WIN Annual Reports April 2019 Midyear Report | Page 15

2 0 1 9 M I D YE AR RE P O RT
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top leader profile:
MARIA SWEARINGEN
Rev. Maria Swearingen became involved in WIN when she
began her current role as pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in
downtown DC. Calvary was already a WIN member
institution when she arrived, so she came in wanting to
understand how Calvary understood its part in WIN’s work in
the city. She found that “being a part of WIN is in the
fabricate of how Calvary’s congregation understands itself
and how it participates in justice and equity in DC.”
Rev. Maria Swearingen
Calvary Baptist Church
Pastor Maria Swearingen
and her congregation at
Calvary Baptist Church
organized with WIN to help
secure $2.5 million for
immigrants' legal services
funding.
Maria came to DC by way of Texas. She is the child of a
Puerto Rican mother, and she grew up in a house that was
bilingual and biethnic in a small town in Texas that was
neither of those things. “I have always been conscious of that
line between citizen and immigrant, English and Spanish
speaking," Maria said. "Those were all blurred for me. They
were in my household all at once, and my whole life was
making sense of these varying identities.”
At Calvary, one-third of the congregation is Latino-American,
and many are immigrants from El Salvador. “Each carry a
particular story about how they got to DC, how they stay
here, and whether they will be able to stay,” she said. The
more she understands the immigration system, the more she
sees how it's tied to their stories. In her role as pastor, Maria
spends a lot of time driving members of her congregation to
immigration or residency appointments, figuring out where
in the asylum process they are, or keeping up with the rapidly
shifting political context. “If I’m struggling to figure this out,”
she says, “with my English fluency, my access to resources,
my residency.” She pauses, shakes her head, and says of her
congregants, “they’re my teachers every day.”
Calvary Baptist was deeply involved in the successful push for
$2.5 million from the city for immigrants’ legal services
funding. “What I’ve learned from WIN,” Maria said,
reflecting on this campaign, “is that we really can build better
things when we’re working together at it.” I asked her what it
felt like, as a pastor, to see so many members of her
congregation turn out to the budget forums with WIN. “I’m
reminded that solidarity is such a rich spiritual discipline,”
she said, “showing up whether the thing is impacting you or
not. Because within your sacred community, it is affecting the
people who you hold beloved, and it has become yours.”