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Boston Reverend Visits Facility in Texas to Pray for Children Separated From Parents

Reverend John Edgerton is in Houston to answer the call to pray outside a facility that could become the fourth tender age shelter

While there are still many questions about how more than 2,000 children will be reunited with their parents after being separated at the border, there is a growing circle of prayer going on in the heart of Houston, Texas.

A Boston reverend attended a 24-hour vigil was held for the children caught in the middle of the country's immigration debate.

“It’s wrong to detain children, it’s wrong to treat people in this way,” Reverend John Edgerton said.

Rev. Edgerton, based in Boston at the Old South Church in Copley Square, arrived in Houston early Friday morning to answer the call to pray outside a facility that could become the fourth tender age shelter.

“This is the proposed fourth so-called tender age facility, there are three other ones and this would be the fourth expanded one,” Rev. Edgerton said.

Rev. Edgerton says the facility has previously been used as an emergency storm shelter.

“This place that has been used for helping families in need instead is going to be a place to detain and jail children, which is not acceptable,” the reverend said.

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Back home in Boston, Senior Minister Nancy Taylor says the church community is supporting Rev. Edgerton with prayers and blessings to keep him safe and successful in his mission.

“It’s to bear witness, to put eyes on it, to say we see this and to have other people know we’re looking, the nation’s looking, the church is looking, we care,” Taylor said.

Rev. Edgerton says he sees this mission as much bigger than just the one building where he’s holding vigil in Houston.

“Because I don’t want to see a detention center like this in Boston and so I won’t accept it in Houston either,” he said.

Rev. Edgerton says he will stay in Texas as long as he is needed there.

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