Kansas Churchgoers Hold Candlelit Vigil For Targeted Refugee Families

This Kansas community won’t be intimidated by domestic terrorists or fear – in fact, they have stood in the face of division with a firm message of unification

Churchgoers of Garden City, Kansas held a candlelit vigil and walk of solidarity after police found a bomb planted in a local apartment complex.

The complex is home to several refugee families from Somalia, Burma, Ethiopia, and Sudan – the town itself is home to over 1,000 Muslim immigrants, most of whom work in the nearby meat packing factory.

MORE: Christians Protect Mosques on Fri., Muslims Guard Churches on Sunday

Despite the bomb scare, the migrant families say that they’ve always felt welcomed by the community and city officials. Hundreds of predominantly Christian city residents marched through the streets in protest of the Islamophobic act, and the three men responsible for the explosive were arrested on October 14th.

“The actions of few racist individuals should not be taken to represent the whole community, just as the Muslim community should not negatively labelled or held responsible for the actions of the very few terrorists who happened to be Muslims,” Reverend Denise Pass, a Presbyterian Church pastor who organized the event, told Al Jazeera.

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