ChristianWeek

WINNIPEG, MB—A Muslim family has been gazing at Wardlaw Avenue through stained glass windows for more than one year now. All eight members of the Raza family have been living in Crescent Fort Rouge United Church ever since the Canadian government threatened to deport them to their native Pakistan where they fear persecution and violence.

Since government officials won't forcibly remove them from a place of worship, the Razas are safe between the pews while they hope for grace from the immigration department.

In the meantime a squad of volunteers from the congregation has been buying them groceries, doing their shopping, tutoring their children and pleading with the Canadian government on their behalf.

Most recently the church held a 24-hour prayer vigil to mark one year since the desperate family phoned the church for help.

“We wanted to mark the anniversary, but we didn’t feel like having a party,” said Barb Janes, a minister at Fort Rouge United.

The Canadian government has responded with stony silence to thousands of letters and postcards from the congregation as well as phonecalls and attempts to set up meetings with the immigration department.

In March the Raza family filed a humanitarian and compassionate application hoping to be granted landed immigrant status. Although such cases usually take six to 10 weeks, they’ve been waiting for five months without a response.

While the red brick church on the corner of Nassau Street and Wardlaw Avenue wasn’t built to include beds or a shower—volunteers hastily turned a closet into a shower when the Razas moved in—Bill Gillis who works in the United Church of Canada office believes that this is what the Church is for.

“We believe that as a congregation we need to be active in issues in contemporary society,” he says.

“The gospel calls us to act in the world and to be on the side of the poor and marginalized.”