The location changed, but the wonder and heartbreak remained the same this week, when Fellowship Southwest’s Immigrant Relief Ministry sponsored a tour of shelters for asylum seekers in and around Juarez, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from El Paso.

We laughed with Cuban children playing musical chairs in a shelter compound rented by Fellowship Southwest.

We appreciated the stunning wooden decorative pieces carved by artisans who live there. 

We increased our love and admiration for Rosalio Sosa, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Tierra De Oro in El Paso. He’s a leader of a partnership we support, which operates 17 immigrant shelters in Juarez. He showed us the city of 1.5 million people, as well as the state of Chihuahua, through his eyes. We never will be the same.

We fist-bumped kids who live in a mammoth government-run shelter that can sleep 2,000. We saw it, but we still can’t imagine it.

We celebrated with Central American refugees who live on a mountainside shelter where, just that day, heaters had been installed. Later, we lamented when we learned their power went out, and they spent another frigid night shivering under blankets that proved no match for winter on the border.

We heard of yet another Honduran mother who fled after being forced to eat “stew” composed of her oldest son’s flesh, to prevent gangs from slaying her younger son and daughter.

 We caught our breath when we met an elderly couple—both well into their 80s and far older than most refugees. The wife/mother/grandmother (pictured left) had lived in the United States since she was 5 years old and never knew she was not a legal U.S. resident. But when they visited Juarez for a celebration, they learned they cannot return to the only home they can remember.

Grissel Ramirez Hernandez lifted our spirits. She runs the shelter where the power went out, where residents clean clothes with a concrete washboard. But caring for immigrants is not merely a job for Grissel. She lives there with her husband, Roberto, and infuses love and hope and grace and compassion into families who have fled persecution. It’s the poorest shelter in the poorest part of Juarez—which is a lot to say. But despite deprivation, Grissel makes it a place of joy.

We shared the anguish of refugee after refugee in shelter after shelter. They told why they have migrated—to escape violence, extortion, climate depravation, poverty, political and religious ostracism and other indignities. They left home and family behind, abandoned almost all their possessions, and seek a better life for their families. Now, they await their chance to gain asylum in the United States. Most will wait on the border up to a year. Probably only 2 percent of them will receive the news they pray to hear.

We marveled when we met Lucero de Alva, an educator and peace advocate. When the first wave of refugees arrived last February, she dropped her other projects and began helping shelter tired, frightened, often-confused immigrants far, far from home. She hasn’t taken a day off since. Passion for education radiated from Lucero, particularly when she described how she’s enabling immigrant children to stay in school and how she’s helping their moms learn skills, like sewing, to support their families.

We grew to love Enrique Valenzuela, head of the State Population Council for Chihuahua. Among his other assignments, Enrique holds up the state’s end of providing compassionate care for an estimated 20,000 migrants in Chihuahua. He warmed our hearts as he spoke about the value of the people who have traveled to his state—how he respects their giftedness and hopes many of them actually decide to stay there, because they will make the region a better place to live. He’s the polar opposite of so many politicians who ridicule refugees in return for votes.

We traveled with Enrique, Grissel and Rosalio almost 100 miles in the desert to Palomas, a tiny town in a place that defines “the middle of nowhere.” But it’s located at a border crossing, where the locals have been unable to sustain a shelter. We talked with them about creating a partnership, so they can provide a building and we can supply food, materials and someone to make it a shelter of hope for weary, wary refugees.

 

Our Fellowship Southwest/Cooperative Baptist Fellowship team included:

• Glen Foster, coordinator of CBF West from Tucson, Ariz. Glen is considering how to expand refugee ministry in the vast expanse between Juarez/El Paso and Tijuana/San Diego.

• Jeni and Ray Cook Furr, volunteer coordinators for FSW’s Immigrant Relief Ministry from New Braunfels, Texas. Volunteers themselves, Jeni and Ray have been studying how to create appropriate matches between compassionate Christians who want to help others and refugee shelters all along the border.

• Butch and Nell Green, CBF field personnel based in Houston. Nell and Butch specialize in ministry to internationals and bring decades of experience. Right now, they’re working on helping the Cuban woodcarvers in Juarez develop their product line so they can market what they make and support their families.

• Marv Knox, coordinator of FSW from Coppell, Texas. Marv works with Jorge Zapata and all the pastors who provide our immigrant relief ministry. He spends much of his time thinking and praying about raising funds to support the shelters and figuring out how to alleviate the strain this never-ending ministry places on the pastors.

• Cameron Vickrey, communication and marketing director for FSW from San Antonio. Cameron takes the lead in making certain we tell the stories of immigrants and the people who love them in the name of Jesus—from editing our newsletter, to sharing the stories through social media.

• Jorge Zapata, associate coordinator of CBF Texas and director of FSW’s Immigrant Relief Ministry from McAllen, Texas. Jorge is the connective tissue in this ministry, the reason why it’s possible. He’s lived almost his whole life on the border, and he has a heart as big as the region itself. He’s a natural at making friends and building networks, and our ministry simply helps Jorge’s pastor friends who serve refugees on their doorsteps.

If you would like to support Fellowship Southwest’s Immigrant Relief Ministry, click here.