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Rescuing Regina: The Battle to Save a Friend from Deportation and Death
Josephe Marie Flynn
2011, 340 pages
Nonfiction
Sister Josephe Flynn met the Bakala family from Congo when they came to her parish to have their baby, Lydia, baptized. Lydia's mother, Regina, had been raised as a Catholic in Congo and was happy to find a parish near their home. During the five years since the baby's baptism, Sister Josephe developed a close friendship with the thriving family. She learned that both Regina and her husband, David, had been tortured and imprisoned by Mobutu Sese Seko's secret police for teaching villagers about democracy.
The horror of imprisonment and the prospect of being returned to Congo suddenly loom when I.C.E. agents take Regina away one night. In her efforts to obtain Regina's freedom to remain in the U.S., Sister Josephe learns about the laws for immigration and for asylum seekers and about the power of a community that rallies support for her.
