Wednesday,  October 15, 2014

My task today at Sacred Heart Relief Center was to help out with the phone calls these refugees made to their personal contacts here in the United States. This is toward the end of their journey they are taking to get to family living here in the USA. Here at SHRC, after getting clean with a shower and new clean clothes, I take their contact name, contact phone number, and contact country or state. Then I placed the phone call and would hand the phone to them to have a conversation telling them when they will arrive and what bus arriving on.

APTS Students Serving at Sacred Heart Relief Center

In the afternoon I had the opportunity to go to the central bus station up the street from SHRC and to see that side of what was happening. They first arrive very dirty and traumatized from the Border Patrol Detention center and ICE interrogations, where they are met by a SHRC volunteer that escorts them down to the center. After getting cleaned up and able to rest on an actual cot, they return to the Bus Center to start the next leg of their journey. 

A SHRC volunteer stays with them all the way to getting on the bus. I happen to be there and helped two of the young girls with children get on their bus, and these girls happened to be the ones I helped with their phone calls. They saw my smile while I let the other volunteers speak Spanish with them. We educate them on how to read the tickets they have and what to do on the bus. We left with smiles and hugs from the little children.

I found out that when the refugees leave SHRC they have documentation and our on the books for a court date to become legal documents residents. We as volunteers do what can be done to keep them safe till the bus leaves. Smugglers and cartel kidnappers are still on the prowl to grab these refugees to put them back into terror and traumatized conditions.

The shoe of a Central American Refugee

What Sacred Heart is doing is a wonderful small humanitarian part to this vast unfortunate situation. I am blessed by God and this class to have been a small part and eyes opened to what is going on.

Cliff Frederick