next time I go and I bring a different friend and I'd say, Nancy, you're coming with me this time.
Speaker 1 00:39:41 You're going to visit with, you know, um, Armando. And you're going to come back every week too. And that's how our visitation program got started. Um, and so when Greg reminds us, you know, that one of our visitation coordinators, when he reminds us that, that this work is more than just sitting down and as important as it is to bear witness to what's happening. Um, we, we learn to, to face those, those places in our lives, our spiritual, and even in our spiritual lives where we have a blind spot. One of our other coordinators is Lisa and Lisa and Ted had been visiting folks in detention for years now. And now they have a team of folks that they coordinate to go visit in, in the detention center. And Ted told me a story a few, um, a little while ago where he said, you know, when he first went to do his first visit, he thought that he was going right to bring the good news, to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
Speaker 1 00:40:46 And then he, at the end of the time, he was asked by the person that he was visiting. Can I please pray for you? And then Ted told me, you know, it was kind of at that moment where he, it kind of clicked for him where he, he said, God is working on both sides of the glass. And it's so true. And had Ted not made that decision to sign up, to go to a volunteer training, to go to a visitation training and to visit someone, he would have still had that blind spot in his faith experience of maybe thinking initially, Oh, God is working on this side of the glass. You know, there's this, there's this nonprofit in town that they do immersion trips for students that come from other parts of the country and
Speaker 0 00:41:34 The students partner up with different nonprofits in Denver. And they spend a full day volunteering and serving. And I love the motto of the, I mean, I'm not going to get it a hundred percent, right. But the motto of this organization is that you are here in Denver to witness where God is already in play. You're not here to bring, Jesus's love. It's already here. You're here to see where it's happening and to be a part of it, not to be the catalyst, because it's already here. We just have to look, we have to be aware of it. Right. I, I love that so much. And I'm reminded because, um, we don't have time to go into the full story, but there's a great section in your book where, um, one of the men who used to work with, um, we're Mark had a conversation with, um, John McCain, the late John McCain.
Speaker 0 00:42:33 And, um, and so I, I hear you talking about volunteers, many of whom have a faith background, many of whom have a church background, some don't. And I think that if, if we're not careful, we'll miss that. And we'll kind of paint, maybe all of us church people with that same brush as Greg. Right. And, um, but this, this conversation that Mark Abidjan, John McCain was so eye opening to me because when you, when you talk about that kind of blind spot, it reminds me that there are other blind spots. I have them. When I was talking with my husband, he kind of blurted some of his out unbeknownst to him. Um, you had them, which you would, you talked about a little bit now and you talk about in the book, but, um, can you, let's, let's take that and shift just a smidge in part of the time that we have left.
Speaker 0 00:43:36 And I would say a lot of people who listen to this podcast are church people, and we have blind spots and this we're recording this at the end of June. It's going to come out, I believe in July, right around the time that your book is coming out. And so I urge everyone buy it. It's incredible. Um, I have like all of the pages, dog-eared, it's kind of ridiculous, but, um, but we are sitting in a time right now where immigration is a hot political topic. We've just come out of Supreme court, ruling, zone, DACA. We've got stuff going on with asylum. We've got, you know, visa conversations and, and Houston is a very international city where a lot of people are working here doing technical jobs and ministry jobs on visas. Um, this is all of the stuff. So I'm not you to get into the politics of it necessarily, but the conversation that John McCain had, I'll just do this.
Speaker 0 00:44:37 The spoiler is when he had years ago, obviously when he was alive and still serving, um, he had written alongside, um, one of the Kennedy's I think, of, of some legislation that had been what, what they all thought was going to be this very thoughtful and was this very thoughtful, um, legislation for immigration reform. And he was getting a lot of pushback from church going Americans on this legislation. And so that, that is a little bit outdated. I won't necessarily ask you to talk to that, but I will ask you to talk to why the pushback, where does it come from? What do you hear? Because you do a lot of, of work in churches. Um, and, and what, what do you, what do you hear? What are people's blind spots and what do you think if you had a chance to sit down and talk one on one with, with some people, um, who may be in a different camp than Greg, for example, um, what would you say?
Speaker 0 00:45:46 Well, this isn't like a hypothetical. If someone said this, this was my life. Before that trip to the border, I was listening to the news and reading the newspapers back then we still had these things opened up called newspapers. It was papers. And that's, that was my understanding of immigration was what I was being told, not what I had a personal experience with. It was what I was being told. And in what I was hearing from those news sources was that everyone who was coming here was breaking the law. They were stealing our jobs and I am a pretty black and white kind of person. And the older I get, I realize there's a lot of gray in this world. Uh, but, but before I went on that trip to Mexico, and I don't say this flippantly, because I say this with all sincerity, I seriously thought if they broke the law, what is so difficult about this?
Speaker 0 00:46:53 Kick everyone out and build the wall. So impossibly high that no one can ever get in. If they break it again, if they break the law again, like this, just do that. Like, why is this such a difficult thing? You know, that's, that is what I thought. Um, and I, I really wanted people are chanting that now. Oh, like build the wall. Is that, I mean, but it's, it's, it's the same sentiment. Right. So I appreciate that from being, you know, you said your trip was 10 years ago. Okay. So this is like people had no, our current president was a, was a reality TV
Speaker 1 00:47:30 Star 10 years ago. So this didn't have anything to do with him. This was your, your mentality, the sentiment 10 years ago from you and from many of us was exactly, as you say, what's so difficult about this. I don't understand the problem. Right. Right. And I, and I, I think a huge part of this is that we're not really having the conversation in our churches, in our small groups, in our, um, you know, in our intimate relationships that we have with our best friends or partners. We're not, I mean, 10 years ago, I remember being blown away. Anytime that a church would have a conversation about this, whether they had a movie night or, uh, somebody make an announcement, I was like, this is unheard of like, where has this been all my life. And now I am very glad that some churches are starting to have some of these conversations.
Speaker 1 00:48:26 Um, not all of them. And actually shoot probably six or seven years ago. I was at a breakfast for a group of evangelical pastors in the Denver area. And there were probably about 20 of us in the room. And I will never forget this. Uh, someone was, we were asked, what is holding you back? What's that barrier from you getting up from the pulpit and saying, this is what our scripture tells us. This is how our framework of understanding our faith will, you know, build the framework of welcoming immigrants. Like no, they were asking, what is that barrier and someone, and I'm proud of him for at least stamp saying this. Maybe not proud, or I dunno how I felt. It was a lot of things that I felt, but at least he had the guts to say it. He said, look, we all know that if I get up there and I say welcome immigrants to this country, that people are going to leave the church.
Speaker 1 00:49:32 And he, he said this, the pastor said it. So I'm going to say it. He said, but in the Pew equals dollars in the bag and I'm not going to do it. It blew my mind. He wasn't saying, Oh, we don't want to have this conversation because it's a hot topic. And we are going to have to navigate some, you know, high emotions and try to figure this out and educate ourselves and learn. He said, no, at the end of the day, it's because it's going to affect how much money we bring in. So the church that I attend is a, a large church here in Aurora called Colorado community church. And it's an evangelical church. And a few months ago, um, I was sitting there in the sanctuary and our pastor Robert, he said, um, he was like, I don't, I think he, I can't remember exactly what the message was about, but he he's basically said something that life is sacred.
Speaker 1 00:50:34 God, you know, it's a sacred thing that God has given us life. And we protect it from the womb to the tomb. And he said, and that includes at the border too. And that was one of the very few times that I heard a specifically evangelical pastor get up on the stage and say from the womb to the tomb. And that also means at the border. And I started crying. I should not have such an emotional reaction when someone gets up there and says, literally what Jesus said, do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. And for me, that moment came, I believe it was a miracle because even after I came back from the border, even after I met Al bell, even after I met asylum seekers who were on the verge of potentially freezing to death in the desert, because they didn't have a coat and they were crossing the desert to come to United States for safety, I had had these personal experiences. And even then in my brain, I was like, wait a minute, give unto Caesar, what is Caesar? Like what, what or do what is doing to Caesar? Like how do you reconcile that? But one morning I woke up. And for some reason that verse love your neighbor as yourself became crystal clear. And I, I realized, and I hope this doesn't come across as, as Hottie, but I love myself.
Speaker 4 00:52:17 I do,
Speaker 1 00:52:19 But thirsty, I will find some water. If I am hungry, I will find food. If I am cold, I will find a coat. And at the end of the night, I will find a roof so I can sleep with a roof over my head. And if I do that for myself, it's not optional who I choose to do that for. I do it for my neighbor because that is what Jesus told me to do. And that is just one example of a lot of examples all throughout the Bible, which specifically addresses the foreigner or the immigrant or the alien, um, you know, and we could get into some more radical things where, you know, in the new Testament, it even says, give them the gift, gift strangers and give immigrants, treat them the same as a citizen, the exact same, you know, that is a little more radical because we're not even talking about getting folks on the same level, as she's talking about
Speaker 0 00:53:28 Putting them in prison. You're not sending them back where they're going to be in danger.
Speaker 1 00:53:33 Exactly. Yeah. And we do have to take a look a hard look at what the Bible says, because there is a lot in there that I know will surprise even me to this day that I didn't know, just take, we have to take that step.
Speaker 0 00:53:48 Right, right. I appreciate you speaking to this. Um, because there is a, I've had these conversations over and over again about, gosh, this word, somewhat someone actually used this as an insult. I did. I had to look it up cause I didn't know the acronym. Um, but someone called me, uh, a social justice warrior and S JW and attended it as an insult. And, and I didn't know what it was, but I kind of thought, well, that's funny. I mean, I have a graduate degree in social justice. So I guess I, I guess I kind of am,
Speaker 1 00:54:27 But the point is that
Speaker 0 00:54:29 It's kind of become this dirty word in evangelical circles or this dirty term, um, social justice, but what, and that's from the friend
Speaker 1 00:54:40 And from the day, many evangelicals, look at this
Speaker 0 00:54:43 From the perspective of the world and say, you're doing social justice for, and for whatever reason, that's a bad thing. But what you just described, my point is what you just described is what I have a, I have another gal I interviewed on the podcast, a friend of mine who describes it as biblical justice. Like if social justice makes you all creepy crawly,
Speaker 1 00:55:06 Let's call it biblical justice because that's what it is. Like,
Speaker 0 00:55:09 What you're describing is not something that the world came up with. It's not something that Congress came up with. It's not something that, you know, we came up with as a group of heathen. People like this is trying to follow, um, jesus' example. Right? Um, I think we could go into this even, even a little bit more. We don't have time, but I'm just going to throw out there that, um, Jesus was forced to flee. His family was forced to flee into Egypt right after he was born because his life was in danger. And I'm so thankful that he was housed there. And when it became safe for him to return back to Israel, he was able to do that because he was housed in a safe place as an immigrant, until the time had passed where it was safe for him to come back to Israel and fulfill his calling as our Messiah.
Speaker 0 00:56:06 But if, if they had treated him like we are treating so many immigrants right now, um, the story could have been a different story. And so he, we don't have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses or our neighbor's weaknesses. And so we serve a Messiah who, who was an immigrant and he reminds us that we are foreigners in this world too, because this world is not our home. We're citizens of the kingdom of heaven. And so we're to treat immigrants and foreigners and aliens, how God has treated us and not to forget that we're strangers to. And, um, and we survived by the kindness that we have toward each other. And that's how God is. That's how the other people are gonna know who we are, is because we love, um, in that way that you've described. And so, um, and so I'm just, I'm just throwing that out there to say, I've got blind spots. I haven't had some of these personal experiences, but I'm so thankful for you sharing them because I had a very similar mindset, even a, I don't know, I guess it's, self-proclaimed SJW. Even. I had some of these similar mindsets when I opened up your book and then I was reminded, Oh yeah, this, this isn't, uh, doesn't have to be a partisan issue or a political issue. This is like a, this is like a love issue.
Speaker 1 00:57:45 Yeah. And I think what's also important is what there's always this dynamic of fear, right? Like, why are you defensive when you not you, but in general, why is someone putting a label on a social justice warrior? There's a reason, right? What's the fear behind, what do they think a social justice warrior is? And talking about that fear, because I think if we don't address the fear, that's propelling us to make these conclusions or to vote for a person. Then we're not, we're not going deeper in our, in our spirituality and our connection to God and in our connection to our faith, we're stuck. So let's talk about that fear. And I remember having this conversation with a friend of mine who was a pastor and, and I, you know, cause, well, what happens if they all come here and there's nothing left, you know, you know, these are real fears that we have and I'm including myself in the weed.
Speaker 1 00:58:53 And she said, I can either believe in a God of abundance or a God of scarcity. And I believe in a God of abundance, I want to believe in a God of abundance. And when we operate out of the scarcity mentality, there's not enough jobs. There's not enough money. There's not enough food, there's enough space. Um, that's a dangerous place to operate out of a couple of years ago, I was in Amsterdam. My parents used to live in Germany. My dad got a job there and had, was working there for about six years and I'd go and visit them. And every single time I went and visited them, I did something to honor the heritage of my Jewish roots and to honor the lives of the folks who were killed in the Holocaust or were resisting the Nazis. So when we were in Amsterdam, we went to Anne Frank's house and we walked up to these tiny little creaky attic or staircase that led to the attic.
Speaker 1 01:00:06 And it was pretty somber, as you can imagine. And I was quiet. I'm hardly ever quiet. So it was something came over me though. I was, I could barely talk the whole time. And when we finally got up to the room where Anne was, um, you know, hiding for so long, my mom turned around to me and she said something and I couldn't quite hear him cause it's quiet in that room. And you have, you know, you want to hush your voice. And so I said, w what did you say, mom? And she said, I just told Ann, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that nobody saw you for what you are, which is a child of God, just as worthy to life and all of its liberties as I am. I'm sorry that we failed you. And I don't ever want to look back on my life and say, I'm sorry that I didn't see you.
Speaker 1 01:01:14 I'm sorry that I saw you, but I didn't care. I'm sorry that I saw you are locked in this prison for two years, three years, four I've met someone who was in detention for over seven years, held indefinitely on immigration related issues, not serving a sentence for anything, any crime that he committed, purely immigration, which is the whole other thing that we can talk about. But he was in a detention center, held indefinitely for seven years. I don't want to look back and think I didn't do anything. Or I didn't say anything because what if they call me a social justice warrior? No. Like these are real people who are not being treated the way that Jesus wants us to treat them. So that's our choice. Do we, do we believe in a Jesus that liberates people and that comes to set people free or do we only believe that for a couple hours on Sunday morning, we have these choices to make. And it's not something that we can think about tomorrow. People die in immigrant detention centers. People die coming to the United States for asylum and all over the world to, to, you know, for any reasons, right. Migrating in the, in the Mediterranean sea or in wherever you look, there are people every day who are dying, it's not, well, yeah. If I can think about it, maybe I'll have some time later on like these, this is urgent. It's urgent.
Speaker 0 01:03:05 I feel like saying two things. I feel like saying louder for the people in the back, because you're someone who is, who is living this message. Um, and the other thing I feel like saying is I think that's a perfect place. I think that's a perfect place to end because, um, you just said it, you just said it right there. We really have to do our reckoning with Jesus and ask him, what does he want of us? What does he expect of us? And I think we get, we get to look at our own lives and see what has he done for us that freedom, that liberation that you're talking about. I don't know what, where I would be if I hadn't experienced it for myself, how can I not want that for my neighbor?
Speaker 1 01:04:08 Yeah,
Speaker 0 01:04:09 Sarah, um, where can we get the book where, um, where can we find out more about you and about Casa de Paz and about the work that you do? We may not all be able to visit Denver, but I bet ya, you could hook us up with places close to us, or we could find out it would spur us on to good works in Jesus. So where can we find you?
Speaker 1 01:04:35 Well, I just found out today that my mom said she's going to buy the book and give it to everyone she knows for Christmas. So you either become friends with my mom Christmas. Perfect. You go to our website, it's Casa de Paz, colorado.org. And all the information on the book is there links to buy it? My email address is there. You can shoot me an email. If you have questions. There's also a, a reading discussion guide that we came up with. Uh, Scott wrote the book with me and Scott and I put together this really comprehensive reading discussion guide for you to go through as a family or as a small group, or as church
Speaker 0 01:05:18 And dive into some of those deeper questions and do it in a community of folks that you're already familiar with. And, um, we're also, after the book is released, we are going to have a zoom call once a week, where you can just drop in and chat with me and ask me questions or tell me a story of something that impacted you. So I would invite you to check it out on the website, Casa de Paz, colorado.org, and please join in for one of those chats. I'd love to meet you and, um, hear how the book impacted you. Oh my goodness. That's fantastic. So we will link the website and all of those goodies that she's talking about in the show notes for this episode, but I do want to do one last plug because I really did read this book cover to cover. I really did love it.
Speaker 0 01:06:07 I really am showing Sarah right. Nashville. We can't see. I mean, it's like top and bottom. Um, but this, and I will say this, uh, the conversation today, I think appropriately has been, um, a pretty, it might feel intense the conversation day. I think that's appropriate for the subject matter, but what I want to say about the book is I read it by the pool, this book, it was so impactful. I I'm so thrilled with the discussion questions that you have, because I think that there'll be an incredible addition to the book, but, but I will say it doesn't read like a Bible story like Bible study. Um, it really is a narrative that Sarah shares her own journey. So much of her own journey. So much of the stories of the people who, um, who she has met along the way over this last decade.
Speaker 0 01:06:59 And we know that that's how we connect. And so I didn't connect with the cause of immigration through reading this book. I connected with Sarah and with Ebell and with, and with these and with Greg and with the pastors. And so I connected with their stories throughout the book, and that is what was so impactful. And those stories, those narratives are what led me to begin to take another look at myself on the inside and ask myself some of these hard questions and, and what am I doing and how do I feel in this area and really ask God to search me in that. And so again, it's called the house that love built by Sarah Jackson. And we'll put all of those, uh, those contexts in the notes so that you can link it and buy it and read it for yourself. Thank you so much, Sarah. I hope we get to talk again soon. Thanks for having me. So thank you again so much for listening. Don't forget to subscribe. So you won't miss an episode, share the link with your friends. You can visit
[email protected]. And until next time, this is Alexis Piseti remembering to do well for ourselves so we can do good for others. Bye
Speaker 5 01:08:14 <inaudible>.
