Sharing Love, Seeking Justice: The third week in Lent
March 25, 2025
Welcome to our 2025 series of weekly Lenten devotionals, a gift from New Brunswick Theological seminary. At the beginning of each week, the Theological Writing Center will post a devotion or a story of a local congregational ministry, along with a prayer and a few psalms on which to meditate during the week. During Holy Week, there will be eight days of devotions from NBTS faculty members.
The third week in Lent
Weekdays at RCHP…
As I walk the halls of the Reformed Church of Highland Park, I am deeply saddened by recent changes.
January 2025: As it has been for years, the building is bustling with people. I-RISE staff meeting with clients to work through the papers for status and employment as together they seek to meet requirements set by the government. Offices created out of closets and people filling every possible space as they huddle over papers outlining their legal immigration status, current needs, and plans for the future. Hopes rise and dreams grow.
February 2025: The building is less busy. Tension fills the air as staff are now uncertain of their own futures. The funding freeze has stopped all reimbursements for work done previously and future funding is now certain not to come. All of the languages previously heard in the building have dwindled to one, and voices are tinged with doubt and trepidation. Soon-to-be furloughed and laid-off staff gather for a final meal together.
March 2025: A few people travel the hallways and others pass though looking for respite and a friendly face. Gone is the excitement of families with children meeting in the social hall for a meal at Global Grace Café. Gone are the voices in so many languages speaking of the path to a future in the United States. Now hushed voices share stories of a father who did all the right things only to be torn from his family and deported. Stories of changing rules making what was once legal now illegal. Stories of staffers looking for new work as unemployment soars.
I-RISE (Interfaith Refugee and Immigrant Services and Empowerment) is a program of the RCHP-Affordable Housing Corporation, a non-profit affiliated with the Reformed Church of Highland Park. Over the past decade, it has become a lifeline for thousands of legal immigrants who need help working through the immigration system. Federal monies have, until recently, supported this vibrant and necessary ministry. Basic essentials such as food, healthcare, transportation, employment, school information, and legal resources are available at our offices in Highland Park, Vineland, Trenton, and Asbury Park. You and/or your congregation and help support this work at https://interfaithrise.org.
-LL DuBreuil
MDiv graduate, 2000; DMin graduate, 2009
Prayer:
God of all, we celebrate the victories we have won.
We lament the cruelty that now pervades our land.
We hope for a time when all are welcomed
as members of your beloved family.
Amen.
Reflection for the rest of the week: The next three Ascent Psalms: 126, 127, 128
The Ascent Psalms were sung by pilgrims heading for Jerusalem.
Prayer:
Eternal Parent and only true God, who delivers captives and prisoners;
we pray that you rescue us from the bondage of our adversaries,
that we, passing through the miseries and disasters of this troubled world,
may in the end enjoy the fruit of our faith, the salvation of our souls,
bought with the blood of your dear Son, our Savior, Jesus.
Amen. Adapted from the prayer for Psalm 126 in the Scottish Psalter of 1595