 My name is Kelly Allen and I am the pastor of University Presbyterian Church, San Antonio, Texas and I chair the Interfaith Welcome Coalition. In your work with the women and children refugees, what are you proudest of? I'm proudest of being part of a small group of people that initiated, that took the chance to put the word out, asking people of faith and community people to come together to talk about how we could respond to refugees. I feel like there were so many people wanting to do something, but they didn't know what to do and they were asking me because I chair a coalition, I mean I chair a task force from our Presbyterian for our regional area of Presbyterians, what do you think we should do? And I wanted to look around and find some appropriate authority figure that could bring people together and it turned out to be me and some other people who were scratching their heads also. And we had no idea what we were starting when we had a room full of 200 people that first time we met and you were taping it and the press was there and people worked for politicians and school districts and social workers and we had no idea what we were going to end up doing. And when it became clear that we didn't know what the next step was going to be, people started peeling off, but then we just kept meeting and talking and learning about the situation and eventually we identified areas that we could support. And a year, almost a year and a half later it has become something huge that has involved people from so many aspects of this community and so many different faith traditions, so many sets of gifts and so much creativity. I've been amazed, I never would have thought that this would be where it is now a year and a half ago. I still remember I think it was Pastor Hager who just said over there, talk to her. And that was what it was, it was just not just, it was amazing and here it is and how much work has been done. What do you hope for these women and children for the future? I hope that they will be treated with the dignity and respect and honor that they did not have where they were before they came here and the safety. I hope that they will be able to use their smarts and their determination and their intelligence and their patience and all of their gifts to make somewhere in this country a better place. Which also means that I hope that at some time in the near future our immigration system will change to make it easier for families seeking asylum from Central America to receive asylum. And I certainly hope that these women and children who have a credible fear of returning will not be deported. If we could find a way to give them permission to stay and to reform our immigration system in a way that allows more people who are in such dire circumstances to come and more people from all over to come and find a place to work and to give what they have to this country. Early on when we were starting to send people to visit in the detention facilities and trying to find a way to advocate against family detention and starting to minister to families at the bus station and we were talking about whether we could start a shelter and what that would look like. We met with a woman who has run a shelter for immigrants in Austin for over 20 years, maybe closer to 30 years. And we sat down and we had pen and paper, we were ready to get her great wisdom of what to do and she said just start taking care of people. Find a place that you can open some doors and let people in and then build what you need to build as you meet with these families. And what I felt in that was that this was somebody who had all kinds of knowledge and experience but she wasn't saying you got to have all this knowledge and experience before you can host a family who needs you. She was saying start doing it and then build what you need around it. And I felt a great permission and a lot of people did to just move forward and to see what happened next. And that we knew that we could call on her and other people. And I think that was so wise because I see so many instances where people feel like they're kind of wringing their hands and they don't know what to do. And they're afraid to take a step before they have everything figured out of how it's going to go. And so much of life is so unpredictable. And in this experience we haven't known from one week to the next whether they were going to shut down family detention and we weren't going to have to host anyone. Or whether they were going to open the doors and let a thousand women and children out at one time. And so the willingness to just adapt and to try something is I think what I would want someone to know. If you see something happening and you want to do something about it. Don't wait for someone else who knows more than you do to take that initiative. You might be the person. I mean I don't know. I'm not an immigration attorney and I'm not a social worker and I'm not a politician. I'm not all those things that you would think you would maybe need to be to start a group like this. But I know how to gather people and I know how to read the signs of people are getting along or not getting along. And maybe some conversations that need to happen. And I'm a mom. I know what it means to be in a family and to be afraid or need help or need a safe place to sleep. So some of these things are so basic but we think that you have to be some really special qualified person. And you know.