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06339 July 6, 2006
Home of the brave
Peace River Presbytery's MIJHH campaign supports new migrant ministry at Immokalee
by Emily Enders Odom Communications Director Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands and Jerry L. Van Marter
IMMOKALEE, FL * All eyes were on the modest young man at the front of the bus.
Clad in a simple T-shirt bearing the logo of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), Romeo Ramirez looked exhausted but empowered as he began to share his own story through a translator.
Though slight of build, the quiet passion in Romeo's voice and the fire in his eyes seized the attention of his listeners as the bus jostled along, motoring slowly past fields where he said great injustices had taken place.
Ramirez, a Guatemalan farmworker, has been working in such fields along the East Coast since he was 15 years old.
He was speaking to a dozen or so concerned Presbyterians aboard a rented bus to tour Immokalee * a small city in Southwest Florida and the state's largest farmworker community * at the invitation of the leadership team of the Joining Hearts & Hands: Peace River Presbytery campaign.
The presbytery's campaign is part of a larger Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) effort * the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH) * to raise $40 million over five years for overseas missionaries and new churches in this country, particularly racial ethnic and new immigrant congregations.
One of the stated priorities of the presbytery's $6.4 million fundraising effort for Joining Hearts & Hands is the establishment of a new migrant ministry at Immokalee through the Beth-El Mission based in Wimauma, FL.
"We are very thankful that Peace River Presbytery has joined this initiative," said Dave Moore, executive director of Beth-El Farmworker Ministry, who joined the group on its mission tour. "By expanding to Immokalee, we will offer Hispanic farmworkers their only opportunity to worship in the Reformed tradition in their native language."
Ramirez was one of three members of the CIW * a community-based workers' organization * to be honored in 2003 with the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. He and fellow farmworkers Julia Gabriel and Lucas Benitez have become leaders in the fight to end slave labor, human trafficking, and exploitation in agricultural fields across the United States.
Last year, the CIW successfully concluded a PC(USA)-baked consumer boycott of Taco Bell that gave some tomato pickers in Florida their first raise * a penny a pound * in more than 20 years. The group is now trying to persuade hamburger giant McDonald's to do the same.
"Farmworkers have stories both happy and sad," Ramirez said through his interpreter. Pointing out the window to a site adjacent to the parking lot of Corkscrew Swamp, a Naples, FL, tourist attraction, he said, "This is one of those sad places, where people were being held against their will, threatened, and physically abused to work the tomato fields."
Ramirez continues to play a critical role in the CIW's Anti-Slavery Campaign, a worker-based effort to eliminate modern-day slavery in the agricultural industry. According to the organization's website, "the CIW helps fight this crime by uncovering, investigating, and assisting in the federal prosecution of slavery rings preying on hundreds of farmworkers."
Ramirez said that another key focus of the CIW is on community education and consciousness-raising.
As Ramirez and others struggle to gain a fair wage, better housing, and the most basic of human rights for the farmworkers at Immokalee, they have begun to transform that community into a nearer translation of the city's name from the original Seminole, "my home."
And soon, a Reformed presence will be an integral part of that home.
Or as the colorfully painted wall outside of the CIW offices expresses best in a message that is deep at the heart of both church and society: "Si quieres paz, lucha por la justicia*If you want peace, work for justice."
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