Activity time: 15 minutes

Materials for Activity

• Story, "Siding With Love"

Preparation for Activity

• Read the story and prepare to share it with the group.
• Review the discussion questions. Choose those that will best help the children share their interpretations of the story and relate it to their own lives.
• Optional: Do a quick online search for current information about Raύl and Judy Cardenas; a 2015 update is on the website of Side with Love.

Description of Activity

Read or tell the story to the group.

After the story, invite the group to be silent for a moment to think about the story.

Then, ask participants to recap the story in their own words. What they recall indicates what they found most meaningful or memorable.

Say something like:

What would it be like to find out that the government was planning someone in your life out of our country? In times of crisis we hope our friends will come to help us. Some problems are big enough that we need the friends of friends, and the friends of those friends, to come to our side and try to make things right.

Lead a discussion using these questions:

• Have you ever had someone in authority, like a teacher or principal, give you a punishment that you thought wasn't fair? What was it like? How did it feel? Was there anything you could do about it?
• Did you ever involve other people in something you thought was important? Whom did you ask? How did you ask them?
• Some of us may have immigrated to the United States from another country. Maybe our parents did, or another adult we know. It is very likely that we all know someone who has immigrated to the U.S. What do you know about the experiences experiences an immigrant has had?