Mission and Community
 

Support of Refugees

1960 - Orangewood Sponsors The Hartkamp Family
(Information provided by Len and Pat Rhoades)

 Orangewood has a long history of supporting refugees from other countries.  In most cases this has been an especially rewarding part of the mission program.  Learning to live in a new country and changing habits is sometimes hard for adults and most churches find an occasional person who must be moved from the original placement.  But there are other people who are extraordinarily adaptive to change and come with a terrific attitude.

 In 1959 and 1960 the Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church urged churches to invite families from the Netherlands where there had been much immigration from Indonesia, to come to America.  As a result the Session of Orangewood formed a committee to study the problem and find a family that would like our help.  Members of that committee, among others, were the Sixes, the Keffers, and the Moodys.  The committee was assisted by Reverend Patterson.

As a result of the committee’s effort, Jake and Nancy Hartkamp and their four children were invited to come to Phoenix.  Jake had been in a Japanese prison camp in Indonesia and after his release he returned to his homeland, the Netherlands.  Upon his entry there he was found to be seriously ill and was hospitalized for a period.  When he recovered the Hartkamps decided to apply for entry to the USA.  They arrived in 1960.

 Since their arrival they were very much a part of the Orangewood community.  Over the years they willingly assisted on any worthwhile project.  Their children grew up at Orangewood and Jake and Nancy have been loyal members since they arrived.

February 1980  - Orangewood Sponsors Laos Family

Orangewood Presbyterian Church in cooperation with Church World Service sponsored the immigration of a  refugee family to the United States.  The Tsan family of nine was from Laos.   Initially seven members of the family were welcomed followed later by the remaining two members.  The attached article in the Arizona Republic describes the arrival of the last two members of the family *.  Family photos can be seen on the following link. * 

1987 - Rev. Rufus Thepelo Nyamela

How in just a few words can I possibly explain Rufus.  He was not just a well educated South African minister who visited with us.  He was a total new experience for all of us at Orangewood.  He taught us to love, to care, to share and to know the real meaning of “the brotherhood of man”.  It was his first experience of close contact with a white family in a strange country, living in homes where all his wants were supplied, being accepted and loved for him alone in a different environment.  It must have been overwhelming, if not frightening.  He learned from us, but we learned so much from him.  Friendly, open, accepting, and wearing his wonderful warm smile, he came trusting his God, into a whole new world.  What little free time he had was spent in quite contemplating.  “Why did God send me to America”?  “Why me”?  “What does he expect of me when I go back to my church and the thirty other small churches of Christians I also lead”?

 He spent a few days in northern Arizona for rest and relaxation as a guest of the Burke’s.  I remember watching him as he leaned over the rail at the Grand Canyon, drinking in the beauty and in awe of its size.  When he noticed me he murmured, “What can I tell them?”  “How can I make them understand the wonderful feeling about God’s creation?”

 Rufus always thought carefully and answered all of our questions in his special gentle manner.  His sincerity made us respond in kind.  He loved and played with our babies, cheered our sick and elderly and had his own appeal for everyone who came in contact with him.  Through Rufus, the Transkei, his native Homeland, came alive for all of us.  We were left with visions of his small, struggling church, in a land where extreme poverty is accepted as one of the facts of life, where families are separated so that the father can work and earn in Johannesburg, where to be black is painful.  We asked God during these weeks, why such a wonderful Christian leader who had so much to give to the world had so little in material gifts and so little peace of mind about his family.

The Rev. Rufus Nyamelo of Rietville Mission, Stafford Post, Transkei, came to us for six weeks as part of the MISSION TO THE U.S.A. program which selects ministers or laymen woman from Third World countries to come to the U.S. (all travel expenses paid) to carefully selected churches for short periods (in our case six weeks) to help us stay abreast of our changing world and our unchanging faith.  We waited for a year while all the red tape was carefully unwound and welcomed him for his stay from September 24, 1987 to November 6, 1987.  He left then for a brief visit to Synod in Tucson and his trip home.  It was a whirlwind six weeks, leaving him breathless and amazed at the tempo of American lives.

He preached at many churches in the area as well as speaking at Beth El Synagogue, being warmly received there.  He was fascinated with the NPCM and its ecumenical program of teaching and understanding.  He visited the Headstart program at Southminister, had lunch at a retirement home, and chatted with many youth groups,  As he went from one group to another he expresses amazement that he at no time was discriminated or was uncomfortable in any way.  We were glad that this was so, but we also made a special effort to help him see poverty in America so that he would know that this is no Utopia - that we have many problems.

 Our time with him ended with hugs and tears and Rufus went home with $5,500 for his church building and wonderful memories of a loving and caring church in America.  For us, there was much satisfaction and delight about the total involvement of Orangewood members and others who gave their all; in transportation, hosting him, lunch and dinner, or evenings of conversation and learning.  We sang and danced for him, showered him with snapshots and token gifts, worked on his farewell party, listened with respect and understanding to his sermons, and grew as we gave ourselves.  It was a tremendous experience and particularly for the families who offered “bed and breakfast”, an experience they will not forget.

 Pat Rhoades
1987

1991 - Peter Makelo, South Africa

(Web Masters Comment - Can anyone provide information on this individual? )

Home Building at Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point)

 The mission outreach program to build homes for the very poor in Puerto Penasco, called Rocky Point by Americans, began in 1993.  It began as an idea conceived by a group of Americans and Mexicans living in the community of Puerto Penasco.  Two of those Americans were Jim and Susie Hamblin who were members of Orangewood Presbyterian Church.  They suggested homebuilding as a possible outreach mission activity.  Exploring the possibilities further Orangewood contacted a religious group in San Diego which had been refurbishing orphanages and building homes in Tijuana since 1980.  The group is called AMOR Ministries.

In 1994 Community representatives from Puerto Penasco visited San Diego to evaluate AMOR and to see if they could facilitate the home building project.  AMOR representatives then traveled to Puerto Penasco to get a better understanding of the community.  Discussions were held with local pastors to aid in the formation of a local Ministry Planning Board.  AMOR also evaluated the availability of building materials in the local area.  As a result it was decided to try a trial mission trip in May to see if the home building was feasible.

The trip exceeded everyone’s expectations and three houses were built by over 50 people from Orangewood Presbyterian, Betania Presbyterian and AMOR staff and volunteers from San Diego and El Paso.  Since the initial trip to Puerto Penasco, over 100 projects have been completed by more than 2000 people from eleven different church groups, including two Mexican national churches based in Puerto Penasco, along with several volunteers from the communities of Rocky Point and Chollas Bay.

The houses built are 11 ‘x 22’ with shed roof on a cement slab.  They are built without power tools.  AMOR takes care of procuring the materials (purchased in Mexico) and finding a family in need of a home.  The materials consist of concrete, 2x4 lumber, plywood, stucco, and rolled roofing material.  The houses are built with lots of hard labor since power tools are not used.  On day one the concrete slab is poured with hand mixed concrete.  The walls and roof are framed while the concrete cures.  On day two the walls are erected and connect to form the frame of the house, the exterior walls are wrapped with felt paper and chicken wire and the first coat of stucco is applied.  The roof is completed and covered.  On day three a second coat of stucco is applied.

The Sanctuary Movement
Audrey Elliott, September 1, 1995

 In 1981, Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson opened its doors to refugees escaping death squads and persecution in Central America, the start of the Sanctuary Movement.  No longer limited to the idea of a place of worship, “Sanctuary” came to mean the protection offered by numbers of churches, synagogues, and individuals nationwide mostly to Salvadorans and Guatemalans, to prevent their deportation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Challenges by many denominations to court-ordered deportation were begun early on, based on the Refugee Act of 1980, to which the U.S. was signatory.  Today those challenges are sustained in law when individuals can show cause to be granted asylum, either temporary or permanent.  That was difficult to accomplish in the ‘80s, and the testimony of Central Americans and Norteno witnesses drew skepticism and denial in high places.  After all, our government was pouring millions of dollars into El Salvador’s military, and assuring us that the problem was Communist agitation there and economic migration here.

Orangewood is an urban church, but for us the waves of refugees targeted by death squads, military crackdowns, and revolutionary forces weren’t part of the street scene with which most of us were involved.  Not first-hand, but we may have learned about that from the nightly news; from invitations to church meetings where bandana-masked peasants were to speak of repression in Guatemala; when Alzona Lutheran Church in southwest Phoenix declared itself a Sanctuary church; from appeals for clothing and food “for the refugees”; from hearing that our neighboring Presbyterian church (now Palo Cristi) had a worship service taped by Jesus Cruz, a paid government informer.  We maybe knew that the interfaith Valley Religious Task Force on Central America had been formed and was providing a refugee house as well as legal help for asylum claimants.

In January 1985 the U.S. Government indicted ten sanctuary workers, and Temple Beth El in Tucson (a Sanctuary congregation) is the scene of a two-day symposium on the Sanctuary Movement attracting 1200 people from across the nation, me included.  I’d known since serving as Orangewood’s Commissioner to General Assembly in 1983 that there was a role for church members in response to the crisis in Central America but I hadn’t found yet what I was called to do; not even the study tour to Honduras and Nicaragua (8/83) had made that clear.  Returning to Phoenix, I became an early worker with the Central American Bureau for Information and Outreach, CAMIO for short, meaning “change” in Spanish.

CAMIO put together a library of books and tapes and offered a speaker s bureau to congregations willing to learn more about what was happening in Central America.  I’m glad to say that a lot of Presbyterians were involved in this interfaith activity (including some from my church), which soon became one of the programs of the Valley Religious Task Force.  Dale Bracey was supportive too, and with his help VRTF arranged a three—part, community-wide forum at Orangewood with speakers covering many aspects of the Sanctuary Movement and its response to human need, regardless of personal risk or what was then the Government’s stance.  The series was controversially close to home; for most attendees it was well received, and a high point in Orangewood’s participation in the Sanctuary Movement.

Eventually the suit brought by the churches was supported by the courts, and the government was required to provide Temporary Protect Status to persons with a well-founded fear of persecution in their own country.  Eventually the courts agreed that the government ought not be planting agents in churches and drawing conclusions from cars parked in the church’s parking lot.  Eventually there was an end to the armed conflict in El Salvador, with the UN Truth Commission report documenting the atrocities of which the refugees spoke, over 90% of them attributed to the Salvadoran military.  And eventually the flood of persecuted people diminished, our (hopefully) last Sanctuary family coming to Phoenix in 1990.

Orangewood is an urban church in a nice neighborhood of law abiding people.  Our involvement might have been greater had people we knew told us their experiences of suffering and loss and fearful flight.  Don’t you think we’d have opened our doors, our hearts, and our wallets to meet their needs; we’d have bent the law to protect someone we knew to be in danger... if we‘d known.

Still, involvement has its price.  Is that something nice people need to do; to risk? Is that what the Lord requires of us, too? The Sanctuary Movement, a phenomenon of the last decade, raises questions that remain valid today.  How much more would we risk, next time, to be the Samaritan, to follow Jesus?      ( Return to Bracey)