We close the New Mexico installment of the “Advocating on the Road” blog series with this piece.

A reflection by the Rev. Chuck Exley,
St. Luke Lutheran Church (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)
Albuquerque, New Mexico

The concept of advocacy, in my vocabulary, means speaking up for those who do not or cannot speak up for themselves.  It’s an intercession, not unlike intercessory prayer when we turn to God on behalf of those in need.  Advocacy, however, involves speaking to individuals of authority within the human realm.  We take the time, the trouble, and the risk to express our concerns, our outrage or our pleas for compassion.

In most cases such advocacy takes the form of signing petitions, writing letters, meeting personally with powerful people, or making some other public show of support.  Many of us have advocated in this way countless times.  We have been encouraged, inspired, or cajoled by any manner of activist to reach out beyond ourselves.  In fact, it is often the very same advocates who are recruited time after time to make their voices heard.  We know each other.  We have worked together for years.  We comfortably speak in each other’s name.  It’s a tight group; almost an elite group!

But, therein lies one of the critical difficulties in advocacy: finding more advocates.  Prayer chains can bring innumerable individuals together, praying silently in the seclusion and anonymity of one’s home.  Advocacy, on the other hand, has no such luxury.  To be an advocate means making your name – if not your face – known to everyone.  Your feelings and your position on hunger policy or some other controversial issue are exposed.  Taking such a step, especially for the first time, requires some degree of self-sacrifice.  How do we motivate individuals to take such a step; to leave their comfort zone and stand publicly with people society would gladly dismiss; to put their faith out front?

I think the answer lies in telling stories.  None other than Jesus himself found stories to be essential.  His parables fill us with the profoundly beautiful combining of knowledge and inspiration.  No list of facts, no course of study could communicate so fully or touch us so deeply.  But Jesus’ parables are not the only parables around us.  There are countless parables – stories that surround us with the telling of God’s love in the midst of ordinary life.  Parables contain the motivating spirit of God’s love.

Let me tell you a story. My wife teaches first grade.  The children she teaches include some of the poorest and most deprived children in Albuquerque.  She has done this for a very long time.  She teaches them in Spanish rather than English.  For many, it is the only language they know.  It becomes their point of entry into an experience that may well change their lives.  But all the children, Spanish speakers and English speakers alike, learn each other’s tongue very quickly.  Within weeks they speak with each other as freely and easily as any children anywhere – playing, laughing, chattering as the teacher tells them to be still.

Not so with their parents.  It is they who must interact with the culture around them.  But some – perhaps many – are completely illiterate; not just in English but in Spanish as well.  Their inabilities lie at the heart of their poverty and hunger; seen most graphically in their need for food each month.  But, imagine, if you can, sitting with a 6-year-old child who is learning to read.  The lesson, however, is not about vowel sounds or spelling.  Instead the teacher explains, “If you do this you can teach your mother to read.”  She goes on to demonstrate what the child might try while recounting his day at school.  His expression changes as he listens with new interest. 

This is my wife’s story.  It is one of her experiences in caring for her students.  And yet, the story of her experience becomes my parable.  And my parable becomes the challenge to advocate that I can share time and time again.  Such is the gift of a story: it can be told and retold to any who are willing to listen.  Each telling touches a listener with the spirit of advocacy; with the challenge to tell others of something that touched his or her heart; with the imagining of possibilities for a more equitable world.  Each telling becomes like the call to the disciples: Go and tell what you hear and what you know.  Your experience becomes my parable, and every parable becomes an invitation to advocate for those God loves.

We have been too quiet.  We have been too quiet in advocating for our hungry neighbors.  We know so much about God’s work in the world that we have been unwilling to tell.  I can imagine no other way of inspiring, gathering, or recruiting advocates than to touch their hearts with the active presence of God’s love.  We all have stories worth telling.  And, they are probably more powerful than any of us know.   Your experience becomes my parable, which invites all listeners to advocate for God’s people in need. 

Go and tell!

We continue the New Mexico installment of the “Advocating on the Road” blog series.

Unfortunately hunger is not confined to the borders of New Mexico. Across the United States, nearly 14.5 percent of households were labeled “food insecure” by the United States Department of Agriculture (table 1A) — meaning these Americans were, at times, uncertain of having or unable to acquire enough food for the household due to insufficient resources. Sadly, New Mexico’s struggle with child hunger is a microcosm for an endemic nationwide problem: more than one in five American children is at risk of hunger — and this number is even higher among African Americans and Latinos (nearly one in three children are at risk) (Table 1B, Table 3).

Families in New Mexico and throughout the nation find necessary aide in programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program(CSFP).  These programs are a lifeline to millions of struggling and impoverished Americans. Administration officials estimate the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) alone currently serves nearly one in seven Americans.

The recession of the past few years has changed the face of hunger in the United States. American families who were once economically stable have been thrust into deeper need, and sharp increases in SNAP participation reflect this uptick. (Nearly 18 million more Americans are enrolled in SNAP today than prior to the recession, 180,000 of whom are from New Mexico).  Today SNAP serves millions of American adults and children, operating with an extremely low rate of payment error. 

It is troubling to see assistance, like SNAP, at risk in the current debate over the direction of the federal budget. These vital programs have become prime targets for budget cuts, restructurings, and flat-funding. We must ask ourselves, what would happen if these programs were harmed? What would happen to families in New Mexico’s communities — and communities across the United States — should these social-safety net programs become further weakened?

As Lutherans, we believe that government has a strategic and instrumental role in advancing the common good. It is with this understanding that the ELCA, along with other church bodies and faith-based organizations, works to support a Circle of Protection to express that care for people living with poverty and struggling with hunger must be a national priority.  ELCA bishops, pastors, seminarians, and congregants are challenging Congress and the Obama Administration to “resist budget cuts that undermine the lives, dignity and well-being of poor and vulnerable people.”

The ELCA Washington Office, in collaboration with other faith groups, works to express these concerns to national leaders through direct advocacy, generating letters and activating ELCA Lutherans across the country to highlight and lift up the need for these programs in the lives of those struggling to meet the needs of their families. 

We all must continue to press the importance of protecting hunger programs from harmful cuts, now more than ever.

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.