The border changes, but pastors’ love remains constant

By Elket Rodríguez

Despite ever-changing conditions, disappointments and even setbacks, pastors Carlos Navarro and Israel Rodríguez offer unchanging Christian love to refugees along their sections of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Navarro leads Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville near the southern tip of Texas, just across the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Mexico. Rodríguez pastors Primera Iglesia Bautista in Piedras Negras, across the river 320 miles northwest, on the Mexican side of the border.

Almost every day for two straight years, Navarro and members of his congregation have served migrants—in their church building, along the streets of downtown Brownsville and, more recently, in the local bus station. 

The church created an immigration respite shelter, where migrants released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection received hot meals, showers, fresh clothes, traveling provisions and Christian love. 

Thanks to contributions from supporters, Fellowship Southwest constructed a new respite shelter on the church’s campus last year. It offers sparkling showers, women’s and men’s napping rooms, and a new dining area. But before the new facility could open, the ministry shut down. The U.S. government halted the asylum process. And then the city imposed COVID restrictions.

So, Navarro and IBWB took their ministry to the streets. Every day at around noon, they served lunch to the city’s burgeoning homeless population, many of them immigrants. And even though Customs and Border Protection is allowing asylum seekers into the country, COVID is dealing a wallop.

"The respite center is closed again per the city of Brownsville’s orders," Navarro explained. "That is why I am now serving migrants at the bus station and the streets."

Every day, immigration officials release dozens of migrants into Brownsville’s bus station, so they can travel to meet their sponsors. But a small remnant has been left wandering the streets of Brownsville because they have no sponsors, he said.

“There are about 12 migrants who are homeless, and I give them food, clothes and a backpack with goodies” he added 

Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville has served 8,227 migrants since April 2019, when he began the ministry. A total of 3,127 of them have professions of faith in Christ. 

Navarro and the church do not hide the motive that drives them to tirelessly serve migrants. "I am not an activist nor Robin Hood; I am a pastor," Navarro stressed. "I preach the word to every migrant, and I teach every migrant that the first thing that goes inside the backpack I give them is a Bible." 

Meanwhile, up in Piedras Negras, Rodríguez faced a similar challenge. 

For several years, the pastor and church operated two refugee shelters—one in the congregation’s original facility in the city and another campus in a nearby suburb. They housed Central Americans in the city and Caribbean and South American refugees in the other location.

Due to concerns for the spread of COVID-19, “the authorities here vacated the place where we housed the migrants," Rodríguez said. “That shelter was in the middle of the city; in the most commercial part of Piedras Negras.”

But, like Navarro, Rodríguez responded quickly. “We had to move (all) the migrants” to the suburban church campus, he explained. “I think it’s better for the migrants. There is not a lot of traffic there, and we have a more comfortable place there.”

Rodríguez and PIB regularly shelter up to 75 immigrants in the new shelter on the outskirts of Piedras Negras. He expects more to arrive in the coming weeks. 

“There’s been an increase of migrants, especially families and Venezuelans,” he said. “We need to pray for migrants ,because they are very confused, and they need a lot of help.”

Fellowship Southwest provides ongoing financial support to Navarro, Rodríguez and other pastors who serve migrants all along the U.S.-Mexico border. You can help these pastors and their ministries by donating to the Fellowship Southwest Immigrant Relief Ministry by clicking here.

Elket Rodríguez, an attorney and minister, lives on the U.S.-Mexico border, in Harlingen, Texas. He is CBF’s immigrant and refugee specialist and works with Fellowship Southwest, CBF Advocacy and CBF Global Missions. He and Israel Rodríguez are not related.