A bridge, a birthday and a baby named Eleuterio

By Elket Rodríguez

A calm head, a kind heart—and reasonable guards—combined to provide a birthday blessing for a Honduran family on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Last Sunday, Pastor Eleuterio González taught a biblical discipleship class at the Alberca Chávez shelter in Matamoros, Mexico. It seemed like a typical Sunday in the pastor's busy routine. Then everything changed in a heartbeat.

One of his immigrant students went into labor, and her water broke. González raised both of his eyebrows, expressing the seriousness of the situation and the urgency of the action he needed to take. 

“Everything I lived was (like) a movie for me. It was crazy,” González recalled. The pastor and his church, Iglesia Valle de Beraca, feed and protect more than 1,600 immigrants living in the shelter. They also minister in local camps, where thousands of refugees live in makeshift tents.

González, a father of four, realized he had to act quickly. He moved the pregnant woman, her husband and their 5-year-old child to his SUV and rushed to the nearest public hospital and asked for a bed. 

When he learned none was available, he drove the family 15 minutes to another public hospital, only to receive the same news.

"They told me, ‘We don't have rooms (available), and we can't receive you,’" González reported.

Living in Matamoros during a pandemic presents compounding challenges for an expectant refugee. Immigrants don't have resources to pay the expensive cost of health care provided by private hospitals. And thanks to COVID-19, some of the private hospitals are as full as the public hospitals.

"In Matamoros, the hospitals were collapsed," González said.

So, he decided to try and get the family across the Gateway International Bridge, into Brownsville, Texas, hoping the hospitals there were admitting pregnant women.

"It was a longshot," he conceded. "But in this type of case, I didn’t think they would deny them passage."

González drove all the way back to the U.S.-Mexico border, parked his car, and walked to the bridge with the family. Then he implored the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers to allow the family into the United States.

"They weren’t allowing anyone to cross the bridge, but I told the officers we had gone to various hospitals in Matamoros, and there were no beds available," he said. “They called the hospitals in Matamoros and found they were full. They investigated. Meanwhile, the woman was bleeding. "

After several minutes, the officers allowed the entire family to enter, and the baby entered the world in Brownsville. 

The parents named their little boy Eleuterio, in honor of the pastor who helped them survive the past six months.

Baby Eleuterio

Elket Rodríguez is an immigrant and refugee advocacy and missions specialist for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Fellowship Southwest

If you want to help Fellowship Southwest support the immigrant ministry of Eleuterio González as his fellow pastors on the U.S.-Mexico border, click here.