Once separated by immigration mistake, Delco family is celebrated with flowers and prayer at Easter church service
Karen and LaMar Roberts, only days after returning from Mexico after Karen was finally able to get a visa to live in the U.S. legally, were feted at church on Easter Sunday.
As LaMar and Karen Roberts and their five children entered the Bread of Life Assembly of God Church in Upper Darby Sunday, one of LaMar’s closest friends opened the red doors of the church to them.
“It’s a miracle,” sighed Joseph Sarjoo, an outreach minister at the church who has known LaMar from their days studying at trade school together.
“It’s an Easter Sunday miracle.”
Later, the church’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Keinath, took time to observe the miracle that Sarjoo was talking about: how LaMar and Karen Roberts came home together last Wednesday after Karen had been separated from her family for nearly two years because of her immigration status.
» READ MORE: Yeadon mom of five is stuck in Mexico in immigration limbo
“On Easter, the day when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, we are also celebrating the resurrection of a family,” Keinath said.
Karen Roberts’ immigration trouble started when she traveled to Mexico on July 26, 2021, on the advice of her former lawyer who said she could only start her green card process by going there and coming back into the country legally.
Unfortunately, that lawyer had not yet applied for, nor received, a special waiver for people who are close relatives of U.S. citizens.
As a result, U.S. consulate officials there told her that even though she had been living in the United States since age 4, when her parents brought her into the country without legal documentation, she was barred from returning to the country and her family for 10 years.
It was Sarjoo whom LaMar reached out to soon after having to tell his children, then ages 5 to 15, that their mother wasn’t coming home soon.
In the church entrance hall, Sarjoo showed The Inquirer the first text LaMar sent him about Karen’s case, dated Aug. 1, 2021: “Can you please keep my family in prayer today really need it thank you.”
From that first text, Sarjoo began texting to tell LaMar to bring his family to the church to pray for them. “I was standing alongside LaMar back on New Year’s Eve and he was FaceTiming her while we were in church praying for them.”
After announcements, Keinath asked the family to stand in the front of the church. Karen was then presented with flowers and the church offered prayers for the family.
The church congregation is multicultural with members who are from Black American, white, Latino, Asian, Indian, Caribbean, and African heritages. Flags from countries all over the world hang from the rafters inside the sanctuary of the church on State Road .
After the service, Karen said she was amazed to hear another supporter of the family, church deacon Anthony Twyman, read the words she had said about her faith. In February, Karen told The Inquirer she believed that God would reunite her with her family.
She said she appreciated the church but did not like being the center of attention.
For his part, LaMar said his faith had been weakened over the last 21 months.
“My faith had gotten kind of thin,” he said. “Her faith kept me going.”