{"id":24667,"date":"2026-02-17T08:28:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T16:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greaternw.org\/news\/?p=24667"},"modified":"2026-02-17T17:05:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:05:27","slug":"offering-love-in-the-face-of-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greaternw.org\/news\/offering-love-in-the-face-of-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"Offering love in the face of fear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><strong>Editorial note:<\/strong> The names of the mother and two children in this story have been changed to protect vulnerable people. No other details have been altered.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>By Rev. Sue Ostrom<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"dropcapp3\">Linda lives in a mobile home court in Vancouver, WA.&nbsp; In the spring of 2025, her friend Shane brought over his friend Jesus to talk about safety steps he could take as an undocumented immigrant. As the three of them chatted in Linda\u2019s small front yard, she saw a woman and her four children walking past.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI did not know them,\u201d Linda said, \u201cbut I knew something was wrong. So, I went over to the woman and asked, \u2018Are you ok?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The woman replied, \u201cMy husband was arrested.\u201d Linda told her to wait while she went inside to get some information she had gathered from LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens.) While she was inside, Jesus told the woman, in Spanish, \u201cYou can trust her. She\u2019s one of the good ones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Linda learned that Sofia\u2019s husband had been arrested by ICE as he dropped their sons off at school that morning. The boys, Adam and David, had seen their dad handcuffed and led away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From that chance encounter, Linda has developed a deep friendship with this family. The good news is that the father was ultimately released. The children still live with the trauma and fear of watching their father taken away in handcuffs. When school started again in the fall of 2025, they worried about how to safely get boys to school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A village has formed around this family. White neighbors take Adam and David to school. One neighbor, Katherine, lives close to David\u2019s school. Because he is younger, he gets out earlier than Adam, so he now goes directly to her house after school. Linda picks up David from Katherine\u2019s house and then picks up Adam from his school. Other parents step in when Katherine is unavailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Linda gives art lessons to David, and the boys stay with her when needed. One day, she took them for a walk in a wooded park and realized they had never been out in a forest before. They were thrilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Linda has outlived her entire family. From being total strangers, she has now become so close to Sofia and her children that Linda is gaining a new family.\u00a0 You might even say that Jesus brought them together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Rev. Sue Ostrom<\/strong> is an Elder in the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference. She serves as pastor at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.millplainumc.org\/\">Mill Plain United Methodist Church<\/a> in Vancouver, Washington.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a chance encounter in a Vancouver mobile home park, Linda stepped in to help a mother whose husband had been arrested by ICE. What followed was a growing circle of neighbors offering rides, care, and friendship, forming a village of trust, healing, and unexpected family amid fear, uncertainty, and hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,74,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-church-2","8":"category-opinioneditorial","9":"category-pacific-northwest-conference"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Offering love in the face of fear - Greater Northwest Area | News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/greaternw.org\/news\/offering-love-in-the-face-of-fear\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Offering love in the face of fear - Greater Northwest Area | News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After a chance encounter in a Vancouver mobile home park, Linda stepped in to help a mother whose husband had been arrested by ICE. 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