Bekah McNeel

1 week ago | sojo.net | Bekah McNeel

From the first day of his administration, President Donald Trump has sought to end birthright citizenship, meaning that being born on U.S. soil would no longer be sufficient for establishing permanent legal status in the country. So far, three different judges have blocked the executive order Trump issued on Jan. 20, which the administration has appealed to the Supreme Court.

2 weeks ago | sojo.net | Bekah McNeel

Steve Hoyt didn’t go to the Amecet children’s home in Soroti, Uganda, looking for a child to adopt. The missionary, engineer, and father of two went to the home for orphaned and abandoned children run by the Christian organization Youth With A Mission, to check on a child as a favor for an employee. While he was there, he noticed a baby — he guessed she was about 18 months old — languishing despite the care of the nurses. She wasn’t as young as she looked, they told him.

1 month ago | sojo.net | Bekah McNeel

As a homebirth midwife struggling with infertility, Abby Hall Luca intimately knows the gaps in fertility and maternity care. For 12 years she guided couples through the journey of growing their families while not being able to grow her own. “It meant things like canceling a prenatal appointment [for her clients] because I was having a miscarriage,” Hall Luca said.

1 month ago | sojo.net | Bekah McNeel

On Feb. 13, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze the billions of dollars in life-sustaining foreign aid suspended by executive order in January. The order, which cited “enormous harm” to global networks of relief agencies and the populations they serve, was met with relief by Christian anti-poverty and anti-hunger ministries.

2 months ago | texasmonthly.com | Bekah McNeel

Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville felt empty but for the cheerful chatter of Spanish drifting through its darkened hallways on a Wednesday evening in early February. Under fluorescent lights in the back room of the church, eleven men and two women were eating pizza while shopping the church’s clothing-donations closet. A few were wearing hand-knit beanies sent by a knitting group in Waco. One had found a spiffy red fedora. All were wearing ankle monitors.