Este ha sido un año difícil pero gratificante para Jorge Zapata, coordinador asociado de CBF Texas, director del ministerio de ayuda a inmigrantes de Fellowship Southwest y fundador de Hearts4Kids, una organización sin fines de lucro que sirve a las comunidades más pobres del Valle del Río Grande.

Una pandemia, un huracane y miles de familias inmigrantes hambrientas a ambos lados de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México han redefinido el ministerio de Zapata en 2020.

This has been a tough-yet-rewarding year for Jorge Zapata‚ associate coordinator of CBF Texas, Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief director and founder of Hearts4Kids, a nonprofit ministry that serves the poorest communities in the Rio Grande Valley.

A pandemic, a hurricane and thousands of hungry immigrant families on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border have redefined Zapata’s ministry in 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic has stricken the heart of Pastor Eleuterio González’s ministry to immigrants in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

Professional soccer beckoned to Rogelio Pérez. Soccer loved his speed, strength and energy. It respected his great mentor and father, Jaime Humberto Pérez Castillo.

But at age 16, Pérez trotted off the soccer field and onto a much different life journey.

A “call from heaven” enabled Pastor Eleuterio González to help a desperately sick child in Matamoros, Mexico.

Supported by Fellowship Southwest, González and his church, Iglesia Valle de Beraca, feed and protect more than 1,600 immigrants living in the Alberca Chavez shelter, across the U.S.-Mexico border from Brownsville, Texas. They also minister in camps, where thousands of refugees live outdoors in tents.

On Sept. 12, González was engaged in his typical Saturday routine—providing food in the mammoth camp on the banks of the Rio Grande. An immigrant told him about a 9-year-old Honduran girl suffering from severe vomiting.

Fellowship Southwest called in reinforcements to support Pastor Eleuterio González’s rapidly growing ministry to refugees encamped in Matamoros, Mexico.

His responsibilities for protecting and feeding immigrants seeking asylum in the United States has multiplied as the number of refugees amassed in the Mexican city—just across the border from Brownsville, Texas—have escalated the past few months.

A perfect storm of calamity—the immigration crisis, COVID-19 and a hurricane—has buffeted Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief ministry in Matamoros, Mexico. The needs are dire; the response is sacrificial.

Since 2018, Fellowship Southwest has supported feeding projects on the Gateway International Bridge between Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, as well as in the sprawling immigrant camp just south of the bridge. Since this spring, FSW has sponsored the burgeoning immigrant ministry of Pastor Eleuterio González and Iglesia Valle de Beraca further into the city.

Thirty-five desperate children from Colombia, Venezuela and Nicaragua limped into Pastor Eleuterio González’s refugee shelter in Matamoros, Mexico, last Saturday.

"The children arrived dehydrated and with callouses on their feet, because—like their parents—the coyotes forced them to hand over their sneakers and shoes if they had nothing to pay with," said González, pastor of Iglesia Valle de Beraca in Matamoros and the main contact between the immigrants and the Tamaulipas state government.

Iglesia Bautista Capernaum delivers bread and the Bread of Life to asylum seekers in the campgrounds of Matamoros.

At least two days a week, the small congregation brings lunch to immigrants waiting out the asylum process in tent villages amassed just south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

But Pastor Rogelio Pérez is sure to feed their souls as well as their stomachs. Each visit to the campgrounds includes a worship service, in which Pérez invites the refugees to accept ultimate asylum in the love and grace of Jesus.

Asylum seekers will receive a much more comfortable welcome when Fellowship Southwest and Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville complete their first collaborative project.

FSW and the Brownsville congregation are teaming up to build a respite center on the church’s campus. Refugees will be able to shower, wash clothes, rest and receive Christian hospitality before taking a bus or plane to live with sponsors while they await their fate.