After fleeing violence in their Guatemalan town, but with their way to relatives in California blocked by continuing U.S. asylum restrictions, a family of 15 joined an Advent candlelight ceremony organized by their shelter just south of the border.
The evening service in the Buen Samaritano shelter’s small Methodist church, which doubles as cafeteria, didn’t quite compare with the weekslong Christmas celebrations they had loved in Nueva Concepcion. Those included fireworks, tamales made with freshly slaughtered pig and shared door-to-door with family, and villagers carrying aloft a statue of the Virgin Mary from the Catholic church to different homes each day, singing all the way.
