Rev. Angie read the following statement Thursday on behalf of GBM to welcome Caravana 43, families of the 43 Mexican students who were disappeared by the police last September.

The families believe the students are still alive and they are here to demand accountability from the Mexican government.

They also asked President Obama to stop funding the Merida Initiative, which they say supports police corruption.

Eighty people stand in a circle outside a church in Northport. Arms crossed, hands clasped. Latino, black, white. Invited to share their vision for a beautiful Alabama, voices ring out.   Dignity, dignidad.   Life without fear, vivir sin miedo. Peace, faith,  strength to stay in the struggle.  Repeal of HB 56. No more tearing families apart.  A multicultural, multilingual Alabama. The ability to lead our people. Courage, valor.

People who daily are labeled illegal are now labeled Leaders.

People who’ve been told time and again it’s time to leave know now it’s time to lead.

People who’ve been told to move know now it’s time for a movement.

Men in work shirts, university professors, mothers and grandmothers, college students, civil rights icons, teenagers and children, all calling out their vision for a beautiful Alabama. In a moment of quiet, a Latina child calls out, Roll Tide! Everyone laughs, but I think we all feel the painful irony. That’s just how deeply rooted in Alabama our immigrant neighbors are, and yet the intent of Alabama’s new immigration law is to force them to leave or to live here in fear.

Roll Tide? Oh yes, the tide is turning in Alabama, and it will not be turned back.   We are One family, One Alabama. Brown, black and white, in Alabama, of all places. HB56 is bringing us together. It’s a miracle. The kingdom of God is at hand.  God is doing a new thing, can you not behold it?  Thanks be to God.  Gracias a Dios.

-Rev. Angie, 2013

Walking from Selma to Montgomery, thousands of people from all over the country. Old folks on canes and in wheelchairs, children in strollers, college students with boundless energy.

Whites, Blacks, Latinos. They crossed the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where once-peaceful marchers were beaten and clubbed by men whose duty was to enforce the law, where the same marchers came back singing, ‘ain’t nobody gonna turn us around’ and marched all the way to Montgomery.

This year thousands came, crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and made that same five day pilgrimage to Montgomery.

They came because they had been there.

They came because they wished they had been there.

They came because they don’t want to go back there again.

They came because of HB56.

They came because they felt called to do something about a mean spirit set loose in our country. A mean spirit that wants to turn back the times, to go back to “the good old days” that weren’t so good for people without privilege. A mean spirit that once denied access to voting booths and lunch counters and water fountains, that still denies full access to justice and dignity to people with certain pigment, and that now seeks to deny access to people without papers.

And so they marched. They whispered, “We are standing on holy ground, walking in holy footsteps.” Walking in the footsteps of people who 47 years ago marched this same road to overturn the tables of injustice, like Jesus did when he overturned the tables in the Temple.

Standing on holy ground: When Moses stood on holy ground, God told him to take off his shoes. As soon as he did, God gave him his marching orders: go to Egypt, and set my people free!

Walking in holy footsteps: as soon as the disciples dropped their nets to follow Jesus, he gave them their marching orders: If you want to be my disciple, pick up the cross and follow me.

Walking in holy footsteps, standing on holy ground. Marching orders seem to follow. You are standing on holy ground, My Beloveds, not just when you enter the sanctuary of the church but every time your foot touches the earth, because every speck of dirt that God ever created is holy.

So what about walking in holy footsteps? Remember when you were a child at the beach, running behind someone much larger than you, trying to stay in their footsteps, leaping from footstep to footstep quickly before the next wave washed the footstep away, running without looking up because their legs were so much longer than yours? Trying not to make your own footprints, trying not to miss a step, not caring where they were going, just not wanting them to end?

It’s time to look up, time to pay attention. Whose footsteps are you walking in? Consciously or not, we are all walking in someone’s. Are they the ones you really want to follow? And where are those footsteps taking you?  Is it really where you want to go? Standing on holy ground, check. Walking in holy footsteps, check. It must be time to take off your shoes, drop your nets, and get ready for your marching orders.

-Rev. Angie