Abide in Love volunteers serve their temporary neighbors in ICE detention at Ste. Genevieve jail
As a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Sara Drost was already familiar with serving neighbors in need.
So when scores of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement started filtering through her local jail, she wanted to figure out how to love these new temporary neighbors, too.
Drost and fellow Ste. Genevieve resident Susie Johnson launched Abide in Love Ste. Genevieve in July 2025, an affiliate of the original Abide in Love group in Rolla. The nonpartisan nonprofit is guided by the principles of Dr. Martin Luther King’s philosophy of nonviolence.
The Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center contracts with the federal government to house people detained by ICE as they await immigration proceedings, and often, deportation. Abide in Love’s main focus is on communication, helping detainees connect with their families, get in touch with legal resources and assess other needs.
“If they’re there as a federal detainee, non-ICE, they will have a public defender. They get the due process. But ICE detainees do not — they don’t get their one phone call. Their families often don’t know where they are, so that’s why we step in and help connect them with family or legal advice,” Drost said.
Volunteer “pen pals” from Abide in Love reach out to detainees to offer help and see what they need most, which typically includes supplying a calling card through the jail’s third-party City Tele Coin system. The group also works closely with the archdiocesan Immigration Task Force and St. Louis Rapid Response Coalition to connect people with legal help or find resources for their families.
Drost spends about three hours a day doing Abide in Love work, she estimates. When they launched Abide in Love in July, they were in touch with about 70 people in detention at a time; now, the number typically falls between 140 and 150, Drost said, with people transferred in and out every day. The Ste. Genevieve jail is often a stop on the way to larger detention facilities in Louisiana or Texas before eventual deportation, they’ve found.
“It’s a way that I do feel like I have purpose, where I feel like I can step up and do something. I often feel helpless with everything that’s going on around us,” Drost said. “And for me, seeing all the different faiths come together and do this work for humanity with the same values, the values I grew up with — that’s so heartwarming. It’s so telling of the human spirit and how we can take care of each other.”
The group has also supplied the jail with Spanish-language Bibles, Spanish-English dictionaries and puzzle books. When locals are detained, they check in with their family to see how they can help.
“When we were kids, they would say, ‘what would Jesus do?’ I feel like He would be down there with (the detainees),” Drost said. “He’s not going to say, let somebody else do it. He’s not going to turn His back. He’s going to get in there with them.”
Jean Johnson, a parishioner at St. Agnes in Bloomsdale, has been volunteering with the group since January. She was moved by the way the group responds to needs as best they can, recounting a time when a man was detained at a traffic stop and his car towed away. His family was without transportation, so Abide in Love helped pay to get the vehicle back to them.
“It’s all about treating all humans as humans, and not as somebody just to be tossed aside,” Johnson said. “It’s up to us little guys to do what we can.”
Another important component of the group is helping to connect detainees with spiritual care. Pen pals prepare of a list of those who would like a visit from a Catholic priest, and a handful of archdiocesan and order priests take turns visiting the jail on Monday afternoons.
Father David Kiblinger, SJ, a Jesuit of the U.S. Central and Southern Province currently studying at Saint Louis University, started making regular trips to the jail in November. The visits are non-contact visits, meaning he can only speak to detainees, not distribute Communion.
Some of the people he visits have found joy in getting closer to God through their experience, even though it’s very difficult. Others are just trying to get through the day.
“I visited with a guy one time whose second child was born that very morning. So he was going through that experience of, I wasn’t at the birth of my child. What does that mean for me? What does that mean for my family? How can I care for them? And just mourning not being able to do that,” Father Kiblinger said.
One of the most important ministries he can offer them is just a listening ear, he said.
“I’ll say, I’m here if you want to pray, if you want to talk, whatever you want to do, and kind of let a conversation go from there,” he said. “But I always end with praying a couple of psalms and then praying a prayer of protection and blessing. My two go-tos right now are Psalm 23 and Psalm 91.”
The people he visits are always very grateful, he said, and he’s been reflecting on that.
“Imagine you’re a Catholic, and you’re going through the worst experience of your life. The Church has to be there,” he said. “The Church has to be there to support our people.”
Father Kiblinger has long been inspired by Pope Francis’ first major document, “Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel.” Pope Francis writes about the Church’s preferential option for the poor, writing that “the worst discrimination which the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care” (Evangelii Gaudium 200).
“The option for the poor has to begin with the privileged spiritual care of those in need. And then he goes on to say, no matter what you’re working in, anyone can find some time weekly, monthly, to be in contact with those who are poor and those who are in need,” Father Kiblinger said. “So I think the Church is doing that, but can also grow. We need more participation in doing that.”
Learn more about Abide in Love Ste. Genevieve and how to help: abideinlovesg.org.
Learn more about the new St. Louis chapter of Abide in Love: abideinlovestl.org.
