“No choice” echoes refugees’ desperation, pastors’ compulsion
By Marv Knox
A paradox of the refugee crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border sat smiling on the floor of a Chihuahuan desert shelter. She cooed and waved and charmed three Fellowship Southwest visitors.
Stephen Reeves, Fellowship Southwest’s new executive director and my successor; Elket Rodríguez, our refugee and immigrant specialist; and I recently toured FSW’s immigrant relief ministry along the complete expanse of the border. We traveled 1,563 miles—from Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, to Tijuana, just south of San Diego. We spent nine days visiting eight ministries. And we met hundreds of refugees seeking asylum in the United States.
They included this little girl, conceived in violence and born into trauma. A Central American gang member raped her mother. Then he demanded an abortion. Then her mama ran. She ran north, toward a border she hoped would offer safety. She never dreamed of leaving her homeland until she had no choice.
“No choice” echoes up and down the border. Over and over, refugees told Stephen, Elket and me they only want to come to America because they have no other choice. Over and over again, pastors who serve and protect them said they sacrifice for this ministry because they have no choice.
We met refugees who fled after gang members murdered their family. We talked to immigrants who left home because they couldn’t pay the gangs’ extortion fees and ran for their lives. We heard how climate change has delivered horrific hurricanes and devastating drought, forcing farm families off land that supported generations of their ancestors.
And as if the trauma that prompted their flight weren’t bad enough, they reported unfathomable challenges along the way: “Coyotes”—human smugglers—who extracted thousands of dollars in fees and then dumped them in the desert. Mexican drug cartels, which kidnap as a business practice and rape for pleasure. Police who look the other way. Blisters from excruciatingly long walks; thorns from desert flora. And despair. Because despair is only natural amidst so much unfairness of things.
But our tour revealed beauty and hope and joy. Because those are the natural responses to the love of Christ flowing through the border pastors in our network and the ministries they offer refugees.
Those ministries are as varied as the terrain and weather and cuisine and culture that encompass a border wider than half the North American continent. They’re also as varied as the personalities and perspectives and passions of the pastors who propel them. In the coming weeks, we’ll tell you more about …
Eddie and Elizabeth Bernal, who started a ministry to immigrants in the Harlingen, Texas, airport.
Carlos Navarro, whose church, Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville, provides respite care for asylum seekers admitted into the United States.
Eleuterio González, who journeys to colonias spread across the edges of Matamoros to feed and to ferry migrants who depend upon him and his congregation, Iglesia Valle de Beraca.
Lorenzo Ortiz, who maintains relationships with the cartels and the police in Nuevo Laredo, all in order to keep refugees safe and secure.
Israel Rodríguez, who has led his church, Primera Iglesia Bautista in Piedras Negras, to shelter refugees from many lands—and to lead many of them to faith in Jesus.
Rosalío Sosa, who directs Red de Albergues para Migrante, which operates 21 shelters in the state of Chihuahua, across from El Paso and the eastern half of New Mexico.
Juvenal González, who daily feeds 3,000 refugees in el Chapparal, the massive tent camp in downtown Tijuana, and who also makes sure local pastors and their families have enough to eat.
If you read our newsletter and follow along on our website, you may be saying: “Oh, I know those pastors. I’ve heard their stories.” That’s true, but we recorded our interviews, and we plan to tell their stories in their own words.
We’re also working with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to produce two episodes of “CBF Gathering,” which will stream in August. The first episode will feature the refugees and explain why they decide to seek asylum in the United States and all they encounter along the way. The second will feature the pastors in our network and tell why and how they do what they do.
We want you to know the complex set of issues that impact immigration, appreciate immigrants as beloved individuals created in God’s image, and feel like you know the pastors who sacrifice every day to minister on the border. We hope you’ll love them as we do.
Many of you prayed for us as we toured the border. We’re grateful. And we hope you’ll keep on praying for desperate people thinking about fleeing their homelands, refugees seeking secure lives, pastors serving them and Fellowship Southwest supporting them.
Marv Knox is the founder of Fellowship Southwest. He will continue working alongside new Executive Director Stephen Reeves until his retirement late this year.
If you would like to support Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief ministry, click here.
