Minnesota Prairie Roots

MY SUNDAY BEGAN as most Sundays do with morning worship at my church. The sermon highlighted sections of Mark 12, which includes this verse: Love your neighbor as yourself. That would theme the rest of my day.

Hours later I found myself gathered with others for the annual Rice County Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign Kickoff. Again, the focus was on neighbors, specifically helping our neighbors in need.

Shortly after that event, Randy and I were on the road to neighboring Northfield for a 5 pm candlelight prayer vigil at Bridge Square. That, too, was about loving our neighbors. This time the gathering focused on supporting the family of Adan Nunez Gonzalez, a 41-year-old father of four snatched by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at gunpoint on November 11 in a residential neighborhood of Northfield. That incident has sparked outrage in this southern Minnesota college town and beyond.

Several family members and others witnessed Nunez Gonzalez being pulled from the passenger side of a vehicle while he was arriving at a job site along Washington Street. He’s a painter, originally from Mexico, with reportedly no criminal record who has been living in the US for 11 years. The entire incident was captured on video by his teenage son, called to the scene, and has been widely-circulated on social media. Nunez Gonzalez is now being held in the Kandiyohi County Jail. That county is among eight in Minnesota assisting with various aspects of ICE enforcement efforts. My county of Rice is not among them.

HEAVY, YET HOPEFUL, HEARTS

The mood at Sunday’s prayer vigil felt heavy, yet hopeful, as some 200 of us gathered in the town square for this event organized by the Northfield faith community. As the sun set, as the nearby Cannon River roared over the dam, candles were distributed, lit and the crowd pressed together around a monument honoring Civil War soldiers. In late September, football players from Carleton College, blocks away, met here to turn the eagle atop the monument toward their college after defeating across-town rival St. Olaf College. It’s an annual celebratory tradition for the winning team.

Bridge Square has long been a community gathering spot, a place to celebrate, to peacefully protest, to meet one another for local events.

On this mid-November evening, it felt right and necessary to be here. To pray. To sing. To hear scripture quoted. To contemplate the gravity of ICE actions that have traumatized, torn families apart, instilled fear in communities across the country, raised the ire and concerns of many Americans like me who care about our neighbors and how they are being unjustly treated. Taken by armed, masked ICE agents and Border Patrol. Confined. Deported. Without due process of law.

A COMMUNITY RESPONDS

I felt the unity of a community determined to raise their voices and to take action. Northfielders have fed the family of their detained neighbor, organized activities for his children, started a GoFundMe to cover legal and other expenses, emailed support, expressed outrage and much more.

Love your neighbor as yourself was emphasized by clergy leading the vigil. One after another they stepped up to the mic, the first pastor leading us in The Lord’s Prayer. One referenced the biblical parable of the mustard seed and how we are to plant seeds of hope, faith, advocacy that will grow sturdy and strong among us. Another spoke of Jesus and his family fleeing to Egypt after his birth following threats from King Herod to find and kill all first-born males. It was fitting.

A BIBLICAL DIRECTIVE

And then there was the well-known scripture from Matthew 25 in which Jesus asks us to care for one another—when hungry or thirsty, in need of clothing, when sick and in prison. It is as strong a directive as any in the bible to love our neighbors and to show that love in kind, caring and compassionate action.

The 25-minute Sunday evening prayer vigil closed with singing of “This Little Light of Mine.” Voices rose clear and strong in the darkness, arms stretched high, each hand grasping a single candle. A light. Many candles shining lights of support, hope, protest, resistance, outrage and more in a community that cares deeply about its neighbors.

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NOTE: Please check back for a second “Love your neighbor” post, this one on the Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign Kickoff. Also, note that the vigil images in this post were taken with my smartphone, thus the quality is not great compared with pix I would have taken with my 35 mm Canon. I left that at home, opting to be in the moment.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling