On Sunday, June 8, on the Feast of Pentecost,  St. Margaret’s will observe the first of six events designed to make real the plight of people living among us who have, right now, little sense of safety, security or belonging. 

The Refugee and Immigrant Sunday Committee have designed a series of presentations about regional organizations working with immigrants and asylum seekers, an exhibit of art created exclusively by refugees (thanks to the UNHCR, United Nations High Commission for Refugees),  personal testimony from two recent immigrants living near us, and, finally, one special service on July 13th which will illustrate through text, prayer and hymnody what an immigrant’s life experience can be and how the rest of us are called to respond.

We begin this Sunday (June 8) with Pat Griffith’s challenge to share our own families’ immigration stories. We will tell them and we will show them with a colorful display starting from the world map now mounted on the wall in the parish hall.  

Here is what follows:

On Sunday, June 15: 

Facts and figures about displaced people across the globe. Reported by Ruth Heffron

What Episcopal Migration Ministries is doing today, since the funding cut, and how you can be involved. Reported by Nan Cobbey

On Sunday, June 22:

Testimony from a refugee from Afghanistan, now living in Lewiston, friend of the Rackmales family. 

Testimony ( still tentative ) from a Ukrainian immigrant now living in mid-coast Maine.

On Sunday, June 29th:

An accounting from Lindsay McGuire, Left Bank Books co-founder and activist volunteer with the Capital Area New Mainers Project where she supports a nine-member Congolese family here  as asylum seekers with transportation, language practice, driving lessons, shopping, doctor’s visits, family activities and friendship. 

On Sunday, July 6th:

Two volunteers from Connecting Across Cultures (Camden), Kit Harrison, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Amjambo Africa!, a multilingual publication for new Mainers, and  Frannie Wheeler-Berta, will discuss critical issues facing immigrants and refugees in the Midcoast. 

On Sunday, July 13th:

Refugee and Immigrant Sunday. Expect a vibrant, unusual liturgy written by the Rev. Margaret D’Anieri that includes extensive participation, seven hymns with familiar tunes but all new lyrics, a conversational sermon and a traditional Eucharist. The morning may conclude with a Global Coffee House which is still under discussion.