Mercedes Wilson spoke with Bishop Michael Badger from the Bethesda World Harvest International Church. He was one of our local leaders who was part of that moment with the President and First Lady and the families.
He says, “Our community is hurting but our community is strong and our community will come out this, I believe, better.”
When asked, what is he hearing and seeing because he is out there in the community, he is one of the staples, one of the pillars in our community, Bishop Badger says, I am is hearing a lot of sadness, I am hearing a lot of anger, I am hearing a lot of frustration because I think the community and I’m sure our nation, feels like, we’ve seen this movie too many times and I think our community feels that.” He goes on to say it was interesting when I had the opportunity to talk with the President, because the small group that met with him. When he got to me, first of all, I thanked him for coming, but he shared with me, he said you know I went to the Catholic Church in the morning for an hour but then he said I went to the black church and said I was raised in the black church, which I never heard before. Bishop Badger says, “You could feel, in the conversation, his warmness, you could feel that he was sincere about the pain that he felt for our community. I think for him, and he was on his way overseas, to stop in Buffalo to say this is important, as a President of the United States, to go and let the people of Buffalo know that as the United States President, I care, it was important.”
Bishop Badger talks about the hope that was in the room and says, “Just the fact the President came does make us hopeful, you know he is the most powerful person in the world, and to come to Buffalo does give hope, but I think in that hope there is also a sense of caution because we know that you still have a congress, you still have a senate and he can only do so much from the executive office. He goes on to say we need those congressmen and senators to make a different decision than what we have been having with this deadlock we have when it comes to reasonable gun control.”
Mercedes Wilson shares that the Bishop has an event yesterday. He says, “We went out right across the street and gave out under garments, food, we prayed for people, and we hugged people. Bishop Badger says Jay Hunter, who is from Buffalo, who is an actor, came in town just to be a part of it and he gave out clothing. He goes on to say one of the things that rally struck me was there was a lady that was looking over at the TOPS supermarket and just crying and someone motioned me to go over and I went over and I just hugged her and prayed for her and to see just God’s peace come over her was important.”
