nothin Prayer Caravan Preaches Peace | New Haven Independent

Prayer Caravan Preaches Peace

Ko Lyn Cheang photo

Prayer caravan participants preaching peace.

Local Hispanic pastors and their congregants blanketed city streets with prayers of non-violence, unity and hope in a car caravan that traveled from Fair Haven to the Hill to City Hall.

About 75 cars and one flatbed trailer truck outfitted with a sound system and live band made that drive through the city Friday night. The participants carried signs reading, Stop the violence,” The church has a voice” and Jesus is the answer.”

Rev. Hector Otero (pictured above) of Una Iglesia para la Ciudad helmed the event and stood on the back of the truck, speaking without pause in Spanish into a microphone as another pastor translated.

Some 300 people attended, including Police Chief Otoniel Reyes, and six other prominent New Haven County Hispanic pastors.

The event was the brainchild of Otero, who decided two weeks ago that the church needed to respond to this summer’s surge in violent crime.

He envisioned a day of prayer”, a special day of intercession” where pastors would pray for everyone in the city. Otero, who arrived in New Haven from Puerto Rico in 2010, has been the pastor at one of the largest Hispanic congregations in New Haven for 10 years.

We saw what was going on in our city in the last few weeks and we thought that the church needed to raise up to prayer and intercede on behalf of our city,” Otero told the Independent at the event.

New Haven experienced the worst stretch of street violence since 2011 this summer, with eight people shot around town, one fatally, during a brutal four-day stretch.

Some victims have been children and teenagers, including an 8‑year-old boy who was shot last week by an apparent accidental discharge and 19-year-old Kiana Brown, who was killed in her sleep on Valley Street.

Otero told other local Hispanic pastors about the idea during their weekly Thursday night prayer group, which has been meeting on Zoom since the pandemic began to pray for those affected.

The team reached out to Chief Reyes (pictured below), who was immediately supportive of the idea. They borrowed a trailer truck from a member of Otero’s church and spent about $500 preparing signs and outfitting the truck with a stage and safety rails as the event came to fruition.

Bless the city transit and those who work at Metro North,” Otero said, as the party passed bewildered and waving commuters alike who stood outside Union Station.

We pray for the doctors. We pray for the nurses. We pray for the maintenance staff. We pray for the repair staff,” he said, as they passed Yale New Haven Hospital.

Maybe you’re asking, can something good come out of the Hill? Something good can come out of the Hill. At the process of God, everything can change,” Otero said to families who had stepped out of their front doors in the Hill neighborhood to wave at the passing mobile church.

They also prayed for the police officers as they passed the department’s headquarters at 1 Union Ave., and the firefighters at the Fire Department headquarters on Grand Avenue. 

The rise in crime rates in the city needs a response from the Church,” Rev. Abraham Hernandez (pictured) told the Independent as worship music and the voice of Otero preaching blared in the background.

Hernandez is the executive director of Connecticut’s National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. We recognize our best weapon is to pray and intercede for the brokenness and the homes that have been affected by the pandemic.”

This is just about unity and hope. It’s important that we bring the community together and the faith community has been the glue of our city for forever,” Reyes told the Independent at the event. It’s not hard to get behind that.” Reyes grew up in the Hill neighborhood along with two of the pastors present, Hernandez and Rev. Isaias Miranda.

As the caravan passed down Church Street, the pastor drew special attention to the name of the road.

The sun sank deeper into the sky. By the time the group arrived at City Hall, shadows had grown long, but there were still about 150 people present. Traffic was halted on Church Street with the help of the police vehicles present.

We came to this strategic place where fundamental decisions of the city are made. We pray, lord,” said Otero. He talked about the recent opioid overdoses in the city and called for murder rates, domestic violence rates, and unemployment rates to decrease.

The night ended with what Otero called a symbolic act”. Go on your knees and humble yourself before praise of God,” he announced from the raised truck bed to the crowd gathered on the street and sidewalk.

The 150-odd people present turned to face the three churches on the Green. Some touched their foreheads to the pavement, others clasped hands with their family members. Many closed their eyes in prayer.

New Haven is my home, Otero said, after the crowd dispersed from City Hall around 8:30 p.m. We feel responsible for this city.”

Watch the event here:

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