Welcome to La Sala

Welcome to our Sala (Living Room)!  Every month, we will give you an update on how the asylum-seekers in our family mutual support network are doing.

The Holidays are often a sad time for migrants who have left family behind in their countries of origin.  Our last family meeting of the year was a reflective, faithful and playful celebration of Thanksgiving.  We had a safe outdoor time of sharing at a park near the Santa Monica pier, where we enjoyed McDonald’s meals donated by a M25 volunteer.  We talked about the most surprising aspect of everyone’s initial experience of the US.  The stories were beautiful, funny, sad. A North American volunteer also talked about moving from the Midwest to California, which sure felt like a migration experience!  Then our youngest asylum seekers actually bathed in the cold water of the Santa Monica ocean – a long way from the warm beaches of Central America.

We celebrated William’s step towards independence; a temporary home where he is paying a small amount of rent while he saves towards a permanent place.  We have several members of our family network with relatives in North Carolina; two have been able to visit and two are planning trips.  We prayed for health, work, legal cases, passing the driver’s tests – all of the daily struggles of life that are made so much more complicated by the inner and outer burdens of being an asylum-seekers.  Everyone also expressed heartfelt gratitude to God, to the volunteers who accompany them and to this network of families supporting each other and help each other grow.  Everyone was particularly grateful for our Spanish-speaking therapist volunteer, Michelle, from Costa Rica.  A Spanish-speaking Pastor also joined us to develop a mentoring relationship with one of the family network members.  So many lights shining in the darkness.  Keep us all in your prayers.