It's so great to be home! Back to the comforts of home after three months away (with 5-day and 9-day breaks in the first and second month) feels like a blessing. The laundry is done and I've been napping a lot. I don't have plans to work on team with CPT at the moment. I am looking forward to being home, to reading and running and practicing yoga and practicing conversational Spanish. Thanks to all of you who were supporting me in various ways during my month in Chicago. Here's one last look at one of the more fun activities we did, a peace song circle, posted by my colleague Chihchun. The page has links to video glimpses of other parts of the training.
This morning I went to federal court with about 10 people from TUMC, accompanying a long-standing fellow church member, a stateless Palestinian whose application for status in Canada has been in process for 14 years. You can read an article about him in an August issue of the Toronto Star, and it wouldn't hurt to send an e-mail to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day asking him to look at the 300 pages of evidence and reverse his decision. There's absolutely no grounds to believe that Youssef poses a threat to national interests, after all. On the contrary, granting him status would reflect well on Canada as a nation practicing justice.
In the meantime, please keep Youssef in your thoughts and prayers. He's in a very vulnerable place at the moment, feeling desperate at the continued separation from his family. I tried to encourage him by telling him the story of my parents' 14 years of refused immigration applications followed by miraculous permission; and encouraging him to hang in there by thinking of his children who need a better life. Canada can't deport him because he has nowhere to go; the refugee camp where he was born was destroyed. Why not let him and his family in?!? I hope the little crowd around Youssef in court this morning will help his chances, and I hope you'll all join to swell the ranks of the crowd and ask the government to give Youssef status.
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