Dear Friends on IYM(C) Peace & Social Concerns Committee,

A packet on immigration is being sent to you in the mail. It is important for you to read it so that we can begin to discuss how to help our monthly meetings discuss the issue when we meet together at Midyear Meeting. In it you will find chapters 4 & 5 from John Woolman's  “A Plea for the Poor or A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich”, as well as material from our regional AFSC office. I have also included a number of articles from the general press that might be helpful as we seek a spiritual (instead of a purely political) response to this issue.

Deborah Fisch, Sherry Hutchinson and I met together in February to discuss ways for Peace and Social Concerns to be faithful to our calling. Below is a letter written by Deborah Fisch discussing some of the ideas and proposals that grew out of that meeting. Please read it carefully so that we can discuss our way forward when we gather together at Mid-year Meeting.

At the request of the 2006 Yearly Meeting, we will need to consider what should be our position on the issue of immigration. You may recall that IYMC was not able to reach unity to approve suggested minute on immigration/migration proposed in Peace & Social Concerns Committee's 2006 Report. in the part of the Peace and Social Concerns dealing with that issue, there was no unity on the issue, and evidence of wide disparity of opinion on the subject as well as of lack of information on the part of some. The Yearly Meeting did however express interest in the concern and minuted, "We ask Peace & Social Concerns to continue to labor with the concerns of migration, immigration and immigration rights and help us continue to become more educated around these issues." In an effort to help educate the monthly meetings and members of the Yearly Meeting as charged, we will need to spend our time at Midyear Meeting considering what information we'd like to make available for consideration, and in what form. We hope that if monthly meetings have an opportunity to consider materials we provide Friends will come better prepared to consider possible proposals coming through P&SC at the 2007 sessions.

As a result, we will not have time to bring up concerns for action on timely issues, as we ordinarily do. If your meeting has a concern which seems urgent, please inform us in advance.

Quaker process requires that issues go through a discernment process at monthly meetings before they go to the yearly meeting committee.

Also, we have been considering ways to give careful consideration to the many good causes and concerns lifted up by members o the P&SC, so that we can make good use of our limited time together and present concerns to the Yearly Meeting in a way that best allows Friends to understand the issues and any proposals we might ask them to approve during our annual report. We have been reminded that in the tradition of Friends it is our practice to discern concerns of members on many different levels. The first happens when a concern is laid on an individual's heart. They wrestle with it, learn what they can about it, and consider prayerfully if they are being called to come under its weight, as early Friends would say. If the answer is yes, then that Friend would take the concern to their monthly meeting's Peace & Social Concerns Committee if they have one, or to the monthly meeting if there is no P&SC Committee. The P&SC Committee would consider what the member/attender of the meeting lifted up, and if they have unity would carry it to monthly meeting for consideration. At this time the monthly meeting becomes involved in a third layer of discernment. This might take several months, or only a matter of one meeting, depending on Friends' understanding of a concern and their clarity how they are being called. If the meeting is in unity they might approve a minute asking the YM P&SC to consider whether the Yearly Meeting should consider coming under the weight of the concern.

At any time along this path of discernment there could be stops or goes, but each step brings more people into discussion and more people to help discern God's call to themselves, the monthly meeting and the yearly meeting. Sometimes only an individual is called to come under the weight of a concern. Sometimes a monthly meeting is clear to come under the weight of the concern, but is clear they are not called to ask the Yearly Meeting to consider action. At others times they are called to forward the concern for further consideration.

We are hoping to reclaim this practice for our committee, so we will ask member of the Yearly Meeting P&SC to season and get approval from their monthly meeting any concern they want to bring to the Yearly Meeting P&SC Committee. The more people that have an understanding of the issues, the more likely we will be able to faithfully consider what God would have us do.

Please take the time to prayerfully consider this letter, as well as the immigration materials, so that we can begin to discern our way to fill our responsibilities to the Yearly Meeting this

upcoming year.

We look forward to a fruitful gathering at Bear Creek later this month.

Love,

Deborah Dakin