The power of prayer with migrants in Reynosa

By Cameron Vickrey

Inside a tent where a young Haitian couple lived for a few months until a better space became available in the camp area.

Our new friend Alma Ruth says, “You can’t unsee what you have seen at the border. What you see makes you a witness to the humanitarian crisis. And then you have the moral authority to advocate.”

Let me tell you what we saw last weekend on a border trip touching base with our ministry partners.

Alma Ruth talking to Cameron Vickrey and Anyra Cano about the quality of life for migrants in the tent camp along this portion of the Rio Grande.

Passing recently arrived migrants with their luggage in the streets of Reynosa.

Sunday evening we visited with a potential new partner in Reynosa, across the U.S.-Mexico border from McAllen. Alma Ruth is a ministry practitioner, a missionary to the migrants in Reynosa. She runs an organization called Practice Mercy, and she does indeed practice mercy to the least of these.

We have not before walked among the refugee camps with a woman, much less a woman of color who herself is an immigrant. Her ministry was powerful: she relies on the Holy Spirit with a beautiful kind of ancient intuition. She visits with them; she knows their stories; she identifies who among them is the most vulnerable. She advocates for them to find better shelter, and she advises them on their asylum seeking process.

I learned something about the power of prayer by witnessing Alma’s ministry. She would approach small groups of migrants along the streets. After asking them a few questions and checking on their safety, she would ask if we could pray with them.

As a white mainline Christian, it is not my natural inclination to pray with perfect strangers. But I can attest to the power of prayer in this circumstance. In fact, I would say this is exactly the setting that prayer is most powerful.

These migrants have been treated so poorly. They have been victimized and dehumanized by violence, poverty, and political systems that devalue them. Offering prayer over them, inviting them to join us in prayer, is the opposite of what they have experienced on their journey and probably long before.

Prayer recognizes that they are children of God, made in the image of God. In them, with them, we meet the presence of God.

Most of the migrants we encountered were already Christians, or at the very least, open to receiving a Christian blessing. The Spirit of God was so palpable in those moments of prayer, even when they were spoken in Spanish and I could only catch every third word.

Stephen Reeves praying over a man who helps to run Senda de Vida.

The following day we returned to Reynosa, but this time with our partner pastor who mostly serves in Matamoros, the city just east of Reynosa and across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Eleuterio Gonzalez works closely with the Tamaulipas state government and with their cooperation, he helped relocate thousands of migrants from the streets of Matamoros and the riverbeds of the Rio Grande to temporary housing and shelters. He has visions for resettlement of the migrants and refugees in Reynosa, too. He took us to the site of a future shelter that will also serve as a community center for 2,000 migrants at a time. He showed us the way they will operate food distribution.

Pastor Eleuterio Gonzalez in Reynosa, communicating to the migrants that there isn’t any more food.

Leaving the crowds of migrants in Reynosa who had gathered here for food distribution, only to be disappointed.

In fact, they have already begun with small amounts of food distribution. We witnessed the dire amount of need when word got around the migrant camps that food was being given. So many of the people we encountered the night before in the tent camps showed up at this small storefront. At first, it was just a trickle. Maybe 50 people were lined up at the door. After an hour, the streets were full of crowds, likely over a thousand people. Chaos was bubbling as realization dawned that they weren’t going to receive the food they heard about.

Images of Jesus feeding the 5,000 swarmed in my vision, and I wished and prayed for a miracle.

It was gut wrenching to leave people feeling hungry and disappointed. But I know that very soon this miracle can occur if we all band together and give what little we have, even if it only amounts to a few loaves and fish.

If you feel moved by the situation of these migrants in their huddled masses by a riverside surrounded with mud and garbage, you are in good company with us. Join Fellowship Southwest in supporting compassionate ministries on the ground and advocating for relief and justice. Together, we could transform the desperate situation in Reynosa.

Cameron Vickrey is the director of communications and development for Fellowship Southwest.

A dog rummaging through the garbage disposed of by the bank of the Rio Grande along a makeshift migrant tent camp.