Having heard that there would be a worship service in English at 3 p.m., six young African women were waiting for me behind the tall metal gate at the Center for Identification and Expulsion. By the time we gathered in the cafeteria, 15 young women were there.  

Passing around the words to four songs on yellow paper, I explained our work with African churches in Italy.  Before we finished singing the first song, “Hosanna in the Highest,” a worker came and called 4 of the women to meet with a representative from their embassy.  “Number 7853, 7836, 7924, 7876.”  How odd to hear Mercy, Juliette, Love, Goodness, women whom I had just met, identified that way!  

After they left, the stress in the room was palpable. Those not called looked at each other with questions in their eyes.  Would those women be sent back to their country today?  Already that morning two women had been sent back to Asia and one to Eastern Europe.  Everyone knew the embassy representative was there to do “Identification.”  If the women could be identified, “Expulsion” would follow.  It was the Center for “Identification and Expulsion” after all.

After making a couple of comments to let the women know I understood their precarious situation, I invited them to stand and sing again “Hosanna in the Highest”, reminding them that wherever we are, even if it is a place we did not choose to be, God is there.  Standing and clapping and singing, turning their attention toward God, the women seemed to find their hope renewed.  Their faces brightened; their smiles returned; and, with every verse, they sang with more enthusiasm.  
 
We shared Psalm 73.  There, the Psalmist says that, distracted by the reality that oppressors and those who are arrogant often prosper, the writer almost lost sight of the goodness of God.  These young women could easily make the same mistake.  

They came to Europe hoping to have a better future.  They probably did not know that they were being brought to Europe without appropriate legal documentation.  They have struggled in a new country far from family and friends and lived among people whose language they could not speak.  They have probably paid a large portion of anything they have earned to the person who brought them here.  Those who have tricked them seem to prosper.  

They are housed in rooms with white cement walls and cement floors.  Five women share a room where their mattresses and box-springs sit on the floor.  Their common area is a courtyard with one table and a few chairs shared by 45 women.  The women have been arrested for not having residency permits, and they can be held in the Center for up to 180 days.  The ones I talked to individually have been in Italy one to two years—some even four years.  Some of them speak Italian better than English, coming from families who could not pay for school in Africa.  

It would be easy for them to lose faith in God.   There are no easy answers for them.  
We cannot set them free from the Center.  But, we offer this word of hope; we ask them to affirm with the Psalmist:  “Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.  You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will receive me with honor.  Whom have I in heaven but you?  And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.  My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever [Psalm 73:25-26].”

Please pray for:
-These women whose future is out of their hands but is not out of God’s hands.
-Social service workers who advocate for the women’s best interests in an anti-immigrant climate.
-Emma’s ongoing transition to her new environment and work.