Connecting at Christian Citizenship Seminar 2024

By Joan Huston

Making connections is one of my life’s joys, and the Christian Citizenship Seminar (CCS) held on April 11-16 in Washington, D.C., was a place to make them.

On a Monday morning at the Eisenhower Building, for example, we had brief conversations with a Church of the Brethren pastor who jogged past our group; with “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg, now Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg, who was greeted by a CCS member from Indiana; and with a former German environmental minister, identified by the Brethren Volunteer Service worker from Germany, Cornelius Raff, who serves in our Office of Peacebuilding and Policy.

Those connections were sheer delight! The places where faith and politics meet, if not connect, are not sheer anything, however. They are complicated and frustrating, involving work, prayer, and time. Even so, faith and politics were the essence of CCS.

Nate Hosler, director of the Office of Peacebuilding and Policy, and Becky Ullom Naugle, director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries, guided our learning about immigration. Session leaders, articulate and caring, were part of local, national, and international faith organizations working with immigrants. We heard reports of what immigrants face at the US border and in cities like DC, to which many are bussed. We also heard from church leaders in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

*Participants at this year’s CCS pose for a picture at one of their Senators’ offices during an advocacy visit. Photo courtesy of the Youth and Young Adult Ministry office*

We learned about why people flee their homes: poverty, violence, persecution, and food shortages–likely to worsen with climate change. We also took time to pray and reflect.

One goal of the five days of learning was that the youth would then talk with their Congressional representatives and senators (or their staff) about the issue of immigration from a Brethren perspective. I accompanied two youth and a BVSer to meet with staff from both Senate offices for Pennsylvania. (We were not able to get appointments with either of our representatives.) It was interesting and inspiring to see the youth take the lead in the conversations and to hear the staff encourage them to continue to care and to speak about issues.

As the elder in our group, and one who spent time in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Mexico during the Contra War of the 1980s, I wanted to speak to ways our country fuels immigration. I advocated for interdiction of guns and ammunition transported illegally out of our country, weapons that give gangs and drug cartel members more power than police. For example, did you know that Haiti does not manufacture any guns within its borders? All of their guns are imported from other places.

This year was my first attending CCS and yes, I would attend another and encourage others to do the same. It’s difficult for advisors and for busy youth to pull away from springtime sports and music activities and classes, but the many ways of learning about issues that CCS provides made the sacrifice worthwhile. We listened to experts speak, but we also attended a professional theater production. We worshiped with the first African American Episcopal congregation in the DC area, whose history is closely tied to the Great Migration in our country. We visited national museum exhibits and engaged in a role-playing exercise. All of these activities enriched our understanding of immigration and asylum!

Our scriptures repeatedly call us to see immigrants as fellow humans. Jesus said welcoming the stranger is welcoming him, and it’s a metric by which nations will be judged. I appreciated the opportunity to advocate with others from such a solid faith base.

— The next Christian Citizenship Seminar will take place in the spring of 2025. CCS is open to high school youth, college freshman, and age-equivalent young adults and their adult advisors. This is an educational seminar and should count as an excused absence for students. Find out more at www.brethren.org/ccs.

A group of people standing in front of an ornate building. — Christian Citizenship Seminar 2024. Joan Huston is the fourth from the right. Also pictured: Rev. Thomas Bowen, White House Senior Advisor for Public Engagement (left, back); participants from Indiana, Missouri, and Pennyslvania; Nate Hosler, Church of the Brethren director of the Office of Peacebuilding and Public Policy (right); and Becky Ullom Naugle, Church of the Brethen director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry (left, front), Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (center, wearing a tie). The photo was taken on the steps of the Eisenhauer Building on the campus of the White House, after participants meet with Rev. Bowen.

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