{"id":17373,"date":"2018-02-27T11:02:53","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T19:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=17373"},"modified":"2018-02-27T11:02:53","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T19:02:53","slug":"we-all-come-from-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/we-all-come-from-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"We all come from Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Poem by the Rev. Lyda Pierce<\/strong><\/h4>\n

We all come from Africa.
\nSo the DNA says, and archaeology.
\nWe all come from Africa;
\nWalking, floating, flying,
\nFleeing, hoping, exploring;<\/p>\n

We came across continents and seas,
\nIce, oceans, deserts, and mountains.
\nWe never came on our own,
\nEven if, we traveled alone.<\/p>\n

We left family, hoping to bring them later.
\nWe brought family, to make a new life.
\nWe followed family who\u2019d gone before
\nAnd made a place for us.
\nWe were torn from family,
\nBrought in chains,
\nLeaving our hearts in another land.<\/p>\n

We were welcomed,
\nWe were scorned,
\nWe were pushed aside,
\nWe were afraid,
\nAnd we hoped.<\/p>\n

We learned of God
\nFrom family, from stories,
\nFrom the Spirit with us,
\nFrom ritual,
\nFrom the land.
\nBut the land changed,
\nAs we moved,
\nAnd we had to find God
\nIn the new land.<\/p>\n

Do we remember God in the old land?
\nDo we remember God traveling with us?
\nCan we see God
\nWith those who have come more recently?
\nOr have I fashioned a god who looks like me
\nIn the new land?<\/p>\n

\n

The Rev. Lyda Pierce<\/strong> serves as director of Hispanic\/Latino Ministries for the\u00a0Pacific Northwest Conference Office of Connectional Ministries.<\/i><\/p>\n

Photo Credit:<\/strong>\u00a0Rev. Paul Jeffrey<\/p>\n

About the Photo:<\/strong>\u00a0Women in war-torn South Sudan
\n<\/b><\/em>After working together in a community garden, women sing and dance as they walk home on April 12, 2017, atop a dyke they constructed to control flooding around Dong Boma, a Dinka village in South Sudan’s Jonglei State. Most of the women’s families recently returned home after being displaced by rebel soldiers in December, 2013, and they face serious challenges in rebuilding their village while simultaneously coping with a drought which has devastated their cattle herds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rev. Lyda Pierce, director of Hispanic\/Latino Ministries for the\u00a0Pacific Northwest Conference, shares this moving poem that touches on themes of migration, shared experience, faith, and empathy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":17374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[157,499],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-immigration","8":"category-poetry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/south-sudan-2017-jeffrey-E2113.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-4wd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17373"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17377,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17373\/revisions\/17377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}