Deaconess Community,

This past month has been marked by deep loss and moral reckoning. We grieve the deaths of Keith Porter Jr., a father of two; Renée Good, a mother and poet; and Alex Pretti, a nurse who devoted his life to caring for veterans and community alike. We grieve the deaths of those whose names we do not know who have died during the apprehend and detain operations happening all across the country. We hold their families and communities in prayer – not the hollow “thoughts and prayers” offered in place of responsibility, but the earnest petition to God for comfort, covering, and justice.

Alongside grief, we are witnessing something deeply instructive. Democracy under pressure reveals both its fragility and its strength. Across Minnesota and the nation, people are refusing to be silent. Vigils, protests, public statements, and sustained civic engagement signal a public reckoning with harm and the responsibilities that come with shared life. In Minnesota, businesses and community organizations paused operations in solidarity, not as retreat but as witness, underscoring that moments like this demand attention and discernment rather than distraction. These actions align with urgent calls for change, YET AGAIN, including the removal of ICE from Minnesota, accountability for the agents involved, the elimination of additional federal ICE funding in the upcoming congressional budget, and a call for companies to honor Fourth Amendment protections by ending economic relationships with ICE and refusing the use of their property for enforcement operations.

This moment has clarified something I hold deeply at the intersection of Deaconess values. Faith that does not contend for justice cannot heal, and healing that avoids liberation is not whole. This truth was voiced by Alex Pretti himself at a memorial service for one of his patients, U.S. veteran Terrance Lee Randolph, when he reminded us, “Today we remember that freedom is not free. We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it.”

At Deaconess Foundation, we describe our posture in this season as one of holy anticipation. By that, we are grounded in a hope-filled strategy that takes time to metabolize grief, process rage, and prepare for the long game. Holy anticipation is the discipline of vigilance without anxiety, faithfulness without broadcasting each move, and intention about when to listen, when to speak, when to act and when to do all three in concert.

At a vigil honoring Renée Good, Bishop Robert Hirschfeld spoke of drafting a will, not out of fear but faith, naming the sober truth that standing for justice may carry real cost. It echoes the freedom riders of the 1960s who, as students, prepared their own last letters and testaments before facing the violence of segregation, trusting that faith, justice, healing, and liberation were worth their very lives.

This moment calls us into account. Some knees shake, some eyes avert contact, some have made a total about face. But Bishop Hirschfeld’s admonishment presses hardest on those who have benefited most from the rules and tools of systems backed by oppression, reminding us that the work of dismantling an unjust system must be led by those with access, leverage, and protection within it, because as Frederick Douglass reminds us, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” We are witnessing this same truth playing out today. Be on the right side of history, Beloved. Choose while there is still a choice to make.

In service to the envisioned future of our ancestors,
Bethany Johnson-Javois
President & CEO

Read the full January newsletter here.