Looking into the Eyes of Faith and Learning What God Can Do in the Darkest of Times
By Mark Grace
Linda and I traveled to West Brownsville as an advance team for our church, Iglesia Bill Harrod, located in West Dallas. Anyra Cano, director of Programs and Outreach for Fellowship Southwest (FSW), inspired our trip. We carried donations from what one might euphemistically characterize as an economically challenged church in an economically challenged West Dallas to Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville, a neighborhood and church with challenges on a whole different level.
On Monday, October 23, we drove to the church to meet George Solis, the River Ministry Immigrant Care Missionary whose salary expense IBWB shares with the RGRM. We also met Pastor Carlos Navarro, a bundle of enthusiasm and CEO-level leadership skills. Pastor Navarro has succeeded in getting an impressive mix of religious and secular organizations to work together. They named the ministry El Ministerio Golan, after the city of refuge founded in ancient biblical times. Fellowship Southwest has provided support for the ministry. “We couldn’t accomplish all this without Stephen (Reeves, executive director of FSW) and Fellowship Southwest,” Pastor Navarro repeatedly remarked.
At last, we found ourselves gathered at the back door of the church with members of sister CBF churches Day Spring Baptist Church in Waco, FBC in Austin, and Woodland Baptist Church in San Antonio. As I listened to George’s welcome and orientation talk, an unexpected sense of nostalgia hit me. From the age of fifteen to about age 25, I worked along the entire length of the Texas - Mexico border, volunteering with Texas Baptist churches, the Rio Grande River Ministry, and with La Hora Bautista, a Hispanic service organization at my alma mater, Howard Payne University. For the last 17 years Linda and I have served as co senior pastors and pastors emerita at Iglesia Bill Harrod in Dallas.
After the talk, I piled into a van with George and a member of Dayspring also fluent in Spanish. We set off to provide transportation for a family.
And this is where things got real.
We met Wiler, his fiancé Lourdes, and Wiler’s mother Marta (not their real names). The three are from Venezuela and have been in Brownsville for four or five months. After surviving the Darian Pass, a hellish swampland in Panama, many border crossings, and encounters with cartels along the way, they finally arrived in Brownsville. As they waited with a crowd of immigrants at a bus stop, a drunk driver lost control of his vehicle and plowed into the crowd. He killed eight people and injured twelve others, including Wiler. He almost died. Wiler had to learn to walk and talk all over again. He is still dealing with traumatic brain injury.
He needs more rehabilitation, but at present no one knows how or where it will come from.
On Tuesday and Thursday, we loaded a van and set up in a park in downtown Brownsville, where we gave out the items we had sorted. We also served pizza, made possible by donations from Domino’s Pizza, individuals, and churches. Then we drove to a tiny park just across the street from the Gateway International Bridge to hand out more pizza, water, and sports drinks to families who had just gained their way across the border.
On Wednesday, the first group of volunteers swapped out with more members and staff of First Baptist Church in Austin as we continued to fold and sort donated clothes, assemble hygiene kits, then organize a wealth of other items which immigrants and homeless individuals urgently need. As we stood looking thoughtfully at one of the rooms that housed what can only be described as chaos, Stephen observed, “I can always tell how busy things have been here by how disorganized the storage rooms are.”
One afternoon, George took us to several places in Brownsville’s downtown district, explaining the history and changes imposed upon IBWB’s efforts to help immigrants coming across the border. “You never know from day to day how you will have to adjust. Politics and policies change overnight, the number of asylum seekers showing here ebbs and flows, and you must be ready to adapt. One day we are desperately making five hundred sandwiches to meet the demand, and the next day the surge has dwindled to a fraction of what it was,” he explained.
George and Pastor Carlos recounted instance after instance of modern-day challenges and miracles. “You think it would no longer surprise us,” George remarked, “but you never cease to be amazed at the people and organizations stepping forward to help meet needs at just the right time.”
One afternoon, standing in a small park built next to a section of the border fence overlooking the Rio Grande, I saw Lourdes looking for shade as George tried to help us understand the challenges IBWB’s ministry faces. I approached her and asked what it was like to hear these stories repeatedly.
“I cannot imagine what you, Wiler, and Marta have been through, Lourdes. It breaks my heart into pieces to hear it. How have you survived through all of this?” She looked thoughtfully at me, her eyes misting over. “There are too many things to tell. What I can say is that I am so grateful to George and Pastor Carlos, to this church and to everyone who is helping us. My faith has grown so much through all of this.”
I reached out and held her hand for a moment, and that moment was too big for words. We prayed together and Lourdes showed us pictures of Wiler in the hospital, swathed in bandages, his head and face swollen to unrecognizable proportions. Her testament to God’s miraculous healing power.
“You saw how he is now. We couldn’t imagine him improving like that. And here we are, by God’s grace. Not where we hope to be, but so far from where we started.”