This piece is part of the New Mexico installment of the “Advocating on the Road” blog series.

By  Ruth Hoffman,  Director Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry– New Mexico

Our first stop on the Advocacy Road Trip is New Mexico, where congregations and ministries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) continue to walk with their many neighbors experiencing hunger and living in poverty. 

New Mexico is a large state with a diverse geography and population, both urban and rural. About 2 million people live here, the majority of whom are members of minority groups — 46% of New Mexicans are Latino, 9% Native American (identifying with 22 tribes), 2% are African American, and 1.5% Asian. 

Consistently, New Mexico ranks as a state with an extremely high percentage of its people living in poverty. The 2010 census placed the state’s poverty rate at 20.4%, which is the second highest in the nation. More alarming is the rate of children living in poverty at 30%, ranking third in the U.S. These high levels of poverty inevitably lead to extreme hunger throughout New Mexico. Approximately 15% are “Food Insecure” meaning that access to food is limited by lack of money or other resources. Nearly 6% are living with “Very Low Food Security” which means that food intake of some household members is reduced and normal eating patterns are disrupted due to limited resources.

In response to the widespread poverty and hunger in New Mexico, ELCA congregations learn, serve and advocate. Through a variety of educational opportunities, congregations explore how we are called to be followers of Jesus in light of the context in which we live. They also learn about the needs of many New Mexicans by engaging in a wide range of service to their neighbors living in poverty.

One example is ELCA congregations in Albuquerque, including St. Timothy, St. Luke and All Saints, who regularly welcome and host families experiencing homelessness overnight at their churches and assist them toward family sustainability through the Family Promise program. Another congregation, Peace Lutheran in Las Cruces, supports and sponsors the Border Servant Corps, which annually brings young volunteers to serve in agencies working to address poverty in Las Cruces and in El Paso, Texas.

Many ELCA members and congregations, like Christ Lutheran in Santa Fe and Holy Cross in Albuquerque, prepare meals and provide food to people who are hungry. St. Peter in Carlsbad is one of our congregations who help to build homes for families in Juarez, Mexico, through Casas por Christo. For many years, St. Paul in Albuquerque has partnered with the Martineztown neighborhood through service and advocacy. Bethlehem in Las Cruces actively supports the Navajo Lutheran Mission. These are but a few of the ways that our congregations serve their neighbors through work that is a central part of their ministries.

Several years ago, congregations in New Mexico realized that advocacy was integral in addressing the deeply imbedded issues of poverty and hunger in the state. Building on the direct services provided in their communities, ELCA members worked to form advocacy ministries. In 1984, the New Mexico state public policy office in Santa Fe opened. The ELCA Rocky Mountain Synod has consistently supported this advocacy ministry as an intentional ministry of the synod and a witness to God’s love. ELCA congregations throughout New Mexico have become involved in advocacy in response to the needs that they have seen when they serve their communities and neighbors. ELCA pastors and lay leaders encourage their members to become active advocates. Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-New Mexico continues to focus its work primarily on public policies that can have a positive impact on people living in poverty and with hunger.

A direct result of this advocacy is the creation of a state Housing Trust Fund to increase the availability of affordable housing with about 1,400 units built so far. ELCA members have joined the Advocacy Network to learn about the ways that changes in public policy can help to address poverty and hunger. Pastors and congregations invite the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-New Mexico director to come to their congregations to talk about advocacy opportunities and to provide opportunities for members to join the Advocacy Network.

The Rocky Mountain Synod, ELCA congregations in New Mexico and Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-New Mexico will continue learn about, serve and advocate for our neighbors living in hunger and poverty.

Dear friends,

It’s not a secret that the political campaign season is underway in America. Turn on your TV, open a newspaper, or, depending on where you are, walk down your street and you’ll see politicians and their staff eagerly courting votes. Candidates for the highest elected offices are traveling by bus, plane and train into small towns and large cities, donning jeans and sweater vests, touring farms and factories, kissing babies and shaking hands — anything to convince Iowans ( … or Ohioans, Minnesotans or Floridians, Virginians or … ) that he or she is listening and understands our communities, our nation, and our world. 

Throughout the months leading up to the general election, the ELCA Advocacy Ministries invite you to join us on our own tour of the U.S. Through our blog, Voices for Change, we will travel to a different state each month, discussing issues of concern for their communities and exploring how they connect to our larger nation and world. As we hear how Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) advocates and congregations are serving their neighbors, we will ask ourselves what was asked of Christ, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29), when grappling with these challenging problems. 

On this trip across America, we won’t be winning super-delegates or collecting endorsements — rather we’ll be sharing stories from ELCA advocates and congregations as they lift up moral priorities facing our neighbors who are near and far away. We invite you to discover America with us over these next few months. 

Safe travels,

The ELCA Washington Office

Our first stop is New Mexico, where ELCA congregations serve and advocate in response to widespread hunger. 

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Ecumenical Advocacy Days

We certainly live in frustrating times.  Reverberations of the struggling U.S. economy are felt across the globe through unemployment, homelessness, hunger, and injustice.  The economic downturn has thrust many once-stable families on the cusp of poverty, and further hurt those already on the margins of our society.

Meanwhile, the officials we elected don’t appear to be helping. Washington continues to be dominated by bitterly entrenched partisan divide, resulting in a gridlock that erodes at the average American’s trust in our government.  The “key players”—as they are often called—of both political parties seem distant and unresponsive, and the media often speaks of each side’s “political strategy” as if this was all sport.

It’s easy to want to stand up and scream that this is not a game and that people’s lives and livelihoods–their homes, heat for the apartment, gas for the car, and food for the dinner table– are at stake.  It’s also easy to want to throw our hands and in the air and walk away from all of this.  “Forget this—I’m done caring,” we may mutter under our breath.  The reality is, however, we can only take a few steps down the streets of our very own community before being confronted again with the severity of our national (and global) economic problems.

Our God sees our struggle and understands our frustration, but commands us not to walk away.  Rather our God calls us to, “Shout out, do not hold back!  Lift up your voice like a trumpet!” (Isaiah 58:1).  “Is this not the fast I choose,” A few verses later, we are asked, “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and the break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house?”  God then makes an amazing promise: “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly… If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness… The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places… and you shall be called the repairers of the breach, and restorers of streets to live in.”  This passage reminds us how to honor God, but also how to heal our world.

This passage will also help guide the tenth annual Ecumenical Advocacy Days, held in Washington, D.C, where hundreds of Christians will explore economy, livelihoods, and our national priorities.  For four days (March 23-26) we will worship side-by-side, hear from theologians and policy experts, equip ourselves to speak confidently on key policy issues, and take our message to our elected officials in Congress.  As Lutherans, we believe that government can be God’s gift to allow us live together peacefully, and we will explore this together and enjoy fellowship at breakout points during the conference.

* Consider this your personal invitation to come to Washington and be heard! *

Money tight?  We understand, and to help more people attend EAD, the ELCA is providing scholarships.  Deadlines are fast-approaching, so apply SOON by filling out this application.

Know someone who would be interested in a scholarship?  Share the application link today!  http://elcaadvocacy.wufoo.com/forms/elca-scholarship-ecumenical-advocacy-days/

Submitted by Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy

The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy is working with the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth on an initiative to impact the issue of childhood obesity in Virginia. The Center is raising awareness and educating families in the New River Valley about childhood obesity by organizing the faith community, local childcare providers and community leaders.

A Blacksburg art supply store displays paper dolls created by local children during the Week of the Young Child. The weeklong initiative helped raise awareness about children's health. Photo courtesy of Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy

The campaign kicked off in February with an event headlining a professor of pediatrics from Virginia Tech.  Then, in April the campaign partnered in hosting the Week of the Young Child. The Center initiated a paper doll project, which was used in part to educate parents about the “5210 A Day” model, which advocates for five servings of fruits and vegetables, two hours of screen time or less, one hour of activity and zero sugary drinks a day.

Additionally, the campaign is working closely with Micah’s Backpack, a ministry led by St. Michael’s Lutheran Church of Blacksburg. The program provides healthy meals and snacks on weekends and during summer vacation for children who qualify for free and reduced lunches.

As the campaign begins its second year, the Center is also continuing its efforts to improve state policies that directly impact children who are at the highest risk for obesity. In the coming General Assembly, we will continue to advocate for an increase in the physical activity requirement for Virginia’s school children and support legislation requiring nutritional content to be available for foods sold to students as part of their breakfast or lunch programs.

By Sarah Dreier, Legislative Representative for International Policy and Advocacy for the ELCA Washington Office and the Episcopal Church Office of Government Relations

I’m the new Legislative Representative for International Policy and Advocacy for the ELCA Washington Office and the Episcopal Church (TEC) Office of Government Relations. This is the first joint, integrated position shared between our two churches and represents the innovative potential of the ELCA and TEC’s call to common communion.

Both my parents are ELCA clergy and they raised me to think critically about my faith. I have taken seriously Jesus’ revolutionary call, which is as radical today as ever,  to look beyond divisions of class, race, nationality, and creed, and to celebrate diversity among God’s people.  When I was old enough to vote, I noticed with dismay that religion was far too often misappropriated by those who had cast aside this theological message of inclusion and replaced it with a message of greed and exclusion.

I challenged this misappropriation of God’s global message in both academic and public policy circles.  It motivated my study of philosophy and legal studies as an undergraduate at Northwestern University; international sociology of law at the University of the Basque Country and political science at the University of Washington at the graduate level. My research at the Center for American Progress’s Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative also influenced my passion. 

I am thrilled to now be working to reclaim this inclusive message and infuse international development and U.S. foreign policy with God’s message of love.

With this message, I will be advocating to alleviate abject global poverty through the Millennium Development Goals. Specifically I’ll be urging Congress to address those vexing issues that plague the world’s most vulnerable: HIV/AIDS, food insecurity, humanitarian atrocities, unfair trade policies, and religious persecution.

I believe the work will be strengthened by our churches’ shared ecumenical voice.  I pray it serves as a model of dialogue and faith-based partnership at a time when religious diversity too often becomes divisive.

Together, as we grapple with some of the world’s most challenging problems, we’ll educate our communities and advocate for those in most dire need around the world. Together, we’ll discern how we can heed Jesus’ radical call to look beyond state borders and religious identity by being the voice for the voiceless in our nation’s capital and in our own congregations.

By Amy Johnson, director, Lutheran Office for Public Policy in Wisconsin

As students return to school, many will rely on their school meal program for a nutritious meal. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

This month Wisconsin students will return to their classrooms and take on the challenges of the year ahead. Far too many students will also be battling hunger while they are trying to focus on their studies.

If you’ve ever taught a student who’s gone without dinner from the night before, or breakfast that morning, you know empty stomachs are distracting and make it tough to learn. If a child has trouble learning it makes it even harder to achieve success in school, and lack of achievement can be a major road block in a child’s future.

This is the cycle of poverty playing out each day in our schools. However, there is a simple way to break that cycle and give our kids the tools they need to succeed. Children of all ages need three healthy meals a day, and Wisconsin’s students count on the school breakfast, lunch and after school meal programs to stay strong and focused.

Each day over 300,000 students in Wisconsin get a healthy start with a breakfast in their classroom. Hours later, school lunch programs provide a free meal to 330,000 low income students.

These meal programs are a strong and vital partnership between our schools and our state and federal government. Schools depend on the support from our state and the USDA to fund school meals, and the future of our state depends on all children having the food they need to succeed. Invest in our kids now, support school meals!

By Mark Carlson, director, Lutheran Office of Public Policy – California

The Sacramento Water Treatment Plant by the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers. Photo courtesy of Mark Carlson.

In California, a couple of well-known sayings are imprinted in the minds of those who care about water.  The most famous is attributed to Mark Twain: “Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.” 

In the Central Valley, whose rich productivity is supported by federal dams such as Trinity and Shasta, signs along highways proclaim a California truth: “Food grows where water flows.”  My favorite is the passage from Ezekiel 47:9, engraved on the masonry over the Sacramento water treatment plant near the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers: “Everything shall live whithersoever the river cometh.” 

A couple of weeks ago, a Southern California Lutheran youth group rafted the Trinity River, a tributary of the embattled Klamath River, in the far north part of the state.  A portion of the coastal Trinity is diverted over into the Central Valley to the farms and cities far to the south. While rainfall and snowpack are abundant this year, three years of severe drought contributed to cuts in water deliveries, fallowed fields, dead orchards, unemployed farmworkers, suspended commercial salmon fishing, and highway signs of a more partisan and demonizing nature. 

Yet even now that our rivers and reservoirs are full, there are more than 250,000 mostly low-income people in the Central Valley who lack water safe enough for drinking, bathing and washing.  Among that group are the men and women who pick and process the fruits and vegetables that end up in our grocery stores and on our tables. There are about 300 projects, at an estimated $400 million, on the waiting list for the federal Drinking Water Revolving Fund to address severe contamination in such disadvantaged California communities (compared with about $35 million available each of the last two years).  

In addition, fragile agreements for water rights to the Klamath and San Joaquin Rivers, reached after a generation of litigation, are threatened by possible federal budget cuts that could ignite a new round of courtroom conflict.

Through history and by collective will and difficult compromises, the federal government has been a primary partner and stakeholder in working with state, local, and tribal governments and private interests in promoting what remains the elusive goal of safe, sufficient, sustainable water for all – farms, fish, people and healthy, productive ecosystems that all thrive “whithersoever the river cometh.”

By Amy Reumann, Director, Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania

Diagram on fracking. Graphic courtesy of Propublica

The federal budget matters…in order to preserve clean water in Pennsylvania where a new American gold rush is on. This time it is to mine natural gas trapped a mile underground between layers of shale rock, using a recently developed technology called hydraulic fracturing (or fracking). Fracking injects huge amounts of water mixed with sand and chemicals deep underground. This action breaks up rock formations and releases the gas which is then brought to the surface.

This new, domestic source of energy is hailed as a cleaner burning fuel and a bridge to more renewable sources. Gas drilling activities provide a boost to job creation and local economies.  But the fracking process, which is currently exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act, also carries significant environmental risks, particularly for water resources and quality:

• Fracking one well requires about 4 million gallons of water, either drawn from local waterways or trucked in to the site.
• Gas drillers are not required to disclose the chemicals they use in the fracking process. These may include substances known to be toxic to humans and wildlife, including carcinogens such as benzene.
• A well brings over a million gallons of the fracking water back to the surface.  In addition to chemicals, it is often laced with corrosive salts and radioactive elements like radium found underground.
• Some fracking water remains underground, with ongoing debate as to the long term implications.

Pennsylvania sits atop the Marcellus Shale reserve. The state has welcomed drilling and its benefits, with over 3,300 drilling permits issued in 2010 alone. The state has been slow to evaluate the environmental costs and consequences. Impact on water resources includes:

• Pollution of rivers, including those that provide drinking water to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Harrisburg. Pennsylvania is the only state that has allowed drillers to discharge much of their waste into rivers through local sewage treatment plants, which are not designed to remove drilling contaminants.
• Contamination of water wells in proximity to fracking sites.
• Spills and overflows of fracking waste water from holding ponds and during transport.

The drilling debate has been deeply polarized.  Opinions for and against fracking both suffer from a lack of information based on solid research.  The federal budget matters if we are to forge sound policy to protect and preserve clean water in Pennsylvania. A current EPA study of the impact of fracking on drinking water resources, which includes three Pennsylvania sites, is currently underway. Its findings will provide direction for the oversight of natural gas drilling, and the preservation of water resources in Pennsylvania and the entire nation.

By Mary Minette, ELCA Director of Environmental Education and Advocacy

Flooding in the Fargo/Moorhead area. Photo Credit: Michael Nevergall

This month our series on the federal budget is focusing on how water programs may be affected by cuts in the federal budget.  The opening reflection focused on water quality and how proposed budget cuts will impact partnerships between the federal government and state and local communities. Those partnerships have made our nation’s waters substantially cleaner than they were 30 years ago

This spring and summer, several communities are struggling with a very different problem: too much water.  Higher than normal winter snowpack and greater than normal spring rain levels are overwhelming dams and levee systems throughout the Midwest and Southeast this year.  Communities in western Iowa, North Dakota and the Southeastern states along rivers from the Missouri to the Mississippi have been hit hard by flooding, with devastating impacts on farmland, homes and businesses.

As we pray for the recovery of these communities, we recognize the strain that rebuilding will place on the budgets of families and companies, and on the resources of local, state and federal agencies. As a church body, we do what we can through the work of ELCA Disaster Response. 

But we should also consider how the shrinking budgets of local, state and federal governments may impact the ability of communities to deal with flooding in the future. 

The Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette recently reported that a critical monitoring system used by the National Weather Service to predict the path that floodwaters may take could be impaired because of federal budget cuts.  Stream gauges, operated by federal agencies working with states and local communities, track water flows in rivers and streams throughout the country.  Without this data it will be difficult to accurately predict when and where flood waters will crest.  But state and local governments are struggling to support these projects and federal budget cuts will endanger the monitoring system even further.

In a time of budget austerity, how do we decide which programs to save?

Pastor Reg Schultz-Akerson quotes Matthew 5 at a Season of Prayer event held at Faith Lutheran Church in Chico, California. Photo credit: James Henson

In solidarity with our brothers and sisters serving, working, and living in Sudan, the ELCA encourages you to pray for peace for all of Sudan as South Sudan approaches its independence from the North on July 9th, 2011.

Here is a prayer shared by Faith Lutheran Church in Chico, Calif.:

Abba, heavenly Father,

On behalf of the community of Chico, California allow our voices to be heard in unison with others across this nation and across the world. We pray for peace and self-determination for our brothers and sisters in South Sudan as they begin the Good Works as people of a new nation.

Lord hear our prayers:

Let the land yield crops; not land mines.

Lord hear our prayers:

Grant that the people of South Sudan may dig wells for water; not graves for their children from violence and war.

Lord hear our prayers:

Grant that both adults and children may be free to pick up pencils to write rather than pick up guns to kill.

Finally, God may the words of your prophet Isaiah come true so that the South Sudanese and all peoples begin to “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” (Isaiah 2:4)

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen