A Minneapolis pastor asked for groceries for his congregation amid the ICE surge. Thousands of volunteers came to help
Pastor Sergio Amezcua was seated for an interview when his phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID.
"I've got to this, sorry," he said
On the other end, a church volunteer – one of more than 4,000. The two quickly talked logistics. The call lasted less than a minute.
It's the new day-to-day reality for the Minneapolis pastor, who serves the congregation of Dios Habla Hoy, a Spanish-speaking church in south Minneapolis. Ninety-five percent of his congregation doesn't speak English. Many, like him, are immigrants to the United States.
Amezcua, who is also a business owner, has been here for 24 years. He's no stranger to taking on a challenge – but the last two months have been unlike anything he's ever seen.
Serving during the surge
Shortly after Operation Metro Surge began in early December, Amezcua knew it wasn't like previous ICE enforcement in the Twin Cities. Agents, he says, were coming after community members regardless of citizenship.
Church members stopped coming to service. Then, they stopped feeling comfortable leaving their homes altogether.
"We usually have two full services on the weekend, we've been having only one service, half empty," Amezcua said. "Even people that are born here are scared to go out. They don't want their kids to go through the trauma, stopped by ICE, that kind of thing."
Amezcua and Dios Habla Hoy put out a call on social media, offering to bring families groceries.
"We throw the link, it was 11a.m. – by 7 p.m., (a coworker) called me like 'Pastor – a lot of people signed up' – I'm like, ten, twenty?' He's like 'No, 2,000.'"
Since then, Amezcua says registrations have grown by 500 families or more each day. Currently, over 26,000 families are registered for grocery and food help.
Amezcua says they've relied on food donations from Second Harvest Heartland and other food shelves – but countless other donations come directly from volunteers. More than 4,000 people have committed their time and effort to help.
"The first help we got as a church was from the LGBT community – and that really touches my heart, and that really touches my heart, because sometimes churches go after them really bad – I was very touched by what I was seeing, with them," Amezcua said.
He says the love shown by the volunteers has powered him and church members through.
"I see God's hand in the middle of this," he said. "It's hard for me to talk about it, in the middle of this storm we've seen human beings loving other humans. I think God is just speaking to us a church that he wants us to speak to everybody and to keep preaching the truth, but in the same way that Jesus did - he was hanging out with everybody. That's what we're doing. When you come to our church, you see Muslims, Christians, Catholics, atheists, LGBT community, everybody with one purpose: helping the neighbor, loving your neighbor as yourself. When we run out of food, I've seen people, without asking, they'll run into Sam's Club and get more chicken, more protein, how can you explain that? It's God."
Bigger than Belief
You can find the full interview with Pastor Sergio Amezcua on this week's podcast episode of Bigger Than Belief.
Bigger Than Belief is a weekly podcast exploring faith, belief, and religion – all through the stories of believers. With an emphasis on understanding belief through personal experience, we aim to create a conversation about faith that is fair, honest, and easy to understand — regardless of what you do (or don't) believe. We'll also take a journalistic approach to concepts and questions that are difficult to understand, while helping to make sense of current events impacting believers in our communities. You can find this week's episode wherever you get your podcasts.