For nearly 2 1/2 years, Amity Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, has considered itself one congregation that mostly operates as two separate worship services: One, conducted in English, draws largely White worshippers, while the other, attended mostly by refugees from Africa, is conducted in Swahili.
But when the churchgoers found out that US Department of Homeland Security agents, launching a citywide immigration enforcement action known as “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” had visited the grounds of a Spanish-speaking church just two blocks away, Amity Presbyterian made a quick decision: On November 16, it would worship as one community.
“We decided, ‘We need to be together,’” Megan Argabrite, lead pastor at the church, said.
