Amneh Jafari , a native of Fort Worth, Texas, never expected to help spark an international movement. But when the senior psychology major at the University of Texas at Arlington saw a news photo of Ahmed Mohamed in handcuffs for bringing a homemade clock to MacArthur High School, Irving, Texas, it felt personal. “It really saddened me,” Jafari said. “I have younger siblings, and I felt like I was looking at them.” The 23-year-old tweeted a hashtag #IStandWithAhmed that went viral. “I felt like I needed to, I had to,” Jafari said. Two days later, her hashtag had been tweeted more than 1 million times. President Barack Obama invited Mohamed to the White House, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg invited him to his headquarters. It shows the power of social media to give a voice to the voiceless, Jafari said. “To see that there’s so many good people in the world. … It means so much to see so many people stand for what’s right.”
Holding on to curiosity and joy
Elected April 25 as bishop of the Northeastern Minnesota Synod, Taryn Montgomery sees the vital importance of churches’ ties to their local communities. Montgomery, who served as synod minister for…